0:16 the mother
0:18 who taught me what i know of tenderness
0:21 and love and compassion
0:23 taught me also the bleak rituals of
0:26 keeping negroes in their place
0:29 the father who rebuked me for an heir of
0:31 superiority towards schoolmates from the mill
0:32 mill
0:35 and rounded out his rebuke by gravely
0:36 reminding me that
0:39 all men are brothers trained me in the steel
0:40 steel
0:43 rigid decorums i must demand of every
0:44 colored male
0:47 from the day i was born i began to learn
0:48 my lessons
0:51 i learned it is possible to pray at night
0:52 night
0:54 and ride in a jim crow car the next morning
0:55 morning
0:58 and to feel comfortable doing both
1:01 i learned to believe in freedom to glow
1:02 when the word
1:05 democracy was used and to practice slavery
1:06 slavery
1:11 i learned it the way all my southern
1:14 people learn it by closing door
1:17 after door until one's mind and heart
1:20 and conscience are blocked off from each other
1:21 other
1:30 i brought these books on purpose because
1:32 the stories that i tell
1:35 are informed by my family
1:37 like lillian smith facing history's
1:39 founder and executive director margot sternstrom
1:41 sternstrom
1:46 from some of the people closest to her
1:47 she learned about the differences
1:50 between white and black in her region
1:52 and came face to face with the realities
1:53 of custom
1:57 conscience and justice our school was
1:58 directly across the street from the
1:59 memphis zoo
2:02 and i could see that zoo and i saw it
2:03 every day
2:05 and the front of the zoo had one sign
2:09 that said colored day only on thursday
2:12 and the other entrance said no whites on thursday
2:14 thursday
2:16 i always felt the privilege i could go
2:18 in any door anytime
2:21 and i think i did and that was no different
2:22 different
2:24 than any of the other customs that we
2:25 followed there were colored white water
2:27 fountains at the
2:29 department store there were colored
2:32 white waiting rooms at greyhound
2:34 every bit of our life was influenced by
2:35 that but i do
2:38 know that whatever was happening in the
2:40 real world of the jim crow laws
2:42 and the legacy of this kind of segregation
2:43 segregation
2:45 and this inequality never entered the
2:50 doors of my school
2:51 now i know so many people who have told
2:53 me what it was like
2:55 as an african-american as once then
2:56 called a negro
2:58 to go on a trip where you couldn't find
3:00 a bathroom or you couldn't find food
3:03 or to learn about the integration of
3:04 baseball teams
3:07 ballet performers who came with someone
3:10 who was not the right color of the skin
3:11 couldn't get into the hotel
3:14 and it turns out lots of people make
3:15 made moral decisions
3:17 they wouldn't stay at the hotel that
3:19 wouldn't let someone eat there
3:21 or they would make sure that they stood
3:22 up to somebody at a gas station or a
3:24 filling station
3:25 to say let that man go to the bathroom
3:27 but those are unsung stories
3:30 and for the most part not passed down
3:31 from generation to generation in any
3:34 textbook that i had [Music]
3:36 [Music]
3:39 i think almost all memphians can look back
3:40 back
3:43 they're old enough to the buses because
3:44 one the whole
3:47 change in america over the bus boycott
3:50 by african-american maids is so
3:53 astounding because maids are the ones
3:54 who took the buses
3:56 they are the ones who got up at five in
3:58 the morning in order to be there for the
3:59 families so they could have their breakfast
4:00 breakfast
4:03 they needed those buses and i remember
4:05 as a child
4:08 so many people looking across
4:11 to see why certain people sat in the
4:13 back of the bus
4:14 because there were no rules and there
4:16 were no signs
4:18 and i do remember one day wanting
4:19 purposely to sit
4:21 where the back of the front meet and the
4:22 back of the bus was for black people it
4:24 was a smaller space
4:26 and the white space was the larger space
4:27 in the front
4:29 and i remember sitting with one leg on
4:32 either either side so i wasn't quite in
4:33 the back and i wasn't quite in the front
4:34 but i had the privilege to do whatever i
4:37 wanted as a young girl i thought
4:38 and there was a man a white man who came
4:40 from the front
4:42 to put his arms and hands on my shoulders
4:43 shoulders
4:46 and to push me up to pull me up with the
4:48 strength of his
4:50 hands because he said i was sitting in
4:52 the wrong place
4:56 and that moment
4:59 was a moment of a bit of anarchy i mean
5:00 first of all no one's going to tell me
5:01 where to sit
5:04 and two it was just so confusing and i
5:06 actually don't remember
5:09 did i confront him i doubt it did i
5:12 let him pull me up maybe because i was
5:15 little and he was big
5:17 but did i ever forget that moment no and
5:18 do i know what other people were thinking
5:19 thinking
5:21 no it was really something that happened
5:22 inside me
5:26 and has never never gone away [Music]
5:29 [Music]
5:32 i had one other story that
5:36 i'll never forget it was so humiliating
5:40 for me and i assume my empathy assumes
5:41 that it was unbelievably
5:44 humiliating for the man i was with but
5:45 as a young child there was a man who
5:47 worked for my parents
5:49 and if the car broke down wherever i was
5:51 or someone couldn't pick me up from
5:53 dancing school or art school or
5:56 whatever i would had the privilege to do
5:57 he would come
6:00 to get me and everything was fine until
6:03 one day i started to look like a 16 year
6:04 old girl
6:07 and i had always driven with him but now
6:09 i could drive
6:12 and he was in the front seat and the
6:14 police stopped us
6:15 and they stopped us because i had a
6:18 black man writing with the right woman
6:23 and i could feel his his humiliation
6:26 and my humiliation and i don't think we
6:27 spoke about it
6:29 but i don't think i've ever gotten over that
6:31 that [Music]
6:33 [Music]
6:35 you know it's occurred to me when i look
6:38 back that the faces i saw as a child
6:42 were those black women and those black
6:43 men who were my
6:46 caretakers my parents worked full time
6:47 we had someone in the house
6:55 they they were the faces that i saw of love
6:56 love
6:57 and that would be in addition to my
6:59 mother and my father my
7:01 brother and my sister but all of us have
7:03 ended up
7:06 in a major way impacted by growing up in
Chrome Extension