The day I finished the book, I read the last sentence aloud then closed the cover slowly. It had opened my eyes as if, my entire life, I’d been asleep. I’d never known I could decide how to live, how to be in this world. Never knew I had the right. My people had submitted to life, and dealt with it the best they could. We didn’t question God’s ways. We simply accepted things and swallowed hard. No one asked, for instance, if I were happy as a child. It’s not that they didn’t care; it’s that they didn’t know they could care. We didn’t think we were supposed to be happy. We were Negroes, after
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