True the Black woman did the housework, the drudgery; true, she reared the children, often alone, but she did all of that while occupying a place on the job market, a place her mate could not get or which his pride would not let him accept.And she had nothing to fall back on: not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself.
True the Black woman did the ...
Quotes from the same author
If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.
Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.
In my mother's church, everybody read the Bible and it was mostly about music. My mother had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in my life. She could sing anything - classical, jazz, blues, opera. And people came from long distances to that little church she went to - African Methodist Episcopal, the AME church she belonged to - just hear her.
I sang "O Holy Night" in a school choir. My mother came and listened to me and complimented me. So that was the high point. I cannot sing a note.
I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.