April made me stronger than ever. It’s the books that I read, the characters, and the authors. These books will shock you, break your heart, heal you, inspire you, educate you, and, above all, make you stronger than ever.
~The Color Purple by Alice Walker
~Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
~I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
~Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
~Beloved by Toni Morrison
I have added some lines from each book that I'd like to revisit.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
It is because of this love that racism, as evidenced by belief in superior and inferior looks and mentalities, failed to impress me.
if we persevere, we may, like her, eventually settle into amazement that by some unfathomable kindness we have received just the right keys we need to unlock the deepest, darkest dungeons of our emotional and spiritual bondage
I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it.
I do thank her, for teaching me to learn for myself, by reading and studying and writing a clear hand. And for keeping alive in me somehow the desire to know.
because they all look so unhappy and work so hard.
Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.
Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us laugh sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh, Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh.
A 1937 novel. Janie Crawford journeys through love, loss, and liberation in her search for autonomy and a voice of her own. The name Tea Cake is stuck with me.
if we persevere, we may, like her, eventually settle into amazement that by some unfathomable kindness we have received just the right keys we need to unlock the deepest, darkest dungeons of our emotional and spiritual bondage
I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it.
I do thank her, for teaching me to learn for myself, by reading and studying and writing a clear hand. And for keeping alive in me somehow the desire to know.
because they all look so unhappy and work so hard.
Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.
Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us laugh sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh, Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
She went through many silent rebellions over things like that. Such a waste of life and time.
It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.
When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.
They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
Two things everybody's got to do for themselves. They got to go to God, and they got to find out about living for themselves.
Published: 1969 Maya recounts her coming-of-age through trauma, racism, and silence into strength, self-expression, and survival. I saw Maya Angelou’s performance of her poem Phenomenal Woman and fell in love. Had to read her book.
It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.
When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.
They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
Two things everybody's got to do for themselves. They got to go to God, and they got to find out about living for themselves.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.
As I ate she began the first of what we later called "my lessons in living." She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations.
It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense.
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
She always remembered that I was Miss Johnson, who had a good mind and should be doing something with it.
the need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
Published in 1953, it's a semi-autobiographical novel. A teenage boy wrestles with family, faith, and identity in 1930s Harlem as he seeks personal and spiritual salvation.
As I ate she began the first of what we later called "my lessons in living." She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations.
It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense.
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
She always remembered that I was Miss Johnson, who had a good mind and should be doing something with it.
the need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
I thought I married a man with some get up and go to him, who didn't just want to stay on the bottom all his life!
I just decided me one day that I was going to get to know everything them white bastards knew, and I was going to get to know it better than them, so could no white son-of-a-bitch nowhere never talk me down, and never make me feel like I was dirt, when I could read him the alphabet, back, front, and sideways. Shit—he weren't going to beat my ass, then.
A 1987 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author. A formerly enslaved woman is haunted by the literal and emotional ghost of her past and the daughter she lost. This is the second time I’m reading this book. I just wanted to appreciate it again.
She was right. It was sad. Walking through it, a wave of grief soaked him so thoroughly he wanted to cry.
She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.
He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose—not to need permission for desire—well, now, that was freedom.
Your love is too thick
Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
But when her laughter died, the tears did not and it was some time before Beloved or Denver knew the difference. When they did they touched her lightly on the shoulders.
I made that song up, I made it up and sang it to my children. Nobody knows that song but me and my children.
Don't jump if you can't see bottom.
You in deep water, girl.
Uh uh. I'm on dry land and I'm going to stay there. You the one wet.
That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing—the part of her that was clean.
Nobody needed a grown-up evil sitting at the table with a grudge.
She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
I just decided me one day that I was going to get to know everything them white bastards knew, and I was going to get to know it better than them, so could no white son-of-a-bitch nowhere never talk me down, and never make me feel like I was dirt, when I could read him the alphabet, back, front, and sideways. Shit—he weren't going to beat my ass, then.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
She was right. It was sad. Walking through it, a wave of grief soaked him so thoroughly he wanted to cry.
She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.
He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose—not to need permission for desire—well, now, that was freedom.
Your love is too thick
Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
But when her laughter died, the tears did not and it was some time before Beloved or Denver knew the difference. When they did they touched her lightly on the shoulders.
I made that song up, I made it up and sang it to my children. Nobody knows that song but me and my children.
Don't jump if you can't see bottom.
You in deep water, girl.
Uh uh. I'm on dry land and I'm going to stay there. You the one wet.
That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing—the part of her that was clean.
Nobody needed a grown-up evil sitting at the table with a grudge.
She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
+_+
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