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

Claudette Colvin

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

Person Talk White Worst
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
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
Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Oneself Oppression Strength
What do we have to do to make God love us?’ I always grew up with that. I always used to go around thinking that. ‘God loved the white people better. He must’ve. That’s why he made them white.’
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

God Grow Up Love People White
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
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

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

Myself Race Story
I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Sleep
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
I’ve always told my children that once they go out into the world, they must have two heads and two minds: one to keep grounded, the other to deal with corporate America.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Children Deal Myself World
When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
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 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
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 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
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 lost most of my friends. Their parents had told them to stay away from me, because they said I was crazy, I was an extremist.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Crazy Friendship Lost Myself
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
New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Culture Different History
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
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
For African-Americans, it’s still going to be – some people say double hard – I’d say four times as hard. Be an opportunist. Take advantage of your resources, because the only way to win is with education, self-esteem, having value in yourself.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Difficult Education Opportunity People Value Win Yourself

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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