Black Women Have Always Been Friends. I

They Ran In The Sunlight, Creating Their Own Breeze Which Pressed Their Dresses Into Their Damp Skin. Reaching A Kind Of Square Of Four Locked Trees Which Promised Cooling; They Flung Themselves Into The Shade To Taste Their Lip Sweat And Contemplate The Wildness That Had Come Upon Them So Suddenly

My Father Saw Two Black Men Lynched On His Street In Cartersville, As A Child. And I Think Seeing Two Black Businessmen - Not Vagrants - Hanging From Trees As A Child Was Traumatic For Him.

Women's Rights Is Not Only An Abstraction, A Cause; It Is Also A Personal Affair. It Is Not Only About Us; It Is Also About Me And You. Just The Two Of Us.

It's Bliss When You Give Up All That Stuff That Separates You From Other Human Beings. It's Hard, But You Break Down All That Stuff.

I Think Women Dwell Quite A Bit On The Duress Under Which They Work, On How Hard It Is Just To Do It At All. We Are Traditionally Rather Proud Of Ourselves For Having Slipped Creative Work In There Between The Domestic Chores And Obligations. I'm Not Sure We Deserve Such Big A-pluses For All That.