Free Push by Sapphire

Dream Keeper's house! Day after that, we come here, where I been ever since. Here, at Advancement House, main good thing is they got somebody we can trust to take care of our babies while we go to school for four hours a day, three times a week. Queens, no Ms Rain, no school.
    I like my room here. Better than home, Mama's house, I mean. I got bed for me, crib for Abdul.
    Dresser drawers, desk, chair, bookcase for my books and Abdul's books. Some of my books is: The Life of Lucy Fern 1 and 2 (it's two books) by Moira Crone
    Pat King's Family by Karen McFall
    Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry
    Wanted Dead or Alive: The True Story of Harriet Tubman by Ann McGovern
    (got two Harriet books!)
    Malcolm X by Arnold Adoff
    A Piece of Mine by J. California Cooper The Color Purple by Alice Walker
    Selected Poems by Langston Hughes
    some books Abdul got:
    The Black BC's by Lucille Clifton
    Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
    The Story of a Little Mouse Trapped in a Book by Monique Felix

    The Boy Who Didn *t Believe in Spring by Lucille Clifton
    Hi, Cat! by Ezra Jack Keats
    Most of what we got Ms Rain give us. I would like a job, a paycheck—be able to buy what I want when I want it.
    We reading The Color Purple in school. Which is really hard for me. Ms Rain try to break it down but most of it I can't read myself. But the rest of the class kinda can, 'cept Rita. But how Ms Rain hook it up I am getting something out the story. I cry cry cry you hear me, it sound in a way so much like myself except I ain' no butch like Celie.
    But just when I go to break on that shit, go to tell class what Five Percenters 'n Farrakhan got to say about butches, Ms Rain tell me I don't like homosexuals she guess I don't like her 'cause she one. I was shocked as shit. Then I jus' shut up. Too bad about Farrakhan. I still believe allah and stuff. I guess I still believe everything. Ms Rain say homos not who rape me, not homos who let me sit up not learn for sixteen years, not homos who sell crack fuck Harlem. It's true. Ms Rain the one who put the chalk in my hand, make me queen of the ABCs.
    Oh, I not tell you that! Every year mayor's office give awards to outstanding students in literacy programs. Well, this year, 1988, it was me. After I get in 2way house (which turn out to be only way cool 'cause some of the bitches there is Sick with a capital S (capital letter is how you start off sentence or say something with deep shit meaning like Fuck with capital F you mad or some shit like that!). But like I said the good thing, the real good thing, about 2way house is it in Harlem so I could keep going to school easy.
    So anyway by February I'm pretty settled in Advancement House. So I work all spring, memorizing letter sounds, writing in journal, reading books. I have read Pat King's Family
    'bout white woman whose husband abuse 'n abandon her. I have read Ain Nobodi Gon' Turn Me 'Round 'bout civil rights. I ain' know black people in this country went through shit like that.
    But thas the deal here in cracker jack city as Farrakhan say. So anyway I made so much progress I won award. Literacy Award. I get it September of 1988. Ms Rain wanted to give it to me even before then. She say she had wanted to give it to me after I come back from Abdul being born and homeless 'n stuff. But director say, Well, we got other students who deserve it, let's see if Precious got staying power.
    So I get award from mayor's office, money ($75) from Each One Teach One, and class have a party for me.

    Things going good in my life, almost like The Color Purple. Abdul nine months old, walkingl Smart smart. He smart. I been reading to him since day he was born damn near. I love The Color Purple, that book give me so much strength. Ms Rain say a group of black men wanted to stop movie from the book. Say unfair picture of nigger men. She ax me what do J
    think. Unfair picture? Unfortunately it a picture I know, except of course Farrakhan