Life in the Key of G

The Reporters Inc.’s new contributor shares vivid episodes from her fascinating life, in hopes of inspiring others to share their own stories

December 2025

Editor’s Note: The Reporters Inc. is pleased to introduce our newest contributor, G. Marshall-Brooks. As she details in the introduction to her first column, a recurring feature we’re calling “Life in the Key of G,” she began writing about her life in hopes the stories would help her family better understand who she really is, and how she became who she is. G. also hopes these honest, fascinating essays encourage and inspire others to share their own memories and experiences with loved ones. As she explains, “Embrace the stories of your life as you read mine.”

BY G. MARSHALL-BROOKS

My name is G. Marshall-Brooks and I’m a writer, singer, speaker, mom, grandmother, woman, person, human being. I’ve been writing since I was 10-years-old. It’s taken that long for me to finally find my voice, and I refuse to ever be silenced again.

Every human has stories. They make up the who and what we are. However, it takes a certain amount of courage and growth to be able to tell your stories to someone you love.

As I ease on up to 73-years old, I think I’ve finally become that kind of person. Some of my stories will surprise you. Some of them will upset you. Some will make you laugh and some will definitely make you cry. But they’re the stuff of a life well lived. I carry each one proudly because that’s how I became me.

I began this series of stories about my life after the passing of my children’s father in 2019. As I dealt with my children and grandchildren’s grief, it reminded me of the death of my own father.

I had no one to help me through my grief, even though I had six siblings and other family around me. As the youngest, there just didn’t seem to be anyone who could see my pain, because of their own. I didn’t want my own family to go through the same thing.

When my mom passed, we found out that there was a whole past life that our parents hid from us, due to their private pain. So many questions could never be answered. So many explanations for our experiences as children would never be explained. The answers to our questions were buried forever.

So, I asked my adult children to ask questions while I’m still here. Their faces told me that they had no idea what I was talking about. What questions? About what? You’re “Mom” and “Nana,” they said. We already know you. That’s when I realized that we don’t know the questions to ask of our loved ones until the person is gone. When it’s too late for answers, that’s when the holes in the stories start to show.

I began writing about my life because I wanted my family to know who I was before I was Mom and Nana. I was a person and I had life experiences that shaped me into the person they knew. Experiences that also helped me shape them into who they became.

And so my journey to give my family the gift of myself as a person began. I’ve written stories about my childhood, my birth family, my teenage years, my marriage and the births of my children. I’ve even written about my experiences trying to work and raise my children as a single mother.

This began as a gift to my family. However, it’s morphed into a gift for everyone who doesn’t know how to begin to share themselves with their own families. How to help their loved ones understand that they had personhood before parenthood. How to share the answers before it’s necessary to ask the questions.

I want to encourage you to read my stories and think about your own. I also want to challenge you to tell your stories to someone, anyone or everyone. Embrace the stories of your life as you read mine.

Uncle Oscar and the answered prayer 

Let me start from the beginning. My first memory is standing between my parents as they knelt in front of the divan. Divan was my mother’s word for our sofa. I don’t remember how old I was but I was still in diapers, maybe 1953 or 1954. My parents praying was not uncommon in the days before I was old enough to go to school. I also remember Tuesday morning prayer meeting.

I think my dad worked the graveyard shift, as it was called back then. In addition to being a minister, he cleaned buses for Detroit’s Department of Street Railways. Referred to as the DSR, it operated the buses and streetcars for the city. After he got home, my mom, dad and I would drive to someone’s house very early in the morning, around six or seven, so we wouldn’t see many other cars on the street.

There’d be maybe eight or ten people sitting in wooden folding chairs in someone’s living room. They’d sing maybe one chorus of “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and then pray together for an hour. After that, we’d go home and daddy would go to bed.

When I was probably about four-years-old, I was with my mom and dad again, praying at the divan. It was early morning and by this age I was on my knees, too. They were praying about not having enough food to last until Friday, dad’s payday. Their prayers only lasted maybe 10 minutes. After that, we got up and went on with our day.

But one particular memory was different. A couple hours after my parents finished praying, the doorbell rang. At the door was a man we called Uncle Oscar. I’m not sure if he was really our uncle, because most of our family connections were vague. He rarely came all the way in, because Uncle Oscar always had a cigar clamped between his teeth. Daddy didn’t allow smoking in our house, so Uncle Oscar usually stopped at the door.

