Claudette Colvin

Because they're getting 28 and 30 percent and 32 percent.

And it's unfair.

The rates are way too high.

They thought I would have been too militant for them.

They wanted someone mild and genteel like Rosa.

I'm going to break you.

Open the door.

Last warning.

People ask me, say, why didn't you get up?

I say, you know what?

History had me glued to the seat.

I said, well, it felt as though Harriet Tubman's hand was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth's hand was pushing me down on another shoulder.

It felt like soldier on the truth, hands were pushing me down on one shoulder, and Harriet Tubman, hands were pushing me down on another shoulder. At the time, civil rights leaders felt her age, working class background, and later her pregnancy would make her a less effective symbol for the movement, favoring Rosa Parks instead.

I made the first cry for freedom, because really there wouldn't have been a Rosa Parks, and after Rosa Parks there wouldn't have been a Dr. King. That this teenager was mature enough to know her rights.

All I do remember is that I wasn't going to walk off the bus voluntarily.