INTRODUCTION
Whiskey in a Teacup
In my late twenties, I found myself facing some hard choices. I’d enjoyed a great deal of success in movies, but personally, I was at a crossroads. I didn’t know where I was going to find the strength to pick a path. One particularly rough day, I found myself looking out at a room full of men who were asking me about a decision that needed to be made. One of them said: “How do you want to handle this?”
I paused to think. Then suddenly a light went on. I sat up straight, lifted my chin, and said, “Well, I’m a lady, and I’m going to handle it like a lady.”
Where did that voice come from? I wondered.
I’d never said those words out loud before. (Men in that room told me they’d never heard anyone say them before, either!) But in my voice that day, I heard all the women I knew growing up in the South—women for whom being a southern lady was a source of confidence and strength in times of trial and a source of joy in good times.
On that day, I especially heard the voice of my grandmother Dorothea.
Dorothea was smart, ambitious, and brave. She had a degree in education from Tennessee Tech and a master’s from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, one of the first such degrees ever earned there by a woman. A firm believer in women’s rights and civil rights, Dorothea had a brilliant academic mind and she dreamed of traveling the world. But because of the times, she found her choices limited and ended up becoming a first-grade teacher at a local school. She never did get to see the world as she’d hoped.
Still, she maintained exquisite poise throughout her life, opposed injustice wherever she found it, and commanded everyone’s esteem and attention—especially mine. She was at once tough and beautiful. She could make you feel infinitely welcome but also let you know when you’d pushed her too far. She was impeccably mannered, but she loved to see a whole mess of neighbors, their kids, and random pets tearing across the lawn. To me, she was the epitome of southern womanhood.
Dorothea always said that it was a combination of beauty and strength that made southern women “whiskey in a teacup.” We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside we’re strong and fiery. Our famous hospitality isn’t martyrdom; it’s modeling. True southern women treat everyone the way we want to be treated: with grace and respect—no matter where they come from or how different from you they may be. Dorothea taught me to never abide cruelty or injustice. The Golden Rule, she said, applies to everyone.
My mother, too, taught me this by example. I visited her when she was teaching at Tennessee State University (known best, perhaps, as the place where Oprah got her journalism degree in 1986), and there I got to know the powerful black women with whom she worked. They did not tolerate disrespect or discrimination, and they organized to make sure they were heard. They taught me that things only get better for everyone when all voices are at the table.
Doesn’t my grandmother Dorothea look like a ’30s movie star?