Now when I think back, we probably only saw him if my dad had borrowed money from him. I sensed, even at this very young age, that Uncle Oscar was all about money.

Uncle Oscar was standing at the door with two bags overflowing with groceries. Now, this was exceptionally weird because Uncle Oscar never, ever brought anything to our house. Yes, even at four, I knew this about him, possibly from listening to the adults around me. As the baby, I was more or less invisible when the adults talked. It took years for my parents to realize that I heard and understood far beyond my age.

Anyway, both my parents were open-mouthed with surprise. Uncle Oscar said that something told him to bring us groceries. From the expression on his face, he seemed as surprised as we were. If I’d been a little older, it would have been really funny.

After he left and my mom was putting the groceries away, I overheard my dad telling her that God must have sent him to answer our prayers. They chuckled about that for a good while.

A terrifying tumble

In order to bring in extra money, my parents would sometimes rent out rooms. With seven children to feed, it was necessary to economize and my parents were very creative.

My two oldest brothers, who were 19 and 18, had moved out before I was two-years-old. I knew they were my brothers but they visited instead of living with us.

Our house had three bedrooms and the attic had two large rooms. My parents put two iron beds in one room and my sister and I slept in one bed and my two youngest brothers slept in the other bed. My parents would sleep on an identical bed in the other room. The oldest brother living at home had his own room because he was working.

That left two bedrooms to rent out.

There was a window in our attic room because it faced the front of the house. It would get really hot on summer nights and so we would keep it open. But if you looked out of the window where we slept, you would see all kinds of belts and extension cords on the slanted roof. My brothers were good at throwing those out there so they couldn’t be found when daddy was going to punish them.

I was four or five when I had what I now know was my first panic attack. I don’t remember why I was in the living-room. But I saw Mr. Smith, who rented the front bedroom, coming down the stairs with his cane. He’d never seemed to warm up to me and I just assumed he didn’t like children. I think that I may have been trying to stay out of his line of sight.

On this particular day, he came down the stairs very slowly. He crossed the hallway and came into the living room. I was on the other side of the room near the sofa. There was a space and then a coffee table between us. I don’t believe he even saw me. Then, he just fell onto the coffee table, jerking and shaking wildly. The coffee table broke and he continued jerking and foaming at the mouth. I just froze, watching him. I had no idea what was happening.

When the table broke it made a lot of noise. Which brought my mother and older brother running in from the kitchen. Standing in the corner across the room, neither of them even looked at me. They rushed over to Mr. Smith who was lying on the rug. My mom ran back to the kitchen for a spoon to put in his mouth, as they did back then. My brother tried to keep him from hurting himself. When it seemed it had stopped, my mother and brother got him up off the floor. Then, they helped him up the stairs to his room.

I was still frozen in the corner of the living room. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but it was a long time. No one came to look for me and apparently no one noticed that I wasn’t with the rest of my family. Finally, I seemed to come to myself and went to the kitchen. I was still shaken but no one seemed to know to explain to me what happened to Mr. Smith. After I became an adult, I learned that Mr. Smith had what was probably an epileptic seizure. To this day, I still feel panic if I’m around someone who has seizures.

The wedding mystery 

When I was five, my oldest brother got married. I was to be the flower girl in the wedding. My brother was marrying a girl who had a twin sister, and at the time it frustrated me no end. We attended the same church and whenever I saw one of them, I didn’t know which twin was talking to me. They both treated me like a beloved little sister, but my brain couldn’t handle not knowing them apart. This made me not want to be close to either one.

For the wedding, I was to wear a miniature copy of the bride’s wedding dress. My mother had my hair curled and I wore lacy white socks with white patent leather shoes. I thought I was beautiful like a fairy queen. When it was my time to walk down the aisle and toss my rose petals, I did it perfectly. However, when I got down to the altar, I wouldn’t go to my sister-in-law. I knew that was what I was supposed to do, but I went to my brother instead. Like I said, not being able to tell the twins apart really bothered me.

Before the ceremony was over, my mom whisked me away because our family had to leave. At the time I didn’t know why. But later I found out that my mother’s mom had a hissy fit about something, and demanded to leave. She was never a happy person. To this day, I still don’t know what was so important that my parents had to leave their own son’s wedding. Not to mention, my parents had paid to bring her all the way from Birmingham, Alabama just for the ceremony.

