The extended family. The idea of ancestry / Etheridge Knight -- Just like a tree / Ernest J. Gaines. Wives and husbands. The wedding / June Jordan -- The poker party / William Melvin Kelley -- Roselily / Alice Walker -- The wife of his youth ; Po' Sandy / Charles Chesnutt Mothers and daughters. Momma / Paulette Childress White -- Black mother woman / Audre Lorde -- Mother / Andrea Lee -- The circling hand / Jamaica Kincaid -- Getting the facts of life / Paulette Childress White. Fathers and daughters. Forgiving my father / Lucille Clifton -- New African / Andrea Lee. Mothers and sons. Mother to son / Langston Hughes -- The sky is gray / Ernest J. Gaines. Fathers and sons. Those winter Sundays / Robert Hayden -- Forty in the shade / John McCluskey, Jr. -- A long day in November / Ernest J. Gaines. Sisters. The house slave / Rita Dove -- Little brother / John Edgar Wideman -- Adventures of the Dread sisters / Alexis De Veaux. Brothers. My brother is homemade / Sam Cornish -- Sonny's blues / James Baldwin. Aunts and uncles. The house on Norwood / Toi Derricotte -- Aunt Carrie / Rita Dove -- Gorilla, my love / Toni Cade Bambara. Grandparents. My Grandfather walks in the woods / Marilyn Waniek -- The weakness / Toi Derricotte -- To Da-duh, in memoriam / Paule Marshall -- Miss Cynthie / Rudolph Fisher.