This is the 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. Gertie is the true story of an African-American woman navigating the post-slavery era of the early 1900s. This is a portrait of an individual who will not be defined by her second-class citizenship. It is based on the author's recollections of her cousin Gertie, a forthright woman who never lacked for audacious adventure. At the turn of the century with the odds stacked against her as a black woman in a society divided by gender and oppressed by race, Gertie is outspoken and unafraid. To survive, she will use everything at her disposal from her lively wit to her use of hoodoo root workers. 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. As an independent woman in a country run on racial repression, Gertie will have many encounters with the law. Through her freewheeling life, readers will get to see many folk remedies and country spells that Gertie used to support her friends and fend off her enemies. One of the more humorous episodes comes in a chapter that covers "sugar shit tea." This unique brew leads to binding potions for sex and love that are unbreakable. Bawdy yet moralizing, these types of magical folk encounters crop up throughout the lively book. By today's standards, author Michele A. Phelps Brown admits that, "Gertie is coarse." However, she encourages the reader to view the full social context of Gertie's life as a second class citizen with limited rights. It surveys the various trials in her life and chronicles the many actions she took to weather her one hundred and one years of life. Living amidst her rural Georgia setting, Gertie has little time for the platitudes of progressive reformers. Instead, she exposes the setting and era for what it was. "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.
About the Author: As a child, Michele Phelps Brown would listen in awe as her cousin Gertie shared her life experiences growing up as a Black child shortly after the end of slavery. The stories of her life captivated all who heard them, and Michele promised herself to one day write Gertie's life story in all of it's glory. Thus, this book is written as told to her by Gertie. Michele A. Phelps Brown was born and raised in Harlem, New York City. After she received her B.S and M.S degrees, she married and relocated to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where she was employed as an educator with the Broward County School System, until her recent retirement. She lives in Florida with her husband and is the mother of three children. Michele continues to have a close relationship with her cousin Gertie, who is currently 101 years old, and counting.