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by it. I used to be embarrassed because some of the other kids around my neighborhood, the kids I played with who were also Negro kids, had parents who were doing something that may not be quite as menial, but which seemed to be a little bit more dignified. Waiting tables seemed to be a little more dignified than my mother scrubbing floors. But somehow what used to get through to me, and I tell you when I felt the shame, something used to pull me, pull me away from this shame...I never could completely feel ashamed. I didn't know for a long time what it was. That was the fact that this woman had dignity...dignity. A little old skinny woman, a small, tiny, skinny woman. But when she was down, getting down, I saw that that gesture could be as heroic as the gesture of a person who stands up. You know when you want a portrait, you want a portrait of a man or woman who is heroic...what do you have? You have them standing forth, heads up, hands down to the side. This is the symbol, supposedly the universal symbol of dignity...heroic dignity and strength. I found that my mother could have it bending down. She had it, because even though her head was bowed, and she was scrubbing somebody else's floor, God forbid anybody mess with that woman: God forbid it! 'Cause, I'm telling you, much as my mother loved me, that woman could be unmerciful in a whipping, and I've seen her working on me whom she loved. But somebody she didn't

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