Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

by Crystal Smith Paul

The pain that you’ve been feeling can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.

With one’s attention turned outward, one forgets one’s own ability to harness understanding of the truth.

The world forced Negro girls to mature faster than anyone else; the ugliness in the world was inflicted upon them first.

There are two types of people in this world, Mary: people with time to sit under the trees, looking up at the sky and pondering life”—she jostled the gold balls in her hand—“and those who end up hanging from those same trees, looking down on the life they might have had, had they been born different. You were born different, by the grace of God, so you get to choose. Choose the gold-earring life.”

“People can tell you they love you three times a day and still treat you any kind of way when it really comes down to it.”

When people don’t like themselves, it makes them mean. You understand?”

Kitty Karr was in fact the first Colored actress to win an Oscar in a lead role, and nobody would ever know it.