Creating "And Still I Rise" put me in mind of Africa and African Americans. I love the color of Africans...all the shades of brown and burnished copper. I love the race. That may be somewhat unusual since I am a blonde southern woman, raised in a southern culture that marginalized black people as nothing more than servants and service workers. I remember "whites only" restrooms and water fountains and asking my mother why black people couldn't drink from the same fountain or stop and have a coke at the lunch counter on a hot summer day in Ft. Worth, Texas and Little Rock, Arkansas. I lived in Little Rock when Governor Faubus called in the National Guard to protect the first black children as they entered my high school. I knew inside that what we did to the black race was horrible and I am still shamed by it...that my friends and family contributed to that horrible time in our history. I am proud to say that I somehow lived through that upbringing to now count among my best friends some beautiful and lovely black men and women. I embrace the beauty of the black culture and tried to teach my children to embrace it as well. We are richer for it.
Creating "And Still I Rise" put me in mind of Africa and African Americans. I love the color of Africans...all the shades of brown and burnished copper. I love the race. That may be somewhat unusual since I am a blonde southern woman, raised in a southern culture that marginalized black people as nothing more than servants and service workers. I remember "whites only" restrooms and water fountains and asking my mother why black people couldn't drink from the same fountain or stop and have a coke at the lunch counter on a hot summer day in Ft. Worth, Texas and Little Rock, Arkansas. I lived in Little Rock when Governor Faubus called in the National Guard to protect the first black children as they entered my high school. I knew inside that what we did to the black race was horrible and I am still shamed by it...that my friends and family contributed to that horrible time in our history. I am proud to say that I somehow lived through that upbringing to now count among my best friends some beautiful and lovely black men and women. I embrace the beauty of the black culture and tried to teach my children to embrace it as well. We are richer for it.
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