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When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.

Claudette Colvin

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 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 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
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
I wanted to be an attorney. My mother would say I never stopped talking. I always had a lot of questions to ask, and I was never satisfied with the answer. A lot of things I wasn’t satisfied by.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Mom Myself Satisfaction Stop
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
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Race Story
New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Culture Different History
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
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’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

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

Humility People Yourself
As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Achievement Children Equality Person Protection True White
When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Father Human Ourselves People
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

When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.

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When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.

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