The oasis of school

I started at Caroline Crossman Elementary School when I was five-years-old. It was uncommon in the 1950s to have integrated schools. But Detroit in its heyday was very cosmopolitan due to the auto industry. Every imaginable country was represented in the Detroit metropolitan area. Thus, I went to school with a mix of ethnicities. My parents, despite being from the segregated Deep South, always had friends of many races. I was raised to accept people by who they were and not their color.

There was also an area near our home that was an all-Black neighborhood, called Palmer Woods. It was where some very mega-rich Black folks lived. Sports figures and entertainers, mostly. The houses were enormous. Plus, it had its own private police force. However, at the parks, stores and many of the businesses, everyone would just kind of mingle.

I totally loved school. One of my brothers had started teaching me to sight-read when I was two. That meant books were already my favorite pastime. School had tons of books to read and many, many songs to sing. It also had an endless supply of paper and a million colors of crayon. I was in heaven! I’d watched my sister, who was four years older, disappear around the corner going to school for years. Now I got to go around that corner, too. I was beyond delighted.

My school was next door to Herman Keefer Hospital. I had to cross the John C. Lodge freeway to get there from my house. So, I could go over the bridge, which was exciting. Or I could go the long way around, by the streetlights. I felt powerful because I could decide each day which way I would go. This was one of maybe two opportunities for me to have a choice about anything in my young life.

If I went by the streets, I would see my middle older brother at the bus stop across the street on his way to work at the supermarket. I thought he was so handsome in his snap brim cap. He would smile and wave at me. If I went over the bridge at the freeway, I could walk with my school friend, Brenda, who lived a few streets away. The families on her street were considered wealthy. I visited her once but her parents subtly made me aware that I was not to be invited back.

When I was in first grade my sister was in fifth grade. She and I would always hurry home when report cards came out, so we could show our dad. He gave us an allowance based on having good grades. We both always had lots of As, which irritated our brothers. One memory is when I counted 17 As on my report card. Which was like one or two more than my sister. She was good at finding ways to make me regret that.

I remember we were getting 17 cents a week, and we negotiated with my dad to raise it to 25 cents. It was one of the rare times that my sister and I agreed on anything. We were so proud of ourselves. We went to the corner store and got a little bag overflowing with penny candy. At that time candy cost two for a penny and sometimes four for a penny. My sister would usually eat all of hers and then trick me out of some of mine. Actually, I let her do it because I loved my sister. She’d always either ignore me or deliberately get me in trouble, but to me she was still perfect. I don’t know if she ever realized I wasn’t as stupid as she thought.

Christmas traditions

I loved Christmas as a child. Not because we got lots of presents. With five kids at home, that was never the kind of Christmas we had. I loved the traditions and family closeness.

My dad would wait until Christmas Eve to buy our tree because the tree lots would practically give away whatever trees were left. But he always found a big, beautiful tree anyway and it always had the clean, crisp smell of pine. We were city kids, so a live tree was special to us. My dad and the boys would get it centered in front of the window, and my mom would get the tree holder. Then they’d tie it to the holder so it would stand straight.

Mom would have already hung our stockings across the mantel. They were all red velvet with white fur around the top, and our names were embroidered on the fur. Inside would be an orange, an apple, several kinds of nuts, a large candy cane and a little trinket.

The whole family would decorate the tree with a mix of store-bought and homemade decorations. There were lots of fat, colored Christmas lights that my dad and the boys had to untangle. My sister and I would make colorful paper chains and cut outs. My mom would put candy canes on all the branches. Then we’d put angel hair all over the tree to give it a gauzy glow. Of course, it also made all of us itch, too. But we didn’t care. Lastly, my dad would lift me up to put the angel on the top of the tree. Sometimes, I’d just sit on the floor in front of that tree for hours. It was so beautiful and I was quite happy just looking at it.

My mom would be cooking for a couple weeks ahead of Christmas dinner. My two older brothers were married and would bring their families over to have dinner with us. We’d have both a ham and a stuffed turkey because there were so many of us. Mom would make her famous banana pudding and sweet potato pies. It was a feast!

Since my dad was a minister, Christmas was a very religious holiday in our home. We would read the Christmas story from The Bible and we were well aware that the day was about more than getting presents. Daddy promised us that he would never lie to us, so I always knew that Santa wasn’t real. I’d been told the real story of Kris Kringle, but my enjoyment of the holiday was never impacted by it. I never felt the need to enlighten other children my age. I just accepted that’s how it was.

