Claudette Colvin Quotes

I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is 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

We were supposed to be an English literature class, but Miss Nesbitt used literature to teach real life. She said she didn't have time to teach us like a regular English teacher--we were too far behind. Instead, she taught us the world through literature.

Claudette Colvin was an unwed pregnant teen when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in 1955. Rosa Parks was a married, respectable officer of the NAACP when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. Pauli Murray was a masculine-performing queer Black woman when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. Every kind of Black woman has a stake in the proverbial “bus.

Claudette Colvin.

[on the bus] by her other companions she

Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman’s case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don’t ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday.

but dozens of reporters and photographers staked out positions in front