Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off

"I was fortunate to read Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off when it was first published and to know its author, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, well. The book impressed me mightily then. Now, almost half a century later, it remains an amazing work. Humorous and heartbreaking in equal measure, this is Smart-Grosvenor at her tale-telling best, and her voice resonates as though the reader is sitting down with her. It is also an eye-opener, combining history, personal recounting, poetry, and more. After reading it, you’ll never think about domestic work the same way again."—Jessica B. Harris, author of My Soul Looks Black: A Memoir

"Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off is an unforgettable volume that chronicles the experiences of black women domestic workers ‘in service’ to white employers. Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor’s masterful storytelling weaves interviews, poetry, history, news reports, bits of memoir, and humor together with critical observations about the nature of everyday racism."—Melissa Cooper, author of Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination

"Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was the ultimate storyteller."—Premilla Nadasen, from the Foreword

"By turns informative, witty, enraging, and heartbreaking, storyteller Smart-Grosvenor’s Domestic Rap tells it like it is for domestic workers of color. “Is,” is the operative word. Originally written in 1972, reissued by the UMN Press, the book, alas, cannot be taken as a quaint history of a bygone past." —Lavendar