Take My Hand

“My daddy had made sure that I was educated not only in my books but also, as he had once described it, in the code that dictated our lives in Alabama. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Picking your battles. Letting them think what they wanted because you weren’t going to change their minds about certain things.”

Here, Civil explains to Anne that her education covered not only academics, but also the behavior necessary to avoid racist repercussions. The passage illustrates that affluence and education did not protect Black people in the post-Jim Crow South.

“Fact is, the only time I remember us going out to the country was when we were passing through on the way to someplace else, maybe a church picnic or something like that. We definitely had never been in folks’ houses out there.”

Civil explains how her upbringing isolated her from those who were destitute. Her sheltered upbringing prevented her from meeting people like the Williams family, setting up the shock she feels when she meets them. She has been oblivious to the class differences in the Black population and the level of poverty that surrounded her growing up.

“We doing important work, hear? You might not be able to change folks’ house of cards. Only God can do that. But what you can do is make sure babies don’t have babies. You understand me?”

In this passage, Val explains to Civil the importance of the work the clinic does. This justification allows the nurses to work within the Systemic Racism in the US Healthcare System. It also explains the mindset the nurses must hold in order to be a part of a system that is so inhumane.

“She was the only Black woman in town who had founded her own law firm. A few years before, her husband had left his job and joined her. At one time before Ty and I were born, Montgomery had only a few Black lawyers, and the Ralseys had been two of them.”

This passage illustrates one of Civil’s early influences—a professional Black woman who claims a place of equality in a racist and sexist culture. Civil, unlike many of her fellow nurses, feels unrestricted in her career choices, and deciding whether to become a nurse or a doctor is natural for her. This emphasizes the differences between Civil’s early experiences and those of many Black people who surround her, further illustrating the class divides among the characters. It also points to the influences of Jim Crow laws in stating that Montgomery only had a few Black lawyers in recent history.

“Miss Pope whispered, ‘Now, you know how some white folks feel about Black bodies. They think we can tolerate pain better than them. According to some of these documents I’m about to show you, some of them even thought syphilis couldn’t kill us. It was as much an experiment about the effects of the disease as it was a crazy white man’s idea of a laboratory game with Black bodies.’”

Here, Miss Pope points to the history of Systemic Racism in the US Healthcare System in general, and its widespread belief that Black people do not feel pain like white people. By othering Black bodies, as she points out here, the healthcare system provided a pseudoscientific rationale for its heinous treatment of Black men and women. Learning this is a fall from innocence for Civil, Ty, and Alicia.

“I thought we had turned a corner by the seventies. I knew racism still existed, but I was hopeful that Black Power and education would sustain us and keep it at bay. We’d been to hell and back, so the seventies had to get better.”

Civil explains to Anne how naïve she was in the 1970s. This naiveté is only possible because of her class status—her exposure to overt racism was minimal growing up because of her family’s affluence. This foreshadows Civil’s hard fall from innocence when the girls are sterilized.

“When I arrive in Jackson I’m not just thinking of Evers, I’m also thinking of Fannie Lou Hamer and her use of the phrase Mississippi Appendectomy. I didn’t even learn about that phrase until I got to medical school and was under the mentorship of a Black female. As soon as I heard it, I felt a sharp pain in my body. Hamer had been sterilized without her permission in 1961, and the procedure was so common, women had labeled it. I wish I’d known about that term when I was your age, Anne. I wish they’d taught us that in nursing classes at Tuskegee. Maybe it might have changed some things.”

Civil explains to Anne the narrow training she received that prevented her from knowing the racist practices of the US healthcare system. This shows how deep racism has penetrated education—Civil attended Tuskegee University, a historical Black college, and she did not learn of these violent practices against poor Black women until much later. The passage also conveys how widespread the practice of forced sterilization was, foreshadowing the events to come in the novel.

