In This Our Life

Roy Timberlake: What made you decide to become a lawyer?

Parry Clay: Well, you see, it's like this, Miss Roy: a white boy, he can take most any kind of job and improve himself. Well, like in this store! Maybe he can get to be a clerk or a manager. But a colored boy, he can't do that. He can keep a job or he can lose a job. But he can't get any higher up. So he's got to figure out something he can do that no one can take away. And that's why I want to be a lawyer.

Roy Timberlake: Why, Perry, that's wonderful. I had no idea. Minerva never told me.

Parry Clay: Ma's afraid for a colored boy to have too much ambition.