Michele Norris talks about her new book, "The Grace of Silence", Monday night at the downtown Borders Books and Music.

Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com

National Public Radio’s Michele Norris, co-host of the popular news program “All Things Considered,” spoke to a crowd of more than 100 at Borders Monday evening about her new memoir, “The Grace of Silence.”

She began by admitting that although she graduated from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota, her husband is a U-M grad, so they have a maize and blue room in their home. “I like to say that I have all the ground-burrowing rodents represented at our house,” Norris quipped.

Norris then launched into the story of how she came to write “Grace” when her original intention was to write about the national conversation on race that was happening in the wake of Barack Obama’s historic presidential campaign.

At that time, Norris noticed that members of her own family were talking about events and memories they’d never mentioned before.

“They were almost unburdening themselves. It was if something had shifted, and they felt free to talk about things that they had locked away for a very long time,” said Norris. “ … Even if they didn’t agree with (Obama), even if they were not members of his political party, something felt like it shifted when they … picked up the newspaper and saw a man of color at a really big desk in the Oval Office that looked something like one of their grandkids. … Suddenly the prize (that they’d been urged to keep their eye on) was in their breathing space. And they started to exhale.”

The first story to surface involved Norris’ maternal grandmother, who worked as a traveling Aunt Jemima throughout the Midwest in the late ’40s and early ‘50s. This shocked Norris mostly because the character clashed with the highly polished, put-together woman she knew who emphasized education and wore a silk scarf over her hair. Norris struggled to imagine a kerchief on that same head, tied above the forehead.

But because Norris’ mother refused to talk about it, Norris turned to newspaper clippings for more information. “It’s like (my grandmother) was talking to me from the grave,” said Norris. “Now, I have no idea what kind of hard bargain she made with herself when she sat down in front of the mirror and put that scarf on. I don’t know what that was like. I don’t know what it was like when she hiked up that hoop skirt. But when she talked to the reporter that day, there was no shame in what she describes. She talked about how she would sing gospel songs while she served pancakes, because she wanted people to know that she was a church woman. … She talked about how she would speak a certain way because she wanted people in these small towns … to know that she was educated. She knew that many of the people in these small towns had never seen a woman of color, had never seen a negro man. So she spoke in a certain way. Now this made sense to me, because my grandmother was always on us to make sure that we spoke a certain way. If we were talking and said we were goin’ somewhere, or we were fixin’ to do something, she would say, ‘Did you leave the ‘G’ outside the door?’ … What I realized is that she took this (Jemima) role that could’ve really easily been demeaning, and used it to lift up her people.”

“Finding that (clipping) was a gift to my mother, because the story then went down so much easier for her,” said Norris. “ … When she read this, she learned about how her mother was a bit subversive, was a bit of an activist.”

This story soon led to the reveal of another family secret: that Norris’ father, after fighting in World War II, was shot by a white police officer in Alabama in 1946.

Indeed, Norris soon learned that in this historical moment, several black veterans were violated, attacked, or killed by police officers across the country.

“They participated in the fight for democracy, and they came back with this crazy notion that they might get a taste of it back home,” said Norris. “ … Their demands were pretty simple. They wanted jobs, they wanted respect, they wanted to vote. … And they were met with a wall of resistance.”

Norris explained that in many cases, these men swallowed their anger and chose an alternative path, thus giving rise to the book’s title, “The Grace of Silence.”

“They were a group of men that had so many reasons to be angry at the world,” said Norris. “They could have so easily become unproductive members of society. Instead they went the other way. They lived lives of utter rectitude. They were trying so hard to show America who they are, who they were, what they were worth. You probably know some of these men. They carry themselves a certain way. Their shoulders are always square, they’re older men in their 80s and 90s, they tend to wear hats. … Their cars are always clean. You could do your makeup in the chrome. … In the way they carry themselves, the way they comport themselves, the clothes that they put on their back, they seem to say, ‘I am worthy of your respect.’ A silent plea that says, ‘I am a man.’”

So what did Norris take away from the experience of writing “Grace”?

“I learned big things about my family, but I learned all kinds of small things about my country,” Norris said. “ … It made me think about history not with a capital H, but with a small h, in the way that we’re all a part of.”

Norris took several questions from the audience following her talk, including one about whether it’s possible to have a dialogue about race.

“One of the things I try to point to is this bifurcation between race and racism,” said Norris. “Racism is really different than race, … and when people hear about a supposed dialogue on race, what they often hear in the back of (their mind) is, ‘Oh, Lord, we’re going to start talking about racism.’ And those are two different things. And if you’re talking about race, it’s easier to have an honest, and a respectful and a productive conversation. Racism does still need to be addressed, but it’s possible to talk about one without necessarily getting into a lot of finger-pointing about the other.”

Norris also said, “When working on this, I spent a lot of time talking to people, … and one of the things I realized is that, if you want to have an honest dialogue about race, you’re going to hear something that’s going to make your stomach turn at some point. Something that’s just going to hurt you in a deep, deep, visceral place. And it’s difficult to sit there and listen to someone. But I think it’s worth doing.”

When asked if any family members are unhappy about the publication of her book, Norris replied, “I’m not going to tell you that everyone said, ‘I’m down with this, go for it girlfriend.’ That’s not the way it happened. And when you write a family memoir, you ask a lot of people to take a journey with you that didn’t exactly sign up for the ride. And we just had to talk to it, and we continue to talk through it.”

Near the end of her talk, Norris spoke about how parents often try to avoid weighing down their children with their own frustrations.

“You don’t send them out the door with these big, heavy rocks in their pockets as they’re leaving the threshold,” said Norris. “Someone in Baltimore used this metaphor that I have held on to and I have been using. … Maybe you don’t want to give them boulders, but it’s OK to give them pebbles. Because they need to be grounded.”

Two attendees at Norris’ talk were U-M social work grad student Cherish Thomas and her mentor, Dr. Gail Parker, of Bingham Farms.

Parker had heard Norris interviewed about the book on the radio and was struck by her emphasis on the power of storytelling.

“I’m a psychologist, so that means a lot to me,” said Parker. “I get the power of story. The quote that she said that I wrote down was, “May your path forward be uncluttered by my pain,” which was why she thought that her father had not told her some of the stories. And I can relate to that. As an African American, so many of the stories that we don’t hear are because they’re so painful. So it really resonated with me.”

On Parker’s recommendation, Thomas had checked out Norris’ book and found the ideas behind it compelling.

“I think a lot of our passions come from really analyzing where we came from,” said Thomas. “ … I was like, this is an opportunity. It’s cultural capital. It’s something that can help us in our lives.”

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.