“Let me tell you something: I still believed in the mission of the clinic. Women needed access to reliable birth control and information about their reproductive health. And I did not believe in minors becoming pregnant under any circumstances. I was sure enough the deputy Mrs. Seager believed I was, and I had a duty. I was as much a bona fide member of the Talented Tenth as I was an acolyte of Booker T. Washington. Rise and lift the race. But also work like hell to pull up those bootstraps.”

In this passage, Civil explains the paradox of her work at the clinic. She is aware at this time that the clinic is administering Depo-Provera, a dangerous form of birth control, and she has ceased giving it to her patients, but she also believes in the mission of the clinic to lift women out of poverty, often by allowing them the choice of whether to have children or not.

“Sometimes I think of what those plants meant to the Ralseys—the life-affirming vitality of them. The connectedness of all living things in a segregated country. To the Ralseys, we were all God’s creations—man, plant, animal. They cared for those plants in the same way they cared for their clients.”

This passage points to the symbolic nature of the Ralseys’ plants. By caring for these plants, the Ralseys are embracing the connectedness of all of “God’s creations,” and that they extended this care to their clients. This also points to the power and support of community.

“Baby girl, I just hope you know that no matter how much you do, God has dealt that family an awful hand.”

This line is from a conversation Civil has with her mother that illustrates Civil’s savior complex. She believes she can save the Williams family, and her mother’s response names the othering necessary to have that vantage point of savior. The conversation also illustrates the bond she shares with her mother, and how, although her mother is mostly detached from her daughter, there is love between them.

“Now, you know how some white folks feel about Black bodies. They think we can tolerate pain better than them […] Some of them even thought syphilis couldn’t kill us.”

In this passage, Civil is remembering Miss Pope’s words, but this time, the meaning of those words is illustrated in the bodies of India and Erica as they writhe in pain from the surgery. At this point in the novel, what Civil has learned about the Systemic Racism in the US Healthcare System moves from theoretical to actual, leading to her fall from innocence.

“Maybe it was for the best. India had speech problems. It would have been difficult for her to care for a baby. The family was poor, with little prospects. Bringing a baby into that life would have been a tragedy. No sooner than these thoughts formed in my mind, I hated myself for them. I hated myself then, and I hate myself now. Just remembering that day makes me hot with shame. We’d thought we were doing something useful for society, but this is where that so-called good deed had gotten us. Right smack into a nightmare.”

Here, Civil battles with her lifelong conditioning to accept the Systemic Racism in the US Healthcare System and the influence of Poverty, Racism, and Classism in the Post-Jim Crow South. Believing, if only momentarily, that poor women should not bring children into the world shows the depth of that conditioning. The guilt she admits to also explains her 2016 pilgrimage to make peace with the past.

“‘They can always take it away. It ain’t yours, Miss Civil. None of this.’ She waved a hand at the air, dropping the yarn. ‘Don’t you know that? Ain’t nobody ever taught you what they can take? They just take take take.’”

Civil’s conversation with Mrs. Williams after the girls have been sterilized illustrates not only Mrs. Williams’s experience, but also Civil’s naiveté. Civil has escaped learning what Black people learned from the time they were enslaved—that to get too attached to anything only brings heartbreak. Mrs. Williams’s comments contribute to Civil’s understanding of her class privilege and the innocence that privilege has afforded her.

“‘You want to lose your job?’ he asked.

‘That clinic needs to be shut down.’ I stood up, and the bucket pitched over on its side. ‘I have done nothing but love your girls since the day I met them.’

He shook his head. ‘You a little rich girl who think you can come over here and play around in folk lives.’”

Mace and Civil argue the first time they see each other after the girls’ surgery. This part of the argument conveys the privilege Civil enjoys—she can lose her job without a thought to her wellbeing, all in the name of righteousness. Mace points to both her privilege and her need to be a savior, both which create a divide between Civil and the family.

“Sometimes love can kill you, just like hate. You love too hard and you can lose yourself in other folks’ sorrow.”

