Previous
Carole Cole
Ray, who died before the events of the novel, was Mama Letty’s husband, Zora’s father, and Avery’s grandfather. Before his death, Ray worked as a porter for Amtrak. He married Letty against the wishes of his upper-middle class parents, and the couple was happy together until Ray’s murder at the hands of the Olivers. After the Olivers killed Ray, Mama Letty’s grief for her husband fractured her relationship with her daughter Zora. The circumstances of his death traumatized both Mama Letty and Zora so much that they hide the truth from Avery until she is a teenager. Though Ray never receives an official monument from Bardell, the train station where he met Letty becomes an unofficial monument to his life.
Raymond “Ray” Harding Quotes in We Deserve Monuments
The We Deserve Monuments quotes below are all either spoken by Raymond “Ray” Harding or refer to Raymond “Ray” Harding. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6 Quotes
I thought about my resolution last night to dig my heels into the earth, truly get to know Mama Letty. So I wished to learn how to revel in her, how to become a granddaughter she would miss and trust. I wished for her to eventually become comfortable enough to tell me about the grandfather I never knew. Most important, I wished to find my way back to myself, whoever she might be.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes
I knew how the story ended, but my eyes welled with tears anyway. I knew about the Klan. I’d felt my blood boil learning about them in museums and history books. There were so many people who liked to believe the Jim Crow era was ancient history; but Mama Letty was talking about it like it was yesterday. I stared at the train tracks, trying to focus on something so I didn't heave.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The Astronauts Quotes
[…] though Zora Harding never made it to the moon, she knew from her nights at the Renaissance that you didn’t always have to look to the stars for magic. Because magic was actually two shades of lipstick staining a shared straw in a glass Coke bottle. Magic was sweat-slick dancing to mantle-deep beats, magic was renaming constellations after Black women because who else could be worthy?
Magic was a riverside home with a big, beating heart.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes
Jade rolled her eyes and started the engine. “Fine. Choose her. Be like that. I’m leaving.”
And that was it. I was gone. I was fire. I couldn’t stop myself as I saw my leg swinging out to kick the Jeep’s door, leaving a mud-streaked, dented scuff. I no longer saw Jade. I saw Kelsi. I saw Hikari. I saw Mom. I saw Mama Letty. I saw every single person who’d ever brushed my feelings to the side. I heard Focus forward and I can’t deal with this right now and You don’t need to know everything and Get over it.
I couldn’t get over it. Not this time.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
My eyes burned as I picked one up. Ray’s handwriting was a sloppy scrawl, like everything he had to say was urgent. The year was 1968. The opening line: Dear Letty, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.
The sight of his words, the proof that he was once real, not just a story or a rumor or a mystery, but a real, breathing, flesh-and-bone human who once loved my grandmother broke something in me. I started crying, right there on Mama Letty’s bed.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes
“Ray was murdered. My husband, your father, was murdered. And you never cared about that.”
“Of course I cared,” Mom said shakily, “but I was a child. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t be your therapist when I was too busy raising myself.”
‘Yeah, you raised yourself alright. You raised yourself, got all your fancy degrees, got your high-paying job, and married that fucking white man, and you ain’t come back. You erase me out of Avery's life, you erased Ray out of her life. You abandoned me like everyone else in this town, and now want to come in on your white fucking horse and solve everything.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes
I’d never been good with words until I fell in love with your grandpa Ray. We spent two years exchanging letters, and in that time, I fell in love with writing. But I never shared my words with anyone, not until now. I know we missed out on a lot. Hopefully these notebooks can fill in the gaps.
I am not a perfect woman, Avery. I’ve done a lot of horrible, awful things. As I’m writing this, I’m not sure if it’s even right to share them. […] Read the journals, if you want. Find out everything you need to know. Or not. I think you’re grown enough to decide what’s right for yourself.
This is it, Fish. I don't have any money to leave behind or a big fancy house. I'm sorry about that. The only thing I can give you are these words, and I'm not sure if they'll ever be enough.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire We Deserve Monuments LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Raymond “Ray” Harding Character Timeline in We Deserve Monuments
The timeline below shows where the character Raymond “Ray” Harding appears in We Deserve Monuments. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...who her maternal grandfather was. Mama Letty is unsurprised that Zora never told Avery about Ray, Zora’s father. At breakfast, Sam invites Avery to return to D.C. with him for a...
