Claudette Colvin Quotes

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Claudette Colvin

Profession : Activist

Birth : September 5, 1939

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.

Claudette Colvin

Whenever people ask me: 'Why didn't you get up when the bus driver asked you?' I say it felt as though Harriet Tubman's hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth's hands were pushing me down on the other shoulder. I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail.

Claudette Colvin

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.

Claudette Colvin

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

Back then, as a teenager, I kept thinking, why don't the adults around here just say something? Say it so they know we don't accept segregation? I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there's no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'

Claudette Colvin

I became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.

Claudette Colvin

There were many African Americans - many, many stories similar to my story.

Claudette Colvin

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

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

Claudette Colvin

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

Claudette Colvin

Rosa Parks wasn't the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.

Claudette Colvin

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.

Claudette Colvin

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

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

When you've been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.

Claudette Colvin

I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

Claudette Colvin

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

I was ostracized by my community.

Claudette Colvin

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.

Claudette Colvin

I never swore when I was young.

Claudette Colvin