Janice Bryant Howroyd

And I looked at them and I felt so different than them because here I was, as I mentioned earlier, a never-headed colored girl from Ottawa, North Carolina, talking very Southern.

And my husband used to say he could tell when I'd been on the phone with my mama because it took me two or three hours to get my standard American English back in place.

And

I look at them and I realized I'm not going to be these people.

I am me.

I ain't going to have straight water wave hair.

I ain't going to have bright white skin.

I ain't going to have light eyes.

And you know, I'm probably going to keep the hips and boobs too, you know?

And so I just thought,

That was so surface about how I was looking at myself because that was how people got the opportunity to move forward in that industry.

How you look matter a lot.

And Peaches and Herb who went out on the road singing weren't Peaches and Herb who were singing in the studio.

And so, you know, I thought to myself, what am I going to do?

And my brother-in-law said to me, you owe it to yourself.

to prove yourself before you go back.

Mind you, I come to the West Coast on a vacation.

Still on that vacation, Meg.

Look at life.

Look at God.