Copyright 1993 Amy Hill Hearth
What began, for me, as a routine writing assignment – a feature article for the September 22, 1991 edition of the Sunday New York Times – evolved not only into a book but a truly extraordinary life experience. For two years, I spent countless afternons with two of the world’s most witty, wise, and lovable people – Sadie Delany and her “little” sister, Bessie, both more than 100 years old.
The three of us created "Having Our Say," but we also created a friendship that transcended many differences, including race, for they are black and I am white. We also overcame an age gap of nearly seven decades. What did we have in common? Similar values, and the fact that we are women. Nothing more.
Our friendship grew, nourished by trust, sharing, and the special intensity of creating a book together. Ultimately, our deep bond contributed greatly to the outcome of the book. It is the reason I was able to capture and portray all aspects of their personalities, including their marvelous sense of humor. It is the reason for the intimate feeling of the book. In that regard, the book and the friendship are one and the same.
I often found myself sitting in the Delany sisters’ parlor, in “my” chair, whether or not we had planned to work on the book that day, and months after the sisters’ role in creating the book was completed. Our relationship had grown beyond the book – far beyond.
My life and family background were important to them. One day, they made a reference to “the Surrender,” their rather-antiquated term for the end of the Civil War at Appomattox courthouse in Virginia. I mentioned that my great-great grandfather, a New Jersey volunteer named Charles S. Applegate, had been present at the historic event. They were so excited that we abandoned our plans to work on the book for the rest of the afternoon while they drilled me on the rest of my family history.
I realized early that the opportunity to spend so much time with the Delany Sisters was a special gift. There were many times when I felt I’d “checked out” of the real world and gone back in time to live another life. I absorbed the nuances of another culture, another America, another century. A world with no telephones, and where soap is something you make out of chicken fat and lye.
For the Delany Sisters, retired for several decades, the book project gave new meaing to their lives. For me, it provided an opportunity to work on a unique project. Indeed, creating the book together, we soon realized, was an achievement in itself. In the spring of 1992, when riots tore apart South Central Los Angeles, I remember saying helplessly that I wish there was something I could do. And Sadie Delany said to me: “Well, the three of us ARE doing something: We’re doing this book together!”
Perhaps no where else in American were white and black people engaged in such an intense, honest, on-going dialog about race. While Los Angeles burned, we talked.
“I don’t believe I have ever gotten to know a white person as well as I know you,” Bessie Delany said to me one day.
One of the most interesting things I learned from the Delany Sisters is that in matters of race, individuals can indeed make a difference. That is because little things matter. The sisters fondly recalled, for example, how a Jewish man named Mr. Steinberg encouraged them when they first moved from their native Raleigh, N.C., to Harlem during the First World War. Mr. Steinberg owned a butcher shop in the building where the sisters rented their first apartment, and although he never did anything more than smile and tease them, “Hurry up, don’t be late,” when they rushed off to school or work in the morning, it had an impact. His small gesture of kindness was not forgotten, even 75 years later.
Through the eyes of the Delany Sisters, I came to see America in a way few white people experience. “You are starting to feel how WE feel,” Bessie mused one day. “I had wondered if we would get to this point. You’re not black, and you will never know EXACTLY how it feels, but this is as close as a white person can get.”
But perhaps the moment of greatest personal satisfaction came when we agreed on the title, based on Bessie’s tendency during the creation of the book, of declaring with glee: “We’re having our say!” And I realized, at that moment, what enormous pleasure it has given me to be the person who has made it possible.
Postscript: "Having Our Say" was a surprise, runaway best-seller,later adapted for the Broadway stage and for a television film. Amy Hill Hearth and the Delany Sisters created a sequel, "The Delany Sisters’ Book of Everyday Wisdom," in 1994. Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany died in 1995 at the age of 104. Amy Hill Hearth and Sarah (Sadie) Delany then collaborated on "On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie," published in 1997. Sadie Delany died in 1999 at age 109. The Delany Sisters are buried side-by-side in the family burial plot in Raleigh, N.C.
