"When I was about 19 years old, I left home and my grandmother gave me a quilt that she had made, and this quilt was something that I didn't really care for. It had all these different colors and these different patches in it, and I was quite embarrassed by it. I had no value in it at all. When the dog got wet, I dried him off with it. When I needed to change the oil in the car, I laid it on the ground. I had no respect for this quilt. Many years later, as I was walking past one of those fancy antique stores that I could finally go in and shop, I saw in the window a quilt that looked just like the one that she had given me. As I'm in the store wondering where that quilt was, there was an attendant who walked up to me and said, 'Let me tell you about the quilt. It was made by an African American woman who was a former slave, and each patch in the quilt represented a part of her life. One part was from a dress that she was wearing when she found out that she was free. Another part was from her wedding dress when she jumped the broom.' As I was hearing this story, I became so embarrassed. Here I was, a person who prides myself in celebrating our heritage, our culture, and I didn't even recognize the value in my grandmother's quilt. I dismissed her work and her story because it didn't look like what I thought it should. Now whether we know it or not, we are all sewing our own quilts with our thoughts, our behaviors, our experiences and our memories. Like in my own quilt, one of my memories [is that] when I was about 10 years old, I remember my father standing at the door. I was wondering why he stood there so long. He was frustrated and walked away, and I asked my mother what was going on. She said he had worked all week and he was waiting for the man to come and pay him and he never did. They needed the money at the time. And I tell you, she was so frustrated. She turned to me and she said, 'Don't you ever stand by the door waiting for white folks to do nothing for you.' … My mother wasn't a racist, but in her quilt, she couldn't imagine a world where her son was not waiting by the door for someone. In her quilt, she couldn't imagine me actually building my own door and holding that door open for thousands of people. In my mother's quilt, she couldn't imagine me owning land that was once a Confederate army base where Confederate soldiers plotted and planned on how to keep Blacks enslaved. Now on that very land, Black people, white people, gay, straight, lesbian, transgender, ex-cons, Latin, Asian, all of us come together working -- all come together to add patches to a quilt that is as diverse as it can be. Diversity at its best." --Tyler Perry, Governors Award recipient
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September 21, 2020 at 10:20AM
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2020 Emmy winners: The best acceptance speech moments - msnNOW
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