Bette:  I remember that so many people who were active in the civil rights movements of the seventies and eighties attended his funeral. Gloria Steinem was there. Blew me away. There were so many pictures of him and someone famous which came from his office after his death. Jimmy Carter, Julian Bond, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Malcom X, and many more. I took each one of them and put them into a photo album and disposed of the frames. Someday, it will belong to one of the kids or I may give it to Paris since she never knew her father.

Tina: Why do you think Melvin was so well liked by his friends and colleagues and was such an authoritarian to his children?

Harriett:  Good question. Melvin thought he had to be the perfect parent. He felt he needed to appear to have complete knowledge of everything in front of his children. He needed to set the rules and the expectations and hold those lines as rigidly as possible. His biggest fear was that he would show weakness to his children. For if he were weak, they too would be weak and he could not bear to think he had a weak child.

Bette:  Well, he could have done a little better in showing his love, compassion and empathy for us. Instead, Kit and I grew up believing we were never good enough for him. Whatever we did or were, we were just a little bit short of what he expected. So, when the time came to spread our wings, we did and we both left the nest as fast and as hard as we could. You see, our home was not a place of refuge for us. It was not a welcoming place to be – rather cold and lacked love and warmth and happiness. I loved my father, but that was not where I wanted to spend my free time. And after Tina and I got together and he was always referring to her has my friend and calling her Miss Kennard, well that did not endear him to me either. And I was so weak, I couldn’t stand up to him and put an end to that mess. So, I failed to protect my wife and lover from his rudeness and I will never forgive myself for that. And when he refused to acknowledge that our baby… that he was not going to be his grandchild, well I was devasted. I don’t know that I will ever forgive him for that.