- "White people...had done unspeakable things. These are the things I was taught. I had heard them in childhood, at the knees of people I loved. In time I couldn't hate white people enough." Raybon makes an important point about how hate becomes "justifiable," even "noble" when we learn it from important people in our lives, perhaps even our parents. It took her 40 years to realize she could overcome what she had learned from family and friends and forge a new outlook based on her own experiences. Discuss what may have appeared normal to you in your family as a child that in your adult years you realized was wrong. How did you come to that realization? Did your parents teach you to hate any one group? Why did it take Raybon half her life to get to a point where she could relinquish her past and replace hate with love?
- The difference between Raybon's mother and father is striking. Raybon's mother was a forgiving, nurturing person who took most everyday racial indignities in stride. Raybon's father, although sometimes unforgiving of white people, had faith. He was a pioneer, and he believed in himself. How do you think each parent influenced their daughter? Discuss the differences in the way these two people grew up: the father, poor and motherless in Mississippi; the mother from a working-class and secure black family. What are Raybon's views about the important role the family plays in love, self-esteem, and forgiveness? Would you say that both the mother and the father are survivors? How so?
- In 1958 at the pool, a lighter-skinned black girl turns to Raybon and remarks, "You're kind of dark, Patricia." Like a mantra, these words repeat in her head. The impact is powerful. She writes, "I don't know how to transform myself. And in 1958, the truth is that I am ugly. The world says it's so. And I can't change any of that." Why was this comment a turning point for Raybon? What did it say about the pressures she and her peers felt to conform to white images of beauty? Compare Raybon's feelings as an "ugly" black nine-year-old with her self-image in the chapter "The Affirmation."
- "Forgiveness, for all its moral gloss, starts in a church." Do you think Raybon could have come to the decision to forgive if religion had not been a part of her life? Discuss how the black church was a haven for her.
- Kerry Monroe is remembered as "the white avenging angel for doing what was right. For going. For reaching. For risking and trying." Looking back, the author is amazed at how pure Monroe's intentions were. "We are skeptical of kindness so unfailing, sympathy so instant," she writes, quoting Wallace Stegner. How important was Monroe to the author's process of forgiveness? Was the memory of this one episode a turning point for Raybon, or was the event meaningful only in retrospect?
- King and Gandhi both explore the duality of hate: If I hate myself, I can't love others; if I hate others, I can't love myself. Do you think this is true? Why is this concept at the heart of Raybon's transformation?
- By tracing three generations of a black family in America, Raybon outlines the racism that she, her parents, and her grandparents have faced. In the 1920s it was cotton fields, lynchings, and the KKK. In the 1950s it was Jim Crow laws, segregated housing, and separate public facilities. What are the racial hotpots today? How has the language changed, become more subtle?
The Souls of Black Folk
by W. E. B. Du Bois
Du Bois' 1903 collection of essays is a penetrating exploration of the moral and intellectual issues surrounding the perception of blacks within American society.
0-14-018998-X
Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation
Gerald Early, editor
Fifteen black intellectuals and artists respond to the problem of the black split-level consciousness and its relationship to race raised in Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk.
0-14-015937-1
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
by James Weldon Johnson
First published in 1912, Johnson's fictional "memoir" chronicles the social causes and artistic consequences of a black man's denial of his heritage.
0-14-018402-3 (fiction)
Balm in Gilead
by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
The author recounts the extraordinary life of her mother, Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence, in this important and inspiring biography.
0-14-024967-2
I've Known Rivers
by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
Mixing biography and autobiography, casual talk with soul-bearing revelations, Lawrence-Lightfoot illuminates the complex, nuanced lives of six middle-class African-American achievers: Charles Ogletree, Katie Cannon, Toni Schiesler, Tony Earls, Cheryle Wills, and Orlando Bagwell.
0-14-024970-2
Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum
by Edward T. Linenthal
A fascinating account of defining and representing America's memory of the Holocaust, and of preserving ethnic identity.
0-14-02454-9
Penguin Gandhi Reader
Rudrangshu Mukherjee, editor
The essential writings of Gandhi, including his creed of nonviolence, his critique of modern civilization, his arguments against caste, and his firm belief in religious tolerance.
0-14-023686-4
Linden Hills and The Women of Brewster Place
by Gloria Naylor
Naylor paints a bleak and realistic picture of blacks who struggle to succeed in a white world at the cost of their souls.
Linden Hills: 0-14-008829-6
The Women of Brewster Place: 0-14-006690-X
Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father
by Richard Rodriguez
Essayist Rodriguez ranges over five centuries to consider the moral and spiritual landscapes of Mexico and the United States and their impact on his ethnicity, family relationships, and life.
0-14-009622-1
When We Were Colored
by Clifton L. Taulbert
The basis for the major motion picture Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, Taulbert looks at love, community, and family in the segregated South – and the difference they made in his life.
0-14-024477-8
Clifton L. Taulbert's second volume of memoirs, The Last Train North, is also available. (0-14-24478-6). Soon to be published in Penguin: Watching Our Crops Come In (Viking) and Eight Habits of the Heart (Viking)
Brought to you by 
Penguin Young Readers Group
