Me and Mary: An African American Grandma, the Grandson She Raised, and the Lessons She Taught Him

What Makes an Ordinary Life Extraordinary?

Me and Mary tells the story of Mary Moore, a woman of remarkable grace and courage, and the life lessons she both learned and passed on to the grandson she raised. It’s about how she and the family she built gave a little boy love powerful enough to see him through subsequent years plagued by violence, poverty, and almost unimaginable adversity. And it's about how she accomplished this in late 60s and 70s Birmingham—at that time, the most racially oppressive city in America.

Told through the eyes of that grandson, we see Mary as the strong matriarch who refused to be crushed by the indignities of her world, one where being female and Negro, poor and Southern, the daughter of sharecroppers and orphaned, were all counted against her, all in a culture ruled by segregation during the day and where the KKK roamed at night. Still, she’d overcome--never allowing herself to be broken or ever ceasing to believe the best in humanity. And throughout her life, in a million small, quiet ways, she’d endeavor to pass those virtues of faith and fortitude on.

Mary's story is that of a Southern domestic. Her daily radius was less than five miles, and her role as pastor's wife and mother, almost entirely behind the scenes. Still, the ripple effects of her life would touch everything, from the Civil Rights movement to race relations, from the AIDS epidemic to the election of the first African American president. As a result, her life reminds us of our immense power—that each of us, no matter who society tries to tell us that we are, has it within us to shape the fate of the world itself.