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

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 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

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

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

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

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

Claudette Colvin

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

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

I was ostracized by my community.

Claudette Colvin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

Claudette Colvin