Quotes from Claudette Colvin

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

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

I just couldn't move. History had me glued to the seat.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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

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.

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'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.

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

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

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 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 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.

I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.

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.