Although another woman of Creek lineage might have been upset at her son marrying the baby sister of a hunter of our people, Lady was happy to have new friends and flattered that her affections toward Grace were returned. Even more: Grace was obsequious to her mother-in-law. In various ways, she would seek Lady’s counsel on her manners, dress, and speech. When Grace sat in the parlor of the big house and her sister-in-law Gloria made her usual blunt statements, Grace would not seem surprised or act with condescension. Rather, Grace would answer with a warm smile, which endeared her to her mother-in-law; for many years, she had feared that Gloria would be a source of ridicule. And though Lady was certain that Grace’s grandfather and father had been aware of her Creek heritage—if not her African blood—Grace did not speak of this lineage. And Lady was grateful to finally sit in her parlor and be treated as the white wife of a wealthy man. If someone had reminded her that she had taken on the desires of her mother—Mahala’s lifelong craving to throw off her Indian history—Lady would have been adamant in her denials.
Yet indeed, Grace was aware of her mother-in-law’s Creek background. This information had been bandied about many nights in her parents’ tiny cabin. But Grace didn’t care about Lady’s heritage. Grace lived in the big house now, and if her husband slept someplace else, at least he did not force himself on her. She was content when she lay on the feather mattress on a four-poster bed that took up all but a few inches of space in her bedroom, a bed that, when Samuel passed on, would be given to her children after she and Victor moved into the extra-large bedroom. For now, she had a fireplace in her room, which she’d never imagined. On cold nights, she did not have to pile quilts on her bed to keep warm.
And Grace began to take on airs. When she sat on the gallery with Lady and Gloria, she began to ignore the waves of her father and brothers when they walked to the yard of the Pinchard big house. If they shouted her name, Grace would shut her decorative fan, telling her in-laws she believed she would go inside and rest.
Though a woman, Grace had more power than any male in her family, for she was no longer a Franklin, forced to scrabble in the dirt and hunt runaways. Grace was a Pinchard now. She’d come up in the world.
X
We can only be interested in men by knowing them—knowing them directly, thoroughly, intimately; and this knowing leads ever to the greatest of human discoveries,—the recognization of one’s self in the image of one’s neighbor; the sudden, startling revelation, “This is another ME, that thinks as I think, feels as I feel, suffers even as I suffer.” This is the beginning, and only the true beginning, of the social conscience.
—W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Individual and Social Conscience”
The Peculiar Institution
I’d done well my first year in the master’s program: I earned As in all my classes, and unless I choked, I was pretty sure I’d continue to excel. But before my second year began, I had a decision to make: whether I’d continue on to the doctoral program and stay where I was or apply elsewhere. Before I made my decision, I called up Dr. Oludara. She told me if I wanted to attend another university for my doctorate, she had my letter of recommendation already written. And when I finished my doctorate, she’d be ready to support me on the job market, too.
“I mean, unless you do something crazy, Ailey, I have your back for life. And I’ve known you for a decade, so I don’t think that’s happening.”
“Thank you, Dr. Oludara. But you know . . .”
“I told you it would be lonely, Ailey.”
“It’s not that. I mean, I have a Black friend.”
“Well, that’s great! Look at you!”
“But what I want to study, Dr. Whitcomb would have to be my advisor.”
“Even better!”
“But would they respect me here, if all I do is stick underneath the only Black professor in the program?”
On the other end, Dr. Oludara heaved a sigh.
“Ailey, why are you making things harder than they have to be?”
“I’m not. It’s just—”
“Ailey. Let me ask you something. Do any of your classmates invite you to their study sessions?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Are they even friendly to you?”
“I mean . . . no. Not really.”
“Then why do you give a good goddamn about what they think? You could have nothing but white folks on your dissertation committee, and your classmates still would have something to say. I’m sure they’ve passed around that you’re there on a quota. They love to accuse Black folks of taking their place. Even when it ain’t but one of us, and fifty of them, they don’t even want us to have that one spot.”