ALMA: (ODELIA) “An when ya grow up, ya should marry a man just like dat Gaines boy, dat purty yella boy. Don’t you marry nobody like Alton–darkass like Alton–ole funny lookin’ nigga–dat boy is BLACK–BLACK and UGLY.” (ALMA) “Alton ain’t ugly–he ain’t ugly at all.”

EUGENE: I ask Momma, “Momma, how come you’re light and Daddy’s dark?” (THELMA) “Honey, colored people come in all shades. I just happen to be fairer than your daddy is.” (EUGENE) “This boy at school–his name is Wyce–he said that you shouldn’t have been with Daddy cause he’s so black.” (THELMA) “Eugene–don’t pay them any attention. Your father is just as good as anybody else.”

ALMA: “How come when I git old and wanna git married, I can’t marry somebody who got Alton’s color?” (ODELIA) “He is too dark, I keep tellin’ ya–he’s too dark–iffin ya dark like that it don’t look nice–it look ugly.” (ALMA) “Yeah, but you dark.” (ODELIA) “Dat’s why I know what I sayin’–I dark, fat, black, an ugly–Goan outside an play!”

EUGENE: “Daddy, how come you’re dark and live with me and Momma and other light-skinned people here in St. Stephen in the city limits?” (THELMA) “That’s cause your daddy worked full-time at Georgia Pacific and went to school full-time so we could have a good life.” (ROBERT) “Tell him the truth Thelma. I–Robert Gaines–got out of Russelville because I worked harder than light-skinned people like you and your mother and your grandfather Eugene. But how could YOU know what I mean–YOU’ll never know what I mean.”

ALMA: “How come my daddy don live here wit us? Eugene got a momma and a daddy. How come he ain’t here? What he look like?” (ODELIA) “Yo daddy does be on da road an works hard but one day he gon come back for us an we ga git off dis place an live good. One day Alma we ain’t gon slop no hawgs or rake no chicken shit out a yard. Yo daddy ga come back fa us.”

EUGENE: Me and Alton trade Spider-Man comic books. We always trade in school, you know? And one day Alton says (ALTON) “Why don’t you come to my house Eugene?” (EUGENE) And I’m real excited and I said I would you know, but I’m scared in a way because besides certain immediate family I’d never been to anybody’s house before. So we set this time to trade comics and to sketch and draw together because me and Alton are thinking about starting our own comic series. We are going to create our own superhero series.