Silence
But my mother also had a secret. She never spoke about the years her mother worked as an itinerant Aunt Jemima, traveling to small towns conducting pancake demonstrations, dressed in a hoop skirt and apron with a bandana on her head.....
Silence, I learned, had its rewards....and its costs.
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The Conversation
Norris discovers family secrets because elders in her family started divulging stories in the wake of Barack Obama's election, what were conversations about race like during the 2008 election?
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It's technically called a blog but I prefer to think of it as my online outbox. During black history month I promised to to use Grace Notes to share some of the discoveries in my travels speaking to readers who often shared archival material of their own.
I hope The Grace of Silence encourages people to think about their own complex family legacies and to consider a core question: How well do we really know the people who raised us?
Michele Norris is one of the most trusted voices in American Journalism. Her voice informs, engages and enlightens listeners with thoughtful interviews and in depth reporting as one of the hosts of NPR’s flagship afternoon broadcast, All Things Considered.
My idea was to use these little black postcards to get the conversation started. But I quickly realized once I hit the road on my book tour that I didn’t really need that kind of incentive. All over the country people who came to hear about my story wound up sharing their own.