Take My Hand

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

My daddy had made sure that I was educated not only in my books but also, as he had once described it, in the code that dictated our lives in Alabama. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Picking your battles. Letting them think what they wanted because you weren’t going to change their minds about certain things.

There is no greater right for a woman than having a choice, Anne. And I exercised that right. Fully and consciously.

“Sometimes love can kill you, just like hate. You love too hard and you can lose yourself in other folks’ sorrow.

the idea that Lou or I or any of us were redeemed by this whole thing ignores all the contradictions, the baggage we came in with, and the baggage we left carrying.

I needed to talk to her, to tell her I understood how a person could get so caught up in doing good that they forgot that the people they served had lives of their own.

You are now the age that I was then, and I hope you will benefit from the wisdom of our mistakes. This knowledge, this triumph, can, if we let it, make all of us stronger. If we let it.