He Included Me

Book excerpt: The dramatic and colorful autobiography of a Black woman born in 1909 in rural Alabama. A rare first-person account of life in the twentieth-century South, He Included Me weaves together the story of a black family—eight children reared in rural Alabama, their mother a schoolteacher, their father a minister—and the emerging self-portrait of a woman determined, like her parents, to look ahead. Sarah Rice recalls her mother’s hymn of thanks—“He Include Me”—when God showed her a way to feed her family, and hears again her mother's quiet words, “It's no disgrace to work. It's an honor to make an honest dollar,” spoken when her children were embarrassed that she took in white people’s laundry. Rice speaks, finally, of the determination, faith, and pride that carried her through life. In a document that spans more than three-quarters of the twentieth century, He Included Me presents the voice of a single woman whose life was rich in complexity, deep in suffering and joy; yet it also speaks for the many black women who have worked and struggled in the rural South and always looked ahead. “In the oral tradition of Theodore Rosengarten’s All God’s Dangers…It’s a moving story that reveals a hidden corner of American life.”—New York Times “Viewing her life with a sharp intelligence, always frank, compassionate, and informed by a deep religious faith, Rice offers an autobiography that often reads with the narrative sweep of a novel.”—Library Journal “A unique contribution to a growing history of African American women.”—Atlanta History