Claudette Colvin Quotes

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Claudette Colvin

Profession : Activist

Birth : September 5, 1939

Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all.

Claudette Colvin

We learned about people like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington and Marian Anderson. Harriet Tubman was my favorite.

Claudette Colvin

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

I'd like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.

Claudette Colvin

There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn't even go into the same restaurants.

Claudette Colvin

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

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

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

New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.

Claudette Colvin

I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.

Claudette Colvin

We were churchgoing people.

Claudette Colvin

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

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

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