“Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips, decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.” PoetryWomenPoemHipsAfrican AmericansBlacks Author:Patricia Smith
“Crying 'bout getting old—Patricia, you need to get up off what God gave you. Say a prayer and start slinging. Cue hips.” PoetryWomenPoemDancingAgingHipsGetting Old Author:Patricia Smith
“A whole people's tumble into raw, untested century began with one man, penning his serpentine sojourn up from slavery-- I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but ... I must have been born somewhere and at some time. He began as another baby shoved directly into the wrong air.” PoetryBirthPoemSlaveryAfrican AmericansBlacksBooker T Washington Book:Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 Source: Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
“Between the tenets of those two men [W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington], a race strived to untangle its convoluted root, urged its whole self forward, and hurtled toward the door America had fought so hard to keep closed.” AmericaPoetryPoemEqualityAfrican AmericansBlacksBooker T WashingtonW E B Du Bois Book:Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 Source: Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019