I began my professional life as a lawyer in Boston after graduating from Harvard Law School 12 years before Michelle and 15 before Barack. I'm thrilled to claim them as part of my personal legacy.
Odessa Roberts Singley (my mama), Ilda Johnson Green (my 9th grade English teacher with whom I still have amazing conversations), Walter O. Weyrauch (law professor), Derrick Bell (my law professor and Master's thesis advisor), James Baldwin, Thornton Wilder, Harper Lee, Alice Walker, Jamaica Kincaid, David Haynes, Barbara Neely, and Mildred A. Wirt Benson.
Favorite Books
Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie); Changes (Ama Ata Aidoo); Two Thousand Seasons (Ayi Kwei Armah); Price of the Ticket (James Baldwin); The Chaneysville Incident (David Bradley); 72-Hour Hold (Bebe Moore Campbell); Children of Crisis (Robert Coles); The House at Sugar Beach (Helene Cooper); Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot (Pearl Cleage); Nervous Conditions (Tsitsi Dangarembga); Raising Fences (Michael Datcher); Right by My Side (David Haynes); Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege (Robert Jensen); The Healing (Gayl Jones); Bulletproof Diva (Lisa Jones); All Souls: A Family Story from Southie (Michael Patrick MacDonald); Waiting to Exhale (Terry McMillan); Going Down River Road (Meja Mwangi); Women of Brewster Place (Gloria Naylor); Blanche and the Talented Tenth (Barbara Neely); Straight, No Chaser (Jill Nelson); Every Goodbye Ain't Gone (Itabari Njeri); Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (ZZ Packer); Push (Sapphire); Grand Central Winter (Lee Stringer); Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria and Other Conversations About Race (Beverly Daniel Tatum); Temple of My Familiar (Alice Walker); White Like Me: Confessions on Race from a Privileged Son (Tim Wise); In the New World: Growing Up with America from the Sixties to the Eighties (Lawrence Wright)
Favorite Authors
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Ayi Kweh Armah, James Baldwin, Bebe Moore Campbell, Pearl Cleage, David Haynes, Lisa Jones, Jamaica Kincaid, Michael MacDonald, Barbara Neely, Jill Nelson, Alice Walker, Tim Wise
What I'm Reading
Links (Nuruddin Farah); Act Like a Woman, Think Like a Man (Steve Harvey); Heathens (David Haynes); Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro's Cuba (Carlos Moore); Kitchen Table Wisdom (Rachel Naomi Remen, MD); Dreaming: From Baptist to Buddhist, One Woman's Spiritual Journey (Jan Willis)
Two Days in August (Version #2 - Bad Manners) Sitting in my car, staring at the back of a dirty Jeep stopped in the middle of the road in front of me, there is nowhere for me to go. All I can see of the driver is her ponytail. Next to her, in a truck pointed downhill, is a middle-aged man in a cowboy hat. I'm returning home after having lunch with two friends who live a couple of ...
