Pearl Cleage
Pearl Cleage (born December 7, 1948) is an African-American author whose work, both fiction and non-fiction, has been widely recognized. Her novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a 1998 Oprah Book Club selection. Cleage is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an African-American woman. Cleage teaches drama at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.
Pearl Cleage was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the daughter of Doris Cleage née Graham), a teacher, and the late civil rights activist Bishop Albert Cleage. After backlash resulting from her father's radical teachings, the family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Bishop Cleage became a prominent civil rights leader. Cleage first attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1966 majoring in playwriting and dramatic literature. However she moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to attend Spelman College in 1969, where she eventually attained a bachelor's degree in drama in 1971. She then joined the Spelman faculty as a writer and playwright in residence and as a creative director. Cleage has written many novels, plays, and non-fiction works borrowing heavily from her life experiences. Many of her novels are set in neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cleage notably writes about topics at the intersection of sexism and racism, specifically on issues such as domestic violence and rape in the black community. She has been a supporter of the Obama administration. Cleage is an activist for AIDS and women's rights, experiences from which she draws from for her writings.
In 1969, Cleage married Michael Lomax, an Atlanta politician and past-president of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. They had a daughter, Deignan Njeri. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979. In 1994, Cleage married Zaron Burnett, Jr, writer and director for the Just Us Theater Company. She has four grandchildren.
Cleage is a former Cosby Endowed Chair at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She also speaks at colleges, universities, and conferences on topics including domestic violence, the citizen's role in a participatory democracy, and writing topics.
(from Wikipedia)
“When Blue sang, a lyric became a libation; a song became a sacrament.”
“Because sometimes love just needs a witness... Somebody to testify. Sometimes love just needed somebody to step forward and say, Here I am, Spirit. Send me.”
“Sometimes the contradictions in their lives are so intense they seem manufactured for teaching life lessons, but it's hard to keep up with what you're supposed to be learning in that terrible moment between defiance and despair when all your energy is going into figuring out why it took so long to name the thing that's driving you crazy. At those moments, the best I can do is keep quiet and say a little prayer, which is what I did.”
“Any time your life is at stake and you can't find even one woman to come forward and say, 'This is a good man,' your problem isn't what kind of woman THEY are. Your problem is what kind of men YOU are.”
“...no woman can love a weak man hard enough to make him strong.”
“you can't know the meaning of the lesson until class is over!”
“the problem with knowing is that it takes away the possibility of pretending!”
“old habits are hard to break, but not impossible!”
“Sometimes you have to show them what they want to see in order to get them to show you who they really are.”
“Both men knew the only thing more valuable than a favor well done was a secret well kept. This had the potential to be both.”
“Defiance means you got somebody with power over you.”
“You can't save a person who doesn't want to be saved. It was like Mr. Eddie always told the new gardeners: Everybody's got to kill their own snakes.”
“When you're young, there's a whole lot of stuff you say you'll never do. Once you get a little older, the list tends to get shorter.”
“What looks like crazy on an ordinary day, looks a lot like love when you catch it in the moonlight.”
“What looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.”
“Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes.”
“I know once you repent, Jesus himself isn't big on punishment, but according to all the Old Testament stories, I ever heard, his was not above it”
“...freedom can be a full-time job if you let it.”
“Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices.”
“Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.”
“If you don't annoy your big sister for no good reason from time to time, she thinks you don't love her anymore.”
“It is my belief that conscious African American students ought to be in a constant state of rage and in a constant search for ways to channel that rage into freedom struggle.”
“We danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and we kissed too sweet, and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.”