The only bummer about Christmas was that if it fell on a Sunday we had to attend church before we could open our presents. But that wasn’t enough to dim my enjoyment. Christmas will always be special in my memories of home and family.

Gospel to Motown: There was always music

There was always music in my childhood. From the singing we did at church to the music we listened to on the radio. Rev. C. L. Franklin was Aretha Franklin’s father. His evening church service was broadcast on the radio during the early 1950s. I’d hear a 12-year-old Aretha singing right before her father’s sermon.

One time my parents took me with them to see the service live. As a child, it seemed like a circus. Women in huge Sunday hats would just jump up and throw themselves around. Men would be jerking around like a rag doll. When I asked my dad what was going on, he said they were caught up in “the Spirit.” He actually didn’t seem too convinced of that and I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.

The audience was about two-thirds women and many of them seemed like they just wanted to be seen by the pastor. That’s how it looked to me anyway. The audience noise was louder than the choir and the organ combined. I couldn’t enjoy the music, which was the only thing I understood at that age. Not surprisingly, we never went back.

My mom listened to gospel records, too. She liked Mahalia Jackson and The Clara Ward Singers. But she also liked George Beverly Shea, who would sing before the televised sermons of Billy Graham. He was an internationally known White evangelist and the first televised preacher.

There was also Motown music in my home. Detroit was the mecca for soul music at that time. And homegrown Motown was making big waves across the country. We lived just a few streets away from Hitsville, USA, Motown’s headquarters, which was actually located in a house on West Grand Boulevard.

My oldest brothers had gone to school with some of Motown’s finest talents, like Chuck Jackson and Jackie Wilson. This wasn’t as special as it sounds because it was quite common for Detroit Black folks to have known or lived near many people who became some of the Motown greats. Many got their start just by standing under the corner street lights singing. I saw a couple of my brothers doing that too, but not good enough for Motown.

A television wonderland

My dad put our TV in the basement. It sat in a cabinet that was probably four feet tall; it had a round screen that was about eight inches wide. The shows we watched were in black and white, of course. But we’d sit on an old couch and watch for hours. I was completely mesmerized by that thing.

We’d watch Motown holiday concerts and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand while we secretly danced along with the music. Daddy didn’t allow us to dance because he said it was “the devil’s way and the devil’s music.” But that never actually stopped us. I think he actually knew what we were up to but preferred not to see it.

Eventually, the TV moved to a corner of the dining room. My sister, my youngest brother and I each had wooden, kid-size chairs that we’d sit in, in front of the TV. We’d watch the original Mickey Mouse Club, Spin and Marty, and Superman.

I’d come home from elementary school for lunch and I’d sit in that same chair and eat while I watched Bill Kennedy At the Movies. He was an older actor who’d never quite made it big in Hollywood. His program would present movies from the 1940s and 1950s from 1pm to 3:30pm on weekdays. That’s when I fell in love with the movie musicals. I also fell in love with all the movie stars from the golden age of Hollywood. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire; Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney; Jimmy Stewart and Humphrey Bogart. I knew and loved them all.

Alabama road trips 

In the summers, we’d drive from Michigan to Alabama during daddy’s vacation. The first complete memory I have was when my dad’s mother passed away. At least I thought it was my dad’s mother. I was maybe seven by this time.

We first stopped in Birmingham to see my mom’s mother. Her name was Josephine Leonard and she was tall and never smiled. My mom would hug her mom—we called her “Big Mama”— but she would just pat my mom on the back. I never saw the kind of warmth from her that we got from my mother and, even as a child, it puzzled me.

My dad would speak to her and there was a definite chill between them when she answered. She hadn’t wanted my mother to marry him, but the reasons weren’t clear at the time. I never felt like she liked any of us.

Although my grandmother was dark-skinned, my mother was much lighter. Years later, after my mother passed, I discovered that she was conceived when a son of the family my grandmother worked for raped her. In those days, a White man could do anything he wanted to a Black person without any repercussions. The skin thing was/is a weird kind of cultural leftover from slavery days, when masters taught slaves that lighter skin meant better clothes/work/food. So, my grandmother’s persona was a combination of anger/shame and trauma. But as a little kid, it just seemed that she didn’t like me, and I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

After the short visit to Birmingham, we went on to Goodwater, Alabama where our other relatives lived. My mother and father would stay at my mother’s brother’s farm. Uncle Bill and his wife were the complete opposite of my grandmother. They were happy to see us and there was a lot of laughter and good feelings during our stay.

