Gertie Quotes

“Lord it was easy to see a judge back then. If you went to the courthouse and explained what you wanted, they did everything for you. It was nothing like it is now.”
― Michele Phelps Brown, Gertie

“As a book, Gertie grapples with the lingering legacies of slavery, the noxious institution which had only been prohibited a generation before her birth. Her paternal grandmother and great-grandmother were born into slavery. They attempt to raise Gertie to have the mentality of a slave, but the young child will rebel at every turn. In many ways, the book can be read as a riposte to Alex Haley’s acclaimed Roots, but told from a female point of view.”
― Michele Phelps Brown, Gertie

“Well, if he isn’t allowed in the front of this store, than neither am I. Once you put my money in that cash register, you won’t be able to tell if it came from colored hands or white.”
― Michele Phelps Brown, Gertie

“We may not have been able to ride the front of the bus, but that was not the case when it came to the train. Colored people during this time were seated in the first car of a train. They made us ride in the first car because the smoke from the smoke stack blew soot into the first car. When the ride was over, everyone in the first car was covered in dirt.”
― Michele Phelps Brown, Gertie