Getting thrown off the Bus.

"We had a cook who worked for us many years and raised me as if I was one of her own. She was a huge woman with a warm smile and an ominous frown. She taught me manners and instilled in me the importance of loving and being loved. My childhood was filled with her presence.

            Her white uniform went almost to the floor, and it was always crisp and had a wonderful “just ironed” smell. As a small child, I often ran from my mother’s scorn and hid under that white uniform behind her huge legs. She never told on me. Mother would finally calm down and get busy with some other task. I would come out, and all would be well.

            When I was a teenager in the 1960s, I decided one day to ride the bus home, which was something I hadn’t done before. As I boarded the bus, I saw our black maid sitting in the back. I walked back and sat with her. We were both thrown off the bus. Racial unrest at the time didn’t allow whites to sit with blacks even if one was a minor. I found it hard to believe that a woman who had loved me and held me in her arms couldn’t sit by me in public. She was angry because we had to walk home, but to tell the truth, I loved walking with her. I still hear her voice and follow her teachings. She is the one who taught me not to see color."

This reminds me of something Malcom X would think of to motivate African Americans to fight back. He would say that thier safety was being compromised and that for reasons such as this, one should be armed and dangerous. 

Walk through Harlem

The dentist office of Bessie and Harps was on 135th street. The spot was so named because members of the emerging black community in Harlem during the mid-1910s used it as a pulpit to sound off on the issues that affected African Americans. Walker's home at 108 West 136th Street served as the Harlem headquarters for her beauty-products business in the 1910s. Walker was an uneducated orphan, who developed her own hair product for women. She was the first woman to ever make a million dollars, with how much success her product received, I'm sure Bessie and Sadie tried this product out.

Slavery Picture Blog

This picture is a black man asking f he is considered a man. This reminded me of Sojourner Truth asking if she was a woman, and if she was should be treated as such. This man is begging on his knees for the rights to be treated as a man. I think that slavery is a completely biased and ignorant action, treating someone as a dog instead of a man.