We were city kids and this was a real working farm. I was afraid of the animals, especially the chickens which seemed to roam free. I hated using the outhouse. It stank to the heavens and I had to walk out to it all by myself.

One time I came out of the outhouse and turned the wrong direction and came face to face with an old bull. All that separated us was a few flimsy wires tied to a couple of posts. I froze. Probably another panic attack. I just stared into those hard eyes and huge nose, knowing that he wasn’t happy to see me. But I was unable to run.

Suddenly, my Uncle Bill grabbed me up in his arms and walked away very fast. When he set me down, I expected a spanking, but he just hugged me and told me to be careful. Still shaking, I promised him I would.

Meeting the extended family

My dad was born in Wetumpka, Alabama. I’m not sure if we went there to see his family or if they were in Goodwater, too. There were lots of uncles and aunties on both sides. No one explained anything and people would ask me if I was “David’s Gwen” and I would always answer yes. My dad and my youngest brother were both named David.

I also had a brother named Robert and one named James. In our extended family it seemed like there were 50 people named David, Robert and James. I spent a lot of the time unsure about who I was talking to, or how they were related to me. Although they all thought I was cute and belonged to someone in the family, most of the time I was just confused.

There were, however, a couple of exceptions. My Uncle Buck, whose name was actually Homer, Jr., was one of my dad’s brothers. He was the black sheep of the family because he drank a lot. But even Uncle Buck respected my dad, who was the oldest sibling. All of my dad’s four brothers and two sisters looked up to him. It was obvious how much they loved him.

The viewing for my grandmother was at my grandfather’s home. Uncle Buck showed up late, which was no surprise.

He was also very drunk, which wasn’t a surprise either. He brought his girlfriend with him. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen and was as drunk as Uncle Buck. There were wall-to-wall people in that house. But only Uncle Buck and his girlfriend paid any attention to me. She told him how cute his niece was, and patted my cheek. Uncle Buck put me on his knee and talked to me like I was a person. Of course, he became my favorite uncle after that. As a matter of fact, even after I was an adult, Uncle Buck and I would talk on the phone now and then. We kept in touch until he passed away the year I turned 50.

My dad’s two sisters were Annie and Janie. They both made sure I knew that they loved my dad. And they also kept in touch with me until they passed away. My Aunt Janie also helped me move to San Diego, years later when I was having so much trouble living with my sister in Pasadena. But that’s another story for another time.

My Aunt Annie was the first to talk to me about my dad’s history. She told me the only thing my father had ever known about his own father, for a long time, was his name. Somehow, my father found his dad, my grandfather, when he was 14.

My dad’s father was also very important to me. When my father got sick before he died, Granddaddy came and spent several months with us. He and my mom took turns at the hospital, so he and I spent a lot of quality time together. I learned to love this dark-skinned, bald man with all of my heart. He was interested in my life and thoughts at a time when no one else was. He also talked to me about his life and how he managed to live through a time when Black people struggled in ways I had trouble understanding. His faith in God and his belief in love as a healing tool have stayed with me to this day.

We talked a lot about my dad and about their relationship. He loved my dad in a way that I’ve tried to emulate with my own children. Even after he was bedridden with Rheumatoid Arthritis, we’d talk on the phone often. I’ve patterned myself as a grandmother after my grandfather’s relationship with me.

Pulled over by police 

When I was about seven, my dad bought a brand new 1959 Cadillac Sedan. This was the first new car he’d ever bought in the year it was made. The others had all been used cars. He was excited about driving it to see the family in Alabama. My three older brothers and my sister sat in the back seat. I sat in the front between my mom and dad.

I noticed that my dad kept looking in the rear view mirror and then glancing at my mom. This went on for a while, until we saw the lights flashing and the siren went off. We’d just passed the Indiana state line into Kentucky. Which means we were officially in the southern belt of the country.

My dad pulled over and the policeman approached the car with his hand on his gun. I’d only seen people pulled over by the police on TV. My dad rolled down the window and the White officer said, “Who’s car is this, boy?” I’d never heard anyone speak to my dad like that. My dad told him it was his. The officer asked him if he was sure. My dad said yes. Then he made my dad step out of the car and show him his license and registration.

After that, the officer made him lean against the car. His partner walked up and told the rest of us to get out. We stood together on one side of the car as my father leaned against the other side. They began to search the car. Then they made my brothers take everything out of the trunk. Then they thoroughly searched through it.

