When I joined 'Essence,' I was a young, single mother. I was 24. I hadn't gone to college. I wasn't making any money at 'Essence' - what was it, $500 a month - and I was struggling. So I was always looking down the road, always hoping for a better, you know, tomorrow.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the resilience and hope of a young single mother who faced challenges but remained optimistic about the future.
Susan L. Taylor reflects on her early experiences when she joined 'Essence' as a young, single mother. Despite lacking higher education and financial stability, she maintained a forward-looking perspective, symbolizing the importance of hope and perseverance in overcoming life's difficulties. Her journey portrays the struggle many face, yet also highlights the potential for a brighter tomorrow through determination and optimism.
In practice
This quote can inspire young parents facing financial struggles to keep believing in their potential.
We are here to love, not to judge. I'd been blaming and raging. I certainly wasn't loving my daughter that afternoon as God loves me. God's love doesn't insist on perfection or even good common sense. Why then should I demand more of those I love? With this tiny change in perspective I began to see the need for correction wasn't in my daughter, but in me.
Everything hinges on education. Without it, you can't advocate for proper health care, for housing, for a civil rights bill that ensures your rights.
We don't have time to waste. Our communities are crumbling; our children are under siege. Failing schools and a for-profit prison-industrial complex are sucking the life out of black homes and communities. We are not going down like this!
It's hunger. It's homelessness, often. It's underfunded, under-resourced schools. It's abuse beyond the chilling. It's having overwhelmed parents and caregivers. Those are the things that young people are struggling with beyond our view.
We women feel we are here to serve. That's the mistake we make. We may have children, husbands, lovers, bills, responsibility. Those things don't own us, but too often we let them.
Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream... for all of us today, the battle is in our hands... The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions... We are still in for the season of suffering... How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever... our God is marching on.
Making it through the ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman's footprints.
There is the joy of one's own salvation. I thought, when I first tasted that, it was the most delicious joy I had ever known, and that I could never get beyond it. But I found, afterward, there was something more joyful that, namely, the joy of the salvation of others.
The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.
All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.
I am very, very hopeful about the American South - I believe that we will lead America to what Dr. King called 'the beloved community.'
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