I’m Glad My Brother Died

Charlotte Graham begins her essay confessing that she is glad her brother died as an infant. She explains that the place (Laurel, Mississippi) and context (the Civil Rights era) within which she and her family lived, promised nothing but hardship, humiliation, and hatred for blacks like her. She recounts humiliations suffered both by her father and herself, which taught her to devalue herself in order to succeed in newly integrated (yet still prejudiced) schools. Graham admits that she grew to hate whites for driving her to such self-degradation. She traces her transformation from nominal, to genuine, Christian faith through recounting later interactions with people who showed her the love of Christ: including two white teachers in junior college who cared for her as a person and encouraged her talents, as well as Dr. John Perkins, who showed her the meaning of reconciliation through his own ministry. Graham concludes with a brief commentary on Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign and the light it shed on America’s cultural transformation since her childhood. Though Graham maintains her opening confession regarding her brother’s premature death, she adds in her conclusion the wish that her father were alive to witness how much things have changed.