Suzan-Lori Parks

Pulitzer Prize for Drama

My father was born and raised in Chicago. Very, very, very, very, very poor family. My mom from Texas, not well-to-do certainly, her mother was a teacher. Her grandfather had a bunch of black businesses and did things in Odessa like build sidewalks and things like that, but they weren't rich. But they understood the importance of education. They met in college at Southern University, which at that time was a segregated college -- or university I suppose -- in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So it was a segregated school. So, to say they were academic, you know, I meet people who are from academic families, and it kind of wasn't like that. It was just that I think my parents recognized the importance of working hard and enjoyed school. You know what I mean? So they weren't sort of these academics. They were more like hard-working people who enjoyed school and wanted us to enjoy school.
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