We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVINWe were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVINWhen our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.
CLAUDETTE COLVINThat was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
CLAUDETTE COLVINWhen you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI 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 COLVINI was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
CLAUDETTE COLVINNew York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI 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 COLVINI’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
CLAUDETTE COLVINThe 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 COLVINA lot has changed since I grew up, but there’s still a long way to go. I don’t think we can move forward with Donald Trump as the president. There’s a disconnect there. We don’t want to regress, we want progress.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI’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 COLVINThere were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN