When a Colored Girl Speaks

Southern-born between the ellipses of segregation and desegregation, I journeyed colored, black, and white Americas, ultimately landing as an Ivy League-trained university professor burdened with racial silences of my own. It was a near hypertensive crisis that led me to gather up who I was and what I have become to reclaim the colored girl within.

1. Drylongso: African American vernacular, adopted from the Gullah dialect, means ordinary, customary, plain, or every day. Also, can be used to describe something previously rare becoming commonplace. See also John L. Gwaltney (1993). Drylongso: A self-portrait of Black America. New York: New Press

2. Glossolalia are utterances approximating words and speech, usually produced during states of intense religious experience, as in “speaking in tongues”: Glossolalia. (n.d.).

3. I’m Glad Salvation is Free. Hymn written by Isaac Watts (b. 1674 – d.1748). Performed by Manual Lloyd.