"All that matters is what you do in between whether you're prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice. When all the dust settles and we're getting ready to play down for the ninth inning, the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet."
"Fred Gray, her lawyer, thought she would make a strong test case to end segregation in the city. But levels of hierarchy in the deep south did not stop at black and white. The church-led, male-dominated leadership considered Colvin a liability not only was she young, rebellious and outspoken, she was dark-skinned in a world where shade mattered, and poor."
John Carlos expressed that beginnings and endings matter less than the actions taken in between and the sacrifices required to make change. Claudette Colvin died in hospice in Texas after a life marked by early activism. On 2 March 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, at age 15, Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman, was assaulted by the driver, arrested and charged. Fred Gray believed she could be a strong test case to challenge segregation, but local, church-led, male leadership considered her a liability because of her youth, outspokenness, dark skin and poverty. Nine months later Rosa Parks became the chosen figure for a similar protest. Colvin became pregnant, was pushed into historical footnotes for decades, and decades later lived in the Bronx working as a nurses' aide in a Manhattan care home.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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