How we cite our quotes: (Story.Section.Paragraph) or (Story.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Because in fact, while we kissed and said Everything Else Be Damned! the South was rising again. Was murdering people. Was imprisoning our colleagues and friends. Was keeping us from strolling off to a clean, cheap hotel. (Laurel.24)
The narrator of this story feels some serious chemistry with Laurel, a white country boy from California who has come to Atlanta to work alongside her in the Civil Rights Movement. And while the sparks fly, neither one of them wants to think about the danger of being an interracial couple just trying to enjoy a little summer fling in the South. But the South will not let them forget about it. Segregation literally keeps them from ever hooking up—to disastrous ends later on.
Quote #8
[…] I was incensed to think of the hard struggle of my students to rid themselves of stereotype, to combat prejudice, to put themselves into enslaved women's skins, and then to see their struggle mocked, and the actual enslaved condition of literally millions of our mothers trivialized—because two ignorant women insisted on their right to act out publicly a "fantasy" that still strikes terror in black women's hearts. (Letter.19)
Susan Marie writes to her colleague Lucy to explain why Lucy's insensitively chosen costume for a campus ball made Susan Marie so mad. The context is important: she'd been working hard all semester with her students to get rid of a stereotype that Lucy's costume just reinforced. Susan Marie wants to emphasize the suffering—the real human toll—of the slaves so that her colleague will think harder before romanticizing such a thing ever again.
Quote #9
Not everyone's life is what they make it. Some people's life is what other people make it. I would say this is true of the majority of people in the world. The women I teach didn't choose to be illiterate, didn't choose to be poor. (Source.118)
Irene is trying, without success, to make Anastasia understand that there are systemic forces in place that keep people poor and miserable. But in Anastasia's mind, Irene is missing the point: she doesn't have to be poor and miserable herself. All Irene has to do is stop trying to help poor people, and her life will be a whole lot happier. Frankly, we think Anastasia doesn't get Irene at all. She's not the type who can be happy while injustice exists for anyone.