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I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

Claudette Colvin

When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Humility People Yourself
I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Act Myself Time White
The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking. So did the teachers, too. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn’t like themselves.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Darkness People Skin
When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
I became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Black Establishment Myself People World
I left the South in 1963 and was living in Morristown, New Jersey, when the March on Washington took place, so I watched it on television instead.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Live Myself Place
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Father Human Ourselves People
There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn’t even go into the same restaurants.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Oppression Yourself
I never swore when I was young.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Young
Being dragged off that bus was worth it just to see Barack Obama become president, because so many others gave their lives and didn’t get to see it, and I thank God for letting me see it.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

God Live Thankful Worth
I wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Right White Young
A lot of African American women wanted to emulate white women. But I said in my mind, rationally thinking, there is no way you are going to get your hair that straight, especially in the summer.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Hairs Myself Women
That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Person Talk White Worst
Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

End People Young
I always tell young people to hold on to their dreams. And sometimes you have to stand up for what you think is right even if you have to stand alone.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Dream Myself People Right Thinking Young

I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

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I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

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