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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“There is, but in a perfect world, you won’t ever have to use this knowledge.”
They aren’t there to fight or to kill, merely to collect information.
extra measure
“He must have attended a Negro school.”
And she knew he knew that when she said ‘we’ she meant all of colored America and not just her family. Behold the weight and glory of being a Negro in America. There was no such thing as being singular. You carried every colored man or woman’s pain and shame. But you also wallowed in their success.
“He owns the restaurant—Monterey.
okay now
“Stop talking to me like I’m stupid! I’m asking because I don’t know.”
Yes, they served in the same unit. Dad is buried here in France. Grant came to see me and Mama after the war ended. I was about seven. He’d pay our rent every few months. He’d make sure I went to school. I met his wife, played with his daughter. Went to their funerals. I hated when he left, even though he kept sending us money. I love my mama but we don’t always see eye-to-eye. I turned seventeen, made my way across the pond, hunted Grant down. Been here ever since.”
such a noble thing to do
“Within the next two weeks. We’ll help the Bureau as long as we can.
“Children are a gift from God,”
some are
“Grandmother has a cousin who lives near Aix-en-Provence. I have written her a letter asking if we can come and visit for the summer. She has agreed to take us in. We are leaving Paris, Elly, whether my grandmother wants to or not.”
“Whatever is happening in Germany you cannot reason with no matter how hard you try.
It is a sad state of affairs that humanity seems to always look for a scapegoat. One day I pray that the world is accepting of all kinds.
“I don’t need you to take me home. If you insist that I can’t walk home alone, Pierre can come with me. But Grant, I mean it. Our time working together is over.”
“The day every chocolate baby is born, they come into the world with fingers and toes and the weight of being the lowest in the caste system. You can’t escape racism.
Especially because he was living in New York where you can disappear into neighborhoods white folks don’t go in and if you’re lucky you won’t run into any that will call you boy.”
“Nothing in this life is free. If you expect me to share my wisdom, you will owe me.”
“Of living.
so relatable its scary
Missed his lectures. Missed his company. Missed being with someone who just … understood.
Parisians traveled by foot, looking as though they’d already crossed thousands of miles that morning. Grandparents were being pushed in wheelbarrows—their children and grandchildren unwilling to leave them behind.
A riot implied destruction of property to make a point although there was some of that too But that was not the goal of a ‘race riot.’ It was a massacre where whites could kill Negroes at will, knowing full well they would never suffer the consequences of the law. Race riots destroyed families and knocked out generations of wealth that would never be acquired again.
“It is survival of the fittest out in these streets.”
