I do think that people will claim a certain fatigue about talking about race. But I think that even though they do,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
There are moments from childhood that attract heat in our memories, some for their sublime brilliance, some for their malignancy. The first… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
One of the things that is so striking to me about the South, especially living here now as an adult, is that… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
In the South, there is more overt racism. It's more willfully ignorant and brazen. But it's not as if by moving I'm… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
By the numbers, by all the official records, here at the confluence of history, of racism, of poverty, and economic power, this… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I'm not saying I have to write a book that's ten times better than my counterparts, but I do think that I… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
There is power in naming racism for what it is, in shining a bright light on it, brighter than any torch or… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
As a parent, you want to protect your children, but the fact of racism in this country, of inequality, that is still… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
“It is as if we have reentered the past and are living in a second Nadir: It seems the rate of police… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Black people in the US are told all the time, from all aspects, that they're nothing, that they're less than. And of… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
There are things about the South - the politics, the classism, the racism - that I hate, and I want to be… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
“First, it confirmed how inextricably interwoven the past is in the present, how heavily that past bears on the future; we cannot… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I'm writing about the things I see all around me. Growing up in Mississippi, I've seen how these backward ideas about class… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
“But race in the United States is not a tidy matter. Only three of the submitted pieces explicitly referenced the future. Most… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I wanted to write about voodoo tradition that I feel has been very important to survival of black people here: people of the African… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
I think that voodoo as a spiritual tradition has been demonized for so long in popular culture. I wanted to write against that and… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
There's so much I love about home, but then there's a lot that I can acknowledge that I dislike about home. And acknowledging that… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
“The dream of her was the glow of a spent fire on a cold night: warm and welcoming.” — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
The first writer that I think of immediately that I studied with at Michigan is Peter Ho Davies. He was really important to me,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
I feel like so much of what happened in the Delta over the decades since slavery was abolished seems much closer in the Delta,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
“Vines catch my arms, my head; we tear through until we break out into the clearing before the fence, the field, the barn, the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
“Before all the little mean things she told me gathered and gathered and lodged like grit in a skinned knee.” — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
People give the South a bad rap. It's often stereotyped as backwards and close-minded and dogmatic, and all of those things have been true.… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
By the time I wrote my memoir, 'Men We Reaped,' I had been running from writing it for a long time. When the events… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
When I was a teenager, I was the only black girl at a small, private Episcopal school, where my tuition was paid by the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
She was the murderous mother who cut us to the bone but left us alive, left us naked and bewildered as wrinkled newborn babies,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
I hope people who read my books feel empathy for us and really see us as complicated people. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
When I was writing my first novel, 'Where the Line Bleeds,' which had young black men as its main characters, I was very invested… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
“Lot of folks was in there for stealing food because everybody was poor and starving, and even though White people couldn’t get your work… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share
