Quotation from, "Of Mice and Men"?

Question

What does this quote mean?

"A colored man got to have some rights even if he don't like 'em"

(Chapter 4 p 90)

Answer 1

In this Crooks is survives by making boundaries for others to abide by and he uses these ways of keeping himself away from others and not causing any trouble to give himself some kind of rights in the eyes of others. Even though one day his lonliness is going to kill him he is only serving the best way he knows how.

Answer 2

i think it means that even the colored people should have rights, whether or not they like them. everybody deserves at least some right that they can say they have

Answer 3

Think to what the whole of Section 4 is about, Crooks being a 'black man' in the 1930s, where black people had no rights; because of their skin colour.

Steinbeck is informing the reader of what life was like for a black person.

In this particular quote, made by Crooks, he is referring to the fact that even though he is treated badly by Curley's wife (a few pages before the quote) he is still entitled to basic human rights - such as being able to have his own room in the barn.

He is also stating that one of his rights is: The room is his, and he should decide who comes in it.