Having Our Say

Having Our Say

Life for the average black citizen during the reconstruction was not much better than the life led by slaves. However in this inspiring tale of freedom you see a family of educated "house" slaves evolve into a socially excepted, well educated, and working class family. This story of family ties shows the other side of the story. The side that is hardly ever told.

Sadie and Bessie, the books two protagonists, were members of this family. In a family of eight kids, they were the second and third born to Mr. Henry Beard Delany and Miss Nanny Logan. Now at the ripe age of 101 and 103, Bessie and Sadie recall the harshness of growing up as a young black woman in the world of a protestant white man. From childhood to their winter years these two women have seen history pass before them. They've seen the beginning and end of five wars(World war 1, World war 2, Vietnam, Spanish/American war, and Operation Desert storm). Our own great country has grown and changed over the span of there lives. These women were alive to see the first cars and the first manned space craft. Segregation, racism, and separatism they've lived through them all.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book is, while reading it felt as if Sadie and Bessie were sitting with me telling me the their story. Most books are written from a narrators point of view but this is from theirs'. While reading you can really capture the feelings and emotions in each little story that is told. For instance, when they tell of the time that Bessie was almost "lynched" you can still sense the fear and anger that Bessie felt that day, just through the way they tell the story

I think its pretty obvious that this book is a work of non- fiction. This was one of the reasons that I disliked this book. Personally, I think people already worry about everyday thing too much. I think when you read you should read a book that will take you to a place that relaxes you. Reading should not be a tedious task it should be something you enjoy doing. When it comes to reading I prefer to have something that's going to make me laugh. Though this book was smart and witty in context I disliked the way you knew what was going to happen. When you read a book there should be at least a little bit of suspense, something that makes you wonder what will happen next. When I was reading this book I couldn't help thinking ahead to the next big event in world history, which took my mind of what I was presently reading.

This book was relatively boring. However there were a quite a few quotes that I were so true that they stuck with me. My favorite was "Bessie can be a little nasty sometimes, you know. She thinks it's her god given duty to tell the truth. I say to her , 'Bessie, don't you realize people don't want to hear the truth?". I think that the last part of that quote is