Claudette Colvin

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

“I was ostracized by my community.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

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

“We were churchgoing people.”

“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.”

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

“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.”