I know Why The Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

Excerpt:

Stamps, Arkansas, was Chitlin' Switch, Georgia; Hang 'em High, Alabama; Don't let the Sun Set on You Here, Nigger, Mississippi; or any other name just as descriptive. People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn't buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate.

A light shade had been pulled down between the Black community and all things white, but one could see through it enough to develop a fear-admiration-contempt for the white "things"-white folks' cars and white glistening houses and their children and their women. But above all, their wealth that allowed them to waste was the most enviable.

Although there was always generosity in the Negro neighborhood, it was indulged on pain of sacrifice. Whatever was given by Black people to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.