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“This particular queen (Margaret of Scotland) had her Moorish maid baptized Elen Moore (a lot of people with the names Moore, Moorer, Morris etc., probably got their names from their Moorish ancestors—for instance, Morrison means son of a Moor.)”
― Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap by Verta Mae

“The cities change. The bus line is different. The train runs on another track, but the scene is the same. Everyday in America, South Africa and other places in the world like them. Black people. My people. Travelin. To be cooks, janitors, housekeepers, porters, days workers, servants, Black boys, Beige girls, Brown daddies, Ebony mothers.”
― Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap by Verta Mae

“It's not the man in your life. It's the life in your man.”
― Tina McElroy Ansa, The Hand I Fan With

“Quiet as it's kept, there is a certain type of "upper class" white folks who don't use "colored help" at all. In fact, household labor is a segregated occupation. A Lancashire-born (English) butler, asked if he had encountered many black men and women in his 20 years of service, said reflectively, "I can't think of one I worked with. On one job we had Italian cook, an Irish kitchen man, a French lady's maid, an English butler, and an English parlormaid." The upper echelon's household staff is 99-99/100% white.”
― Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap by Verta Mae