In this passage, Sister LaTarsha, the Black nun who runs India’s school for children with special needs, warns Civil of the dangers inherent in believing she can save people. She warns her that loving others and not taking care of herself will eventually defeat her.

“We are at the center of our own destiny. Always have been. Yes, there have been times this country has tried to destroy us. But we have not been doormats. No, ma’am. We have fought and used every resource. Lou Feldman was a resource.”

Talking to Anne, Civil explains why Lou, the white lawyer who represented the girls in the lawsuit, is not a white savior. She explains that for Black people to survive the racism in the post-Jim Crow South, they had to employ all the resources they could find, including help from white people.

“I am part of the problem. I was in their lives making decisions that weren’t mine to make. Sure, I had good intentions, but so did Mrs. Seager. We all did.”

This quote illustrates Civil’s character arc through the novel. Here, as she meets with the other nurses at the clinic, she admits her own culpability in what happened. She also recognizes that Mrs. Seager, like the rest of them, was just trying to do the right thing. Civil is no longer righteously angry—she sees the humanity and perspective of all the people involved.

“I have carried this burden for so long that I understand her anguish. We are bound together by this tragedy. As much guilt as I have carried over the years, I know, with the discernment of a woman my age, that my pain does not rival what Linda Seager inflicted upon her own family.”

Civil meets Mrs. Seager’s daughter, and although she does not absolve Mrs. Seager’s guilt when her daughter asks her to, she realizes she is not the only one Mrs. Seager’s actions hurt. Civil’s character has matured not only in age, as she references here, but in her ability to empathize with others who hurt, even when she is angry. Finally, this passage indicates that Civil understands the crippling effect of guilt, and foreshadows that she will finally be able to let hers go.

“I needed to accept that they were not a case for me to fix. I had never known that good intentions could be just as destructive as bad ones.”

Civil begins to understand the destructiveness of her need to save the Williamses. Here, she has offered to help Erica change the spelling of her name. Erica says no, and she accepts her answer, catching herself falling into the role of savior once again.

“Then again, if anyone was at a disadvantage in this whole mess, it was my girls. The system was not designed for poor people to win.”

As Civil sits in the courthouse watching the trial, she thinks of the disadvantage outsiders (the attorneys from Washington) have in Montgomery, then catches herself and names the greater disadvantage poverty creates. Although she is referring to the Williams girls in the first part of her thought, she expands her thought to include all who suffer from poverty. Civil’s increased awareness of the effects of poverty and class indicates her character’s growth in understanding how privilege protects those who hold it.

“I did not like the judge’s reference to a zoo. And he had addressed the doctor as Miss Robard. I supposed we could count ourselves lucky that he had not called her by her first name, as many white folks did with Black women. I wondered if this was the bias Lou had been concerned about. Maybe the judge’s professionalism was all a ruse to pretend impartiality. We were setting ourselves up for heartbreak by believing in his fairness.”

This quote demonstrates the systemic racism in the judicial system in post-Jim Crow South. It also illustrates the intersectionality of racism and sexism in the court’s treatment of the doctor, and the danger of being optimistic in such a system.

“Right here in Montgomery, Alabama, justice had prevailed. It baffled me how hatred and goodness could coexist. The world was an enigma. My country was an enigma. Still, she was mine. And I loved every square inch of her.”

This thought of Civil’s conveys the paradoxical complexity of a Black woman living in the South. It conveys her ability to see those paradoxes and live with them. This is an affirmation of the novel’s minor theme of motherhood, family, and community. Civil embraces her Montgomery community even though it has disappointed her so many times.

“I no longer viewed motherhood as a trap or punishment. I no longer owed it to those girls never to have children.”

Civil has finally made peace with her past. As she sits in Erica and India’s house, and she and the sisters catch up on each other’s lives, she realizes she can let her guilt and sadness go. She no longer feels the need to sacrifice her happiness because she failed to save the girls, and by abandoning the savior complex, she allows herself to be equal to the sisters and finds real community with them.