ABSTRACT
When I was growing up in our segregated black Southern culture, I knew early on that I wanted to be a writer. I knew that what I did not want to be was a teacher. The profession of teaching did not interest me because it seemed to require skills I did not have. It required one to be able to communicate well when talking to others, to be willing to nurture the needs of others, to be able to stand in front of groups of young people and talk, to be able to discipline and punish, and to be willing to judge others. The teachers I knew taught in public elementary school and high school. I did not know any college professors. I had never spent any time on a college campus. Truthfully, even though I was a good student, on the honor roll and so on, I did not give much thought to attending college while I was in high school. And I found that I did not have to think about it because other folk (my parents, teachers, guidance counselors) all stood ready to make decisions for me. In our patriarchal 136authoritarian environment of home, church, and school in the fifties no one wanted to know my desires. It was a given: smart girls were meant to grow up and become teachers. And smart black girls from poor, working-class backgrounds had two choices: cleaning other folks' houses or teaching school. While everyone knew that it was possible to escape these professions by falling in love and entering a traditional marriage where the little woman stayed home, this was the stuff of romantic fantasy. Most smart black girls, poor and working-class girls, living in the segregated South knew from high school that they were far more likely to become workers whether married or not. Few married women from poor backgrounds had the luxury of remaining at home.
