“I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.”

In the opening passage of Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, Claudette relays a story about a white boy touching her in a store, and her mother slapping her as punishment. This foreshadows something Claudette will come to understand about racism: Black people are always blamed when segregation is violated, even if a white person is actually at fault.

“Riding the bus was like having a sore tooth that never quit aching.”

Phillip Hoose uses this simile to highlight the unique status of bus rides in the world of Jim Crow laws. While many laws were quietly accepted (or were able to be avoided altogether in rural settings), the city bus rules were a constant reminder of white people’s superior social status.

“The biggest mystery of all was how the white man came to dominate us.”

As a child, Claudette wanted to learn everything about the world. Even then, she found that racism was one of the few things without a clear, understandable explanation. Everyday interactions and her knowledge of the Bible did little to explain why Black people were treated as inferior.