Words matter. These are the best Claudette Colvin Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott began in December 1955, and by 1956 NAACP leaders came to me and asked me to be part of a lawsuit they wanted to file on my behalf and that of three other women, to challenge segregation on public buses.
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.’
Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
I became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.
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.
When I got to 10th grade at Booker T. Washington High, I had a teacher, Miss Geraldine Nesbitt. I think she came from New York. She helped me begin to question things.
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.
I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
I never swore when I was young.
That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
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.
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.
A 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.
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.
New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.
I remember during Easter one year, I was to get a pair of black patent shoes but you could only get them from the white stores, so my mother drew the outline of my feet on a brown paper bag in order to get the closest size, because we weren’t allowed to go in the store to try them on.
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.
We were churchgoing people.
When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
We learned about people like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington and Marian Anderson. Harriet Tubman was my favorite.
I’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
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.
