"GERTIE" Debuts on African American Historical Fiction List
True Story of a woman who made headline news in 1958 for welfare fraud, and then was raped by the attorney hired to defend her.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., April 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- GERTIE is the true story of an African-American woman navigating the post-slavery era of the early 1900s and refusing to be defined by her second-class citizenship. It is based on Author Michele A. Phelps Brown's recollections of her cousin Gertie, a forthright woman who despite growing up with the odds stacked against her as a black woman in a society divided by gender and oppressed by race, remained outspoken and unafraid.
Told in traditional oral African-American syntax, this biography reveals Gertie's belief in self-preservation, folk healing, and the improvised solutions fostered by dire poverty. To survive, she will use everything at her disposal from her lively wit to her use of hoodoo root workers. Through the book, readers will get to see many folk remedies and country spells that Gertie used to support her friends and fend off her enemies.
The book doesn't shy away from describing the social afflictions that decimated the African-American community of the time. The author does not back away from revealing how endemic many social dysfunctions among rural African-Americans were including child abuse, domestic violence, and promiscuity. As a young woman coming up in the world, Gertie must learn what behaviors to adopt and which ones to reject. GERTIE surveys the choices she made and the actions she took to weather her one hundred and one years of life.
"All freedom did for us was make us pay money to be slaves," says Gertie. Yet she will defy her circumstances to lead a life of integrity.
GERTIE is available in printed or ebook form on Amazon.com and through various online retailers.
SOURCE Michele A. Phelps Brown
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