is the way I heard.

The doctor believed a person had a right to be called whatever they wanted to be called.

It was a simple belief she repeated aloud many times over the course of her long and remarkable

life, a belief that served her well, even before she became a doctor.

As a little girl in Arkansas traumatized by an unspeakable act of violence, the doctor,

who was not yet a doctor, refused to be called a victim.

Even though she'd been molested at just seven years of age, she preferred to be called

a survivor, and so she was, because a person had a right to be called whatever they wanted

to be called.

Years later, after she regained her ability to speak, the survivor worked as a pimp in

San Diego, and then a prostitute.

She wasn't exactly proud of her new profession, but nor was she ashamed.

And so the doctor, who was not yet a doctor, used her real name, Marguerite, and made sure

her clients remembered it, because a person had a right to be called whatever they wanted

to be called.

In San Francisco, when Marguerite went looking for honest work, she applied for a job that

no woman had ever done before.

They laughed at her, said she was uppity.

Marguerite ignored all that, because she wanted to be called a street car conductor, which

is exactly what she became the first black female street car conductor in America.

Why?

Because the doctor, who was not yet a doctor, believed a person had a right to be called

...