(full context)
Chapter 5
...she decides to break through Mama Letty’s hard exterior. She tries to ask Zora about Ray and the last time the Andersons visited Mama Letty, but Zora refuses to talk about...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...up when they pass the train station. She explains that this is where she met Ray, Avery’s grandfather. They pull over and visit the station.
(full context)
Mama Letty recalls meeting Ray when he was a porter for Amtrak and helped her with her bags. She speaks...
(full context)
The Porter
This interlude is from Ray’s perspective. His father was a porter (like him), and Ray, who loves to talk and...
(full context)
Chapter 10
...a drive again, and they drive to the train station. She asks Mama Letty about Ray, and Letty tells her Ray was murdered by the police and the Ku Klux Klan...
(full context)
...need to finish the story, but Mama Letty insists on doing so. She explains that Ray tried to apologize, but the police took him away in their car and she never...
(full context)
...trying to send her to hospice care. She confronts Zora for not telling her about Ray’s murder, and Zora snaps that she doesn’t want Mama Letty’s last days to be focused...
(full context)
Chapter 13
...out the worst in people. She speculates that Mama Letty took out her grief for Ray on Zora.
(full context)
Chapter 14
...the Olivers’ house. She tells Avery that the Olivers were among the people who murdered Ray.
(full context)
Chapter 15
...she trusts her daughter. Zora explains that Mama Letty is the only one who saw Ray get taken away, so her word is the only proof of the Olivers’ guilt. Ray’s...
(full context)
Chapter 17
...She is tired of having her feelings dismissed. She tells Jade that the Olivers murdered Ray, and when Jade starts to cry, Avery doesn’t feel bad. Jade asks Simone to leave...
(full context)
At home, Mama Letty shows Avery a letter that Ray wrote to Letty in 1968. Avery starts to cry, angry that the Olivers never received...
(full context)
Chapter 18
...explains that she wanted to protect Zora from the kind of bigoted violence that killed Ray.
(full context)
Chapter 20
...introduces the girls to his partner, and they fondly recall Carole and Zora. They knew Ray, as well, and Avery is struck by the reminder that even though she never met...
(full context)
...breaks out between Zora and Mama Letty. Mama Letty accuses Zora of not caring about Ray and Zora accuses her mother of being too preoccupied with grief for Ray to raise...
(full context)
...Letty letters that Letty never answered. Mama Letty asks Avery to read her one of Ray’s letters as she falls asleep, and Avery obliges.
(full context)
Chapter 22
...Letty for the holiday. She shows Avery the only photo she has of Letty and Ray. The photo was taken at Kisabee Island, and Zora and Sam want to take Mama...
(full context)
Chapter 23
...the stars, and Avery confesses she no longer wants to study astronomy. They talk about Ray and Mama Letty’s grief for him, and how she took out her misery on Zora....
(full context)
Avery builds a sandcastle, and they name it after the train Ray worked on in his honor. Mama Letty says that Ray deserved monuments and murals as...
(full context)
Chapter 24
...a week or two left to live. Avery and Zora take a break and read Ray’s letters to Mama Letty, and they imagine what their lives would be like if he...
(full context)
Chapter 25
...could to her mother, Simone never could to her brother, and Letty never could to Ray. But all Avery can think is that the doctors promised Letty would live another week—and...
(full context)
...Letty is home, and Avery imagines Letty living out a version of her life with Ray where they never met the Olivers and welcomed Avery to Sweetness Lane every summer.
(full context)
Chapter 26
...She sits by Mama Letty’s bed and finds more boxes. Instead of more letters from Ray, these boxes contain newspaper clippings about the Olivers and the Draper. Under a flyer for...
(full context)
...will always be remembered. Instead, Jade has written up a proposal for a monument for Ray and Letty. The girls apologize to each to each other and make plans to make...
(full context)
The Monuments
The Bardell Historical Society votes against Jade’s proposal to honor Ray and Letty with monuments. White freshmen at Beckwith tear down the statue of Richard Beckwith...
(full context)
After Letty kills Amelia, she goes home and tells Ray’s spirit that she killed someone whose death would hurt the men who killed him. On...
(full context)