At this point, I started to ask what was going on and my mom put her hand firmly over my mouth. Now I was totally and completely confused. After maybe a half hour, the officers told my father to get his stuff back into the car and leave. They weren’t that nice about how they said it. Since my dad was a respected minister in Detroit, I couldn’t understand why he’d been treated like that. I couldn’t understand why they would call a grown man, “boy.” After we put everything back in the car, we got in and left. However, my dad still kept looking in the rear view mirror.

I learned from the conversation between my mom and dad that the police followed us all the way to the Kentucky state line. Looking back I now realize that my parents had what was called the Green Book. It was a guide to safe places for Black travelers that only Black people knew about. Back then, there were only certain places Black folks could safely eat, use the bathroom, or spend the night.

When we traveled, we passed many brightly lit gas stations before stopping at some tiny single-pump shack for gas. We rarely stayed at hotels because few were Black owned. If we had to spend the night somewhere, it would be in the home of a friend or relative of some church member.

Understanding history to appreciate the present day 

On the same trip, we stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Birmingham, and that’s the first time I saw a water fountain labeled “Whites Only.” Right next to it, but lower down, was another one covered with all kinds of nasty stuff. It was clearly marked “Colored.”

My mom pointed out the A.G. Gaston Motel, the only Black-owned motel in Birmingham at that time. The next year, in May of 1963, this motel was bombed because Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy had been staying there. They’d already left, so they weren’t hurt, but four others were slightly injured.

My dad told us that he took us to Alabama every year to keep us connected to our family, but also our history. While we were there he would take us to farms in the area. He would make us pick cotton and peanuts. There is no shade of any kind in those fields. There are snakes in the cotton fields and the stickers on the cotton will rip your hands. Peanuts are grown in tons and tons of dirt. Again, with no shade trees.

We didn’t have to do it for very long, but we got the message. My dad’s point was that our lives in Detroit, with all the conveniences we enjoyed, came at a price. And the price was paid by our ancestors, who never got to enjoy the fruits of their labor. As young as we were, it was crystal clear what his message was. Those trips were sobering and definitely altered our world view for the better.

A life upheaval at age 10 

My dad preached at a bunch of different churches around the Detroit area. Benton Harbor, Flint, Inkster, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor were a few of them. It was normal for us to drive a couple of hours on a Sunday to some church for him to minister as a guest preacher. I had no idea that these were a sort of audition for him to become a full-time pastor for those churches.

Likewise, I had no idea when one of them actually decided to hire him as full-time pastor.

In January 1963, at the age of 10, I overslept one Saturday morning. I was confused because momma never let us sleep late and I was the only one in bed. Wandering downstairs, the surprises continued. I saw my brothers carrying our couch outside to a truck. When my mom came scurrying past, I asked her what was going on. She said, “We’re moving today.” Before I could ask where or why, she was gone.

Everything in my young life changed that day. We went from cosmopolitan Detroit to a country town. To a new house, new neighborhood, new school and a new life with new rules. The weather went from cold to more snow than I could ever imagine. Nothing and no one in my life would ever be the same. And the only person no one had bothered to tell, was me.

No one in my family seemed to notice that I was upset and scared. Detroit was the only home I’d ever known. This was the only house I’d ever lived in. I knew and understood the routines of this house. My life was ordered to this house and this city. I couldn’t even imagine any other place. I felt invisible and so powerless. It seemed my eight parents (eight because six siblings and both parents could tell me, the youngest, what to do) had decided my future. Not only was I not consulted, no one even thought to tell me what was happening. These feelings of invisibility and abandonment became the norm.

This invisible person would be me for a very long time.

Grand Rapids, where we moved, was another planet.

We lived in a quasi-mixed neighborhood, but the lines between Whites and Blacks were severely drawn. My grade school was newly built, but the attitudes were years in the past. The entire building would have fit on the ground floor of my school in Detroit. The students were all Black and all of the teachers were White.

My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Commode (no joke), was obvious with her feelings that teaching poor little Black children would give her sainthood. She treated us like we had limited futures. It felt like I had entered The Twilight Zone. Mrs. Commode was probably in her sixties, with a powdered and painted face full of wrinkles. The class bullies and clowns made fun of her to her face. She pretended she didn’t notice.

