The Wisdom Collection
What They Knew
Pastor Nicole's Southern Black Wisdom — The Sayings, Faith, and Legacy That Raised Us
$14.99
Instant digital download. Your purchase supports Nicole Washington Ministries, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
This Book Was Written for You
There are sayings you grew up hearing that you have never seen written down anywhere.
Wisdom passed across kitchen tables, front porches, and church fellowship halls — from grandmothers who never went to college to grandchildren who did not always understand what they were receiving until years later, when life happened and the old words suddenly made perfect sense.
What They Knew was written for everyone who:
- Grew up in a Southern Black household where faith, food, and wisdom were always on the same table.
- Lost someone who carried knowledge they never wrote down.
- Has been trying to remember a saying their grandmother used and cannot quite get the words right.
- Wants to preserve the language of their own heritage before it fades.
- Never grew up in this tradition but recognizes something true and universal in the wisdom of people who survived things that should have broken them.
This book is for anyone who understands that the people who raised us knew things that no classroom ever taught.
And that some of the most important wisdom in the world came wrapped in a country accent and smelled like Sunday dinner.
What You Will Walk Away With
What They Knew is two books in one.
Part One preserves the people — 34 chapters built around the Mitchell and Perdue families of Birmingham, Alabama, whose story spans six generations from a plantation back porch to a publishing house. You will meet Dr. Aldis Samuel Mitchell, who walked to school with his feet wrapped in sackcloth and built a medical practice during Jim Crow. Ada Blanche Perdue Mitchell, who graduated Spelman with honors and gave her granddaughter Psalm 23 as a lifeline. Aunt Willie Mae, who took in a teenage girl put out of her own house and taught her everything worth knowing — including how to shell peas, draw milk, and trust God in the small things. And the many others who built this family with wisdom, faith, and Southern Black resilience.
Part Two preserves the language — more than 130 sayings, proverbs, and expressions organized alphabetically with their meanings, origins where known, and the stories behind them.
This book will give you:
- A record of people and wisdom worth preserving forever.
- Language to describe things you have always known but never had words for.
- A way to pass it on — to your own children, grandchildren, and everyone who comes after you.
- And the recognition that the people who raised you knew far more than they were ever given credit for.
A Word from Inside the Pages
"My grandfather walked to school with his feet wrapped in sackcloth. He owned one pair of shoes at Morehouse College until the soles wore through. He went on to Meharry Medical College, built a practice in North Birmingham during segregation, and was on the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church the day the bomb exploded. He retrieved his medical bag and ran back toward the wounded. This is what I come from. This is what they knew. And this is why I refuse to give up."
— Pastor Nicole Washington, What They Knew
Get Your Copy Today
$14.99
Instant digital download. All purchases support Nicole Washington Ministries, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.