The Queen of Sugar Hill: A Novel of Hattie McDaniel

by ReShonda Tate

All the rejections because I was too dark, too fat, too whatever.

was used to being excluded, but I was supposed to be a part of this moment. I had earned it. I locked eyes with Clark, and I could tell he wanted to say something. But I immediately shook my head.

“White people hate being forced to acknowledge a colored person’s success.

“It’s your calling, and sometimes God doesn’t take us on the path we think we should go.”

But that’s the thing about grief. It envelops you in darkness and makes you susceptible to the first ray of light.

My money was green but my skin wasn’t white and that’s all that mattered to these people.