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Each One, Pull One
Alice Walker

For Hansberry, Jackson & Bond

We must say it all, and as clearly as we can. For even before we are dead, they are busy trying to bury us.

Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay? Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow? Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person! Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?

But most of all, did we write exactly what we saw, as clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated enough to cry and scream?

Well, then, they will fill our eyes, our ears, our noses and our mouths with the mud of oblivion. They will chew up our fingers in the night. They will pick their teeth with our pens. They will sabotage both our children and our art.

Because when we show what we see, they will discern the inevitable: We do not love them. 

The above is Ms. Walker's response to the special issue of FREEDOMWAYS, "Larraine Hansberry: Art of Thunder, Vision of Light." 
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