Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them

Our high school history teacher gave each of us the name of a well-known American and told us to read a biography about him, write a summary of the book, and read it to the class. I was assigned philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the book, I came across a well-known Emerson quote: “Men are what their mothers made them.” One afternoon, as my boyhood best friend and mentor, Jaybird, and I lounged on his porch, gazing across my father’s Mississippi Delta cotton farm, I mentioned the quote and said that I didn’t quite understand it. Surely Emerson appreciated the way the old black man explained it. “Boy, what lessons does Miss Lena preach to you de most?”