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

Claudette Colvin

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
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
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
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
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
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 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
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 was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Community Myself Oppression
Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Oneself Oppression Strength
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
When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

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

Person Talk White Worst
I never swore when I was young.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Young
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

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

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

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