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>> [MUSIC] My mother
spoke her mind

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whether you wanted
to hear it or not,

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whether you agreed
with her or not.

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One of the things that
when I do public speaking,

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I speak at different
churches and groups,

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and one of the things
that I can tell them

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was that in all my life,

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I never heard my
mother disrespected.

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There was a very vile habit
of calling grown women by

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their first name or calling

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them girl or Auntie or whatever.

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At no point did any
person black or

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white call my mother anything
other than Miss Hattie.

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That was all I don't
know if they some of

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them knew that I had a daddy
and they knew who he was,

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but they knew Miss Hattie.

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Nobody called her anything
other than Miss Hattie.

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So one of the things that I
really learned from her and I

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know this is not quite on
the question you asked,

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but one of the
things I learned was

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that if you respect yourself,

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and respect your own principles.

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You can get other
people to respect you.

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They may not like
you, but they have to

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respect the fact that you are

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still true to your principles.

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And that was the one
thing that I noticed,

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like I said, we didn't
always get along.

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But she spoke on mind. She spoke

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what she believed to be true.

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She started a Black
history collection

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got when I was in
elementary school.

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And at that time, there was

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no other Black
history collection in

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the state, not at Speelman,

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not at Moorhouse, not at any
of the large universities,

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but she collected books by

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Black authors about
Black people.

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And there were times

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when the library was
closed on Sunday,

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I know that's hard
to imagine now.

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But the library
would be closed and

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we'd get a call from some
student at Speelman,

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who was trying to do a paper
or somebody at Mars Brown,

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and somebody told him
about Miss Hattie.

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[MUSIC]