Regina4653
Abigail Mae Carter was born before sunrise on a hot July morning in 1947, in a little house tucked between cotton fields and pine woods outside Macon, Georgia.
Her mother said Abigail entered the world singing.
Her father said she entered it hungry.
Both were probably right.
The Carters didn't have much. Their house was small, their money smaller, and there were six children sleeping under one roof. But there was always music.
On Sundays, Abigail's mother sang gospel in the church choir. Her father played blues guitar after supper. Her grandmother knew old spirituals, work songs, and stories that had traveled through generations of Black Southern families.
Abigail listened to all of it.
By the time she was six, she was making up songs.
She sang about everything-the creek behind the house, the woman who sold sweet potatoes downtown, the boy who broke her heart at church when she was only eight, and the red dress her mother had sewn from leftover fabric.
At ten, Abigail performed at a local church fundraiser.
At twelve, she was singing on a small radio program.
At fourteen, people in neighboring towns were beginning to know her name.
But Abigail's dream was bigger than Georgia.
She wanted to write songs that could make a person laugh while they were crying.
She wanted to sing for people who had never been heard.
Most of all, she wanted to prove that a Black girl from a poor Southern family could walk into any room in America and belong there.