Southern Storytellers

[gentle music] "Foreday in the Morning."

My mother grew morning glories that spilled onto the walkway toward her porch because she was a woman with land who showed as much by giving it color.

She told me I could have whatever I worked for.

That means she was an American.

But she'd say it was because she believed in God.

I'm ashamed of America and confounded by God.

I thank God for my citizenship in spite of the timer set on my life to write these words.

I love my mother.

I love Black women who plant flowers as sheepish as their sons.

By the time the blooms unfurl themselves for a few hours of light, the women who tend them are already at work.

Blue, I'll never know who started the lie that we are lazy, but I'd love to wake that [bleep] up at foreday in the morning, toss him in a truck and drive him under God past every bus stop in America to see all those Black folk waiting to go work for whatever they want.

A house?

A boy to keep the lawn cut?

Some color in the yard?

My God, we leave things green.

[gentle music] That's so beautiful.

There is light in the darkness.

I think the South is like, it's like my air.

It's what I breathe.

It's who I am.

So, and I think it has everything to do with what I see and what I choose to see and how I see things.

And I think it has everything to do with what I'm willing to put down when I'm writing.

And what I'm afraid to say, you know, which is what I have to be willing to put down.