She, too, was America

Langston oh Langston what I can say
Langston's poetry seems to know
what I say
Perhaps it is because of the life I have seen
Dogs biting, killings, bombings, murders lynchings
the undereducated
they all scream
This is the life
I have seen

I am singing right along with Langston in I, Too. My grandmother was a nanny maid. She caught two maybe three buses to the suburbs where she cooked, cleaned, and cared for little loved ones. She scrubed floors on her hands and knees after serving her home made tea cakes to the company of the family she worked for. I do believe they were probably the best tea cakes in this part of Ohio. She ate in the kitchen and had a laugh that through memory can still make me chuckle.

I remember the day my oldest child graduated from the middle school that my grandmother's children where never allowed to attend because of the color of their skin. Adorned with her pill box hat on her head and wearing her best Sunday dress, Mama as I called her was the center of attention as she entered into the auditorium. She sat front, center, and as proud as can be because now she, too , was America and nobody dare say a thing.