WEBVTT

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So I started writing
about the grandfathers,

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and then I thought, oh,
there's those women, too.

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They made my world possible.

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So I wrote about them.

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I'm not actually going to read
about the other grandmother

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about who we have language,
or for whom we have language.

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But I will read this one.

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There's a short
reference in here

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to the girl who triggered the
Brown vs. Board of Education

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trial.

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"My Grandmother Takes the
Youth Group to Services".

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"The sky's wide
open blue told her,

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'go in where you would
have never been before.'

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And where she went,
she took the children.

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Older girls and long
skirts, little black heels,

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white collars rough
with starch, and hair

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still hot from the comb.

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Along with boys their
age, pants creased,

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shoes blacked and bright.

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Little Linda in Topeka
had upset no one yet.

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But that black shock,
Lynchburg's largest high school

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class in years, did.

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Surprised, the white minister
welcomed her with silence.

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But that evening, his voice
fumed through Thornton's phone.

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Your pretty wife should
trust the good Lord's plan.

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Let her know, in heaven,
negroes will have

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to learn their rightful place."

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