A LETTER TO MY GRANDCHILDREN
NOVEMBER 4, 2008
Hi Kristin, Justin, Samantha, Mary, Patrick, and Peter, (and your parents)
Remember this day.
In 1937, the year that I was born, here is what black people COULD NOT DO:
Drink from the same fountain as white people
Sit in the front of the bus or train
Eat at the same restaurants Go to the same church
Sit in the front of the bus Sit in the front of the movie theater
Shop in some of the same stores Go to the same schools as white people
Live in the same neighborhood as white people
Have jobs that white people wanted
and had to get off the sidewalk if a white person was walking down in the opposite way.
In Maine where I grew up, there were almost no black people, and God love your great grandmother Hazel, who had NO prejudice at all. She taught me that everyone was absolutely equal; that no one person was better than another. Even so, for years I held my breath when a black person happened to be near me so I wouldn't breathe the same air. I actually suggested to a black woman. when I was about 3 years old that she needed to take a bath and get all that black off her. My mother was horrified. but I was a child. Some people did things like this but THEY WERE ADULTS.
One of the songs that my mother used to sing to me was confusing but made me feel close to black people. It went like this:
Now honey you stay in your own back yard,
Don't you mind what the white folks say,
Just go out and play as much as you like,
But stay in your own back yard.
And that was the message to black people (African Americans) "stay in your own back yard", but thank God, that didn't happen.
It's been a long hard fight to help people understand that EVERYONE REALLY IS EQUAL and should have equal rights
The heroes of the movement to make black people really equal are many:
Abraham Lincoln
Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth
Fredrick Douglas
Susan B. Anthony
Rosa Parks
Martin Luther King Jr
Eleanor Roosevelt
JFK
Lyndon Johnson
and many more...
In my lifetime, I have known about black people being hanged by men in white sheets (KKK), beaten, shot, and in the Civil Rights marches led by Martin Luther King Jr., beaten by hoses, attacked by dogs, dragged to jail, and killed in other more horrible ways.
It has never been safe to be black.
But today ...today on this very day, we will have a black president. Remember this day, it is amazing and just right.
Love,
Grammy
Just email....
sasper@aol.com
and I will send you a book ASAP.
All I ask is that:
1. You use it
2. If you like it, tell someone and refer them to www.sandyasper.com
THE STORY
In 1993, a friend of mine died and I didn't know there was a funeral, so I didn't go. That led me to thinking about how anyone would know about such an important event if they didn't live in the immediate area? How would anyone know enough to be able to write the obit? What kind of a funeral would they want? What words would they want to leave to friends and family? Who was going to pick up crazy Aunt Millie at the airport? What had been paid for? Who was going to get the watch and the ring? I always thought that someone should write something about it.
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, I found myself with time to write THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY THAT I MIGHT DIE...SOMEDAY( a Light-Hearted Workbook).
This book is really not for people who are dying; it's for those of us who think we're never going to die, and really don't want to think about it; so I decided to make it as funny as possible. It is a little corny, and a little funny, but also a very easy way to decide things that can only be decided by you.
Remember this is your book ...but always write in pencil because things change.
1. Send a check for $12 and I will email you a PDF file (so that you can read it online and just print the pages you want or the whole book).
OR
2. Send me a check for $27 and I will send you the book by snail-mail.
OR
3. Send me a check for $16 and I will send the CD by snail-mail.
Sandy Asper
1553 Miramar Dr.
Newport Beach, CA 92661
.