Word: whiting
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What were the relationships between black servants and their white employers like in the 1960s? Well, I can only talk about my experience. I grew up in the 1970s, but I don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed in the law books - but not in the kitchens of white homes. As children, we looked up to our maids and our nannies, who were playing in some ways the role of our mothers. They were paid to be nice to us, to look after us, teach us things and take time...
...adults employing them, the relationship is different. You hire someone to clean your house and do your laundry. But in many cases, these women worked for the same white family for generation after generation. That, to me, is the difference between an employee and someone you feel close to. They're an important cog in the wheel of your family. Some readers tell me, "We always treated our maid like she was a member of the family." You know, that's interesting, but I wonder what your maid's perspective was on that. You look at all these rules...
...talk to any African-American women who lived through that time period? I did get to interview a white woman and her maid who were together in the 1960s. It was so interesting to compare their perspectives. The white woman's strongest memory of her maid was of the delicious pralines she made. When I went to speak to the maid, she [remembered] working for this woman when [civil rights activist] Medgar Evers had just been assassinated. Her children were walking down the street in a protest and she was so afraid her employer would turn...
...worry about the implications of being a young, white author writing in the thick dialect of African Americans? I'm still worried about that. On the one hand I wonder, Was this really my story to tell? On the other hand, I just wanted the story to be told. But the truth is that I didn't think anybody was going to read it. Had I known it was going to be so widely disseminated I probably wouldn't have written it in the type of language that...
...original unknown soldier buried at Arlington in 1921 was among four who had previously been interred in France. Once the caskets were exhumed, Sergeant Edward F. Younger, a decorated officer, walked around them several times and arbitrarily chose one of the four by placing a handful of white roses upon its top. The coffin lies in a tomb adorned with the phrase, "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." In subsequent wars - including World War II, Korea and Vietnam - a solitary unidentified soldier was selected to be honored with an Arlington burial. Other nations have...