I remember we had a writing assignment and, at the time, I’d become addicted to Ellery Queen Mysteries. The whole “whodunit” thing had me enthralled. With all the fearlessness of a 10-year-old, I decided that I could write a mystery story, too. So, I wrote a story called “The Case of the Missing Grandmother.” Mrs. Commode was so shocked, I thought she’d have a heart attack. She couldn’t believe a Black child could make up a real story. She asked if she could keep it to show her other classes, but I heard her showing her fellow teachers what this little Black girl had written.

I felt like I’d let her down in some way. Distorted her world order. I don’t think she ever expected any of her students were capable of enough independent thought to create a story. I didn’t understand my sadness and disappointment at that point, but it stayed with me for many years.

In Grand Rapids, I walked to school, just as I did in Detroit. But the winters in this new city were long and harsh, with much colder temperatures and tons of snow. I’ve always been short, and I remember getting cramps in my calves from climbing up and down the piled-up snow at the street crossings. When the cramps hit, I literally couldn’t move until they passed. I’d stand one foot up on the bank and one foot on the ground, silently crying. Sometimes it was so cold my tears would feel frozen to my face.

And then there were the ice storms. The ground would freeze and you couldn’t tell the ice from the cement. It was like walking on a tightrope all the way to school.

There were other difficulties at school. Everyone seemed to know everyone else’s brother’s sister’s cousin and their momma. But I had no family connections to anyone. And since I was from Detroit, which was considered “the big city,” it was assumed I thought I was better than everyone else.

My class was also studying stuff I’d already learned back at my old school so I was not only smart (according to Mrs. Commode) but far ahead of my fellow students in classwork. It’s easy to see why I was extremely unpopular.

It took until the end of the sixth grade for me to actually make a real friend. Then we went to different high schools, so I was alone again.

I also developed early, so I already had breasts and my period. Boys thought I was a toy, and girls called me a freak. The only good thing was that I could skip school often by having my period three or four times a month. No one ever questioned when I called out of school for cramps. Somehow the faculty never caught on, or maybe they just didn’t care.

My southern belle mother demanded that I speak proper English, so I didn’t “sound Black.” And because I had good manners, it was assumed I was “uppity.”

One day, the secretary, the assistant principal and the principal were out of the office at the beginning of the school day. One of the teachers had the bright idea to have me sit at the secretary’s desk and answer the phones. I was an obedient child, so I did. I was the only one in the office, so I handled the phones and whatever else was needed for about two hours. When the principal actually arrived, she couldn’t hide her shock. But she was also very grateful and let my parents and everyone else in ear shot know how proud of me she was. Needless to say, that gave my classmates one more reason, on a very long list, to hate me.

My home life at this point was topsy turvy, too. By 1962, four of my older brothers were already out of the house. So, the move to Grand Rapids only included the youngest of my brothers, who was 16, my sister who was 14, and myself. My brother hated the move so much that he got a job, bought a car, and spent every weekend driving back to Detroit. It seemed he also had a girlfriend there that he didn’t want to leave. I never heard my sister complain, but she was never one to say what she thought out loud.

The next two years were tumultuous, to say the least. My brother got married to the Detroit girl and moved to his own apartment. My sister got pregnant at 16, on purpose. Her boyfriend was leaving for college and she didn’t want to be left behind. So they got married and moved in with his mother. That left me, at 12, to become an overprotected only child.

You see, my parents seemed obsessed with keeping me safe from some vague threat. I would ask to go to a friend’s house about four blocks away. The first time I couldn’t go until they met her parents. That wasn’t so bad. The next time I asked, they said yes but when I left for her house, walking down the street, out of the corner of my eye I saw my dad creeping behind me in the car.

In the mornings, while getting dressed for school, my mother would say things like, “So and so said they saw you on such and such street last night. That wasn’t you, right?” My response was always, “Of course not.” But I wondered why she would ask those kinds of questions and if someone really said that to her.

On the other hand, I was scrutinized by the adult church members. What I wore, what I said, and how I acted was criticized often. It got to the point that I would just speak my mind. I wasn’t stupid, and I challenged them when they’d try to interrogate me. My mother would always say, “Be nice.” To which I would respond, “Why aren’t you telling them to be nice to me?”

This whole period of my life was like being on trial and not knowing what the charge was. I felt like I was hanging on by my fingertips. And the difficulties of this major shift continued to affect me long after I became an adult and I had children of my own.

G. Marshall-Brooks is busy writing the next chapter of “Life in the Key of G.” Be sure to sign up for our e-newsletter below to be alerted when we publish her next column. She can be reached at msgrmb@yahoo.com

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