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Meriwether is six-feet tall, black, and a writer.
    And Bruce said, “That’s my wife’s dear friend.”
    Obviously there was only one six-foot tall black female writer in New York.
    Marilyn and I shared a laugh of delight at the expense of men who know everything and at ourselves who nearly pulled off a non-visit between strangers.
    She was a psychologist and a writer. I saw that she was my kind of person. Smart, funny, and tough-minded, and she became a friend to me in a way I could not anticipate.
    My beloved brother Bailey had fought heroin for control of his life. The battle still raged but he told me he sincerely wanted to be drug free. I offered to pay for sessions with two of the leading black male psychologists in the area, but he refused.
    I talked to him about Marilyn Marshall and he picked up one of her books and read it. That was typical of Bailey—drugs or no drugs—he would do his homework. He said he would like to meet her.
    I told Marilyn all of this and she agreed to see him, not as a patient, but as the brother of a friend. I spoke to Bruce Marshall and arranged for Bailey to eat lunch and dinner at his restaurant. He could bring a guest and sign the bill. Only Bruce, Marilyn, and I would know that he was not paying. Bailey made use of the restaurant and had occasional conversations with Marilyn Greene Marshall.
    So, for a year my brother was able to control his life. I have given great thanks for the help of two strangers I met by comic accident. I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.

Celia Cruz
    There are certain artists who belong to all the people, everywhere, all the time.
    The list of singers, musicians, and poets must include David the harpist from the Old Testament, Aesop the Storyteller, Omar Khayyam the Tent Maker, Shakespeare the Bard of Avon, Louis Armstrong the genius of New Orleans, Om Kalsoum the soul of Egypt, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles…
    The names could go on until there was no breath to announce them, but the name of Celia Cruz, the great Cuban singer will always figure among them as one who belonged to all people. Her songs in Spanish were weighted with sympathy for the human spirit.
    In the early 1950s I first listened to a Celia Cruz record, and although I spoke Spanish fairly well and loved her music, I found it hard to translate. I went on a search for everything about Celia Cruz and realized that if I was to become her devoted fan, I had to study Spanish more diligently. I did.
    I enlisted the help of my brother Bailey in New York to find every record she ever made and every magazine that mentioned her name. My Spanish improved. Years later when I worked with Tito Puente, Willie BoBo, and Mongo Santa-maría, I could hold my own onstage as well as in conversation with them backstage.
    I had begun singing professionally, but my singing left a lot to be desired. I held my own onstage because my rhythms were exciting. Some I had grown up with and others I had found and lifted whole and wholly from the records of Celia Cruz.
    Cruz came to the United States and played in a theater on Upper Broadway in New York City and I went to see her every day of her stay. She exploded on the stage and was sensual and touchingly present. From her, I learned to bring everything I had onto the stage with me. And now, some forty-plus years later, without music and by simply reading, I am able to read poetry and satisfy audiences. Much of the presence I bring to my performance, I learned from Celia Cruz.
    All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.

Fannie Lou Hamer
    “All of this on account we want to register, to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America, is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be