Roll Call: Black Herstory Series Recap

For the month of February, I posted daily on different historical figures from Black "Herstory," including a few historical texts pertaining to the subject. In all, I was able to feature more than 30 individuals (obviously proving the point that, not only do we need a month with more days to cover this history, but also that any TV network, which has a desire to cover such history, has more than enough historical figures and texts to feature in exciting and intriguing programming). Here's the roll call - from most recent to earliest postings (so glad to have accomplished this!).

Historical Figures

Audre Lorde
Sally Hemings
Claudia Jones
Anna Julia Cooper
Lorraine Hansberry
Florynce (Flo) Kennedy
Claudia Jones
Marie-Joseph Angelique
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield
Billie Holiday
Drana
Delia
Celia
Queen Hatshepsut
Queen Nzinga
Margaret Garner
Katherine Dunham
Nikki Giovanni
Edmonia Lewis
Miriam Makeba
June Jordan
Fredi Washington
Sojourner Truth
Octavia Butler
The Woman Who Started the Haitian Revolution
Sukie
Saartjie (Sara) Baartman
Nanny of the Maroons
Anarcha
Fannie Lou Hamer
Mary Ellen Pleasant
Harriet Tubman
Ida B. Wells


Historical Texts

Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (film)
Afua Cooper’s The Hanging of Angelique
Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route

Thanks for reading! :)

Wrapping Up: Audre Lorde

While I'm sure this won't be the final post on "Black Herstory" on this blog, it is definitely the final round of the "series," for the favorable response to what I've been doing this past month reminds me that I need to highlight our history every month. But it's exhaustive to do a post every day. So, I at least hope to continue highlighting some aspect of Black Herstory throughout the year - if not every day or even every week, then hopefully at least once a month.

That said, I want to honor this last day of February Audre Lorde (1934-1992), black lesbian feminist "warrior poet," mother of two, and author of Sister Outsider and Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, who gave us such memorable lines as "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" and "Your silence will not protect you." Rather than present a there-are-not-enough-words-here biography (see this informative website instead), I will instead present one of her more poignant poems, "A Litany for Survival" (as I did in my post on June Jordan) and let it represent.

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward

at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children's mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours:

For those of us

who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon

this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us

this instant and this triumph

We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid

it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid
So it is better to speak

remembering

We were never meant to survive.

Who Speaks for Sally Hemings?

Before Black History Month comes to an end this week, I should revisit a historical figure, Sally Hemings, whose inclusion in an A&E biography series on African Americans some time ago had angered me 1.) because she was the only black woman included in the line-up and 2.) because her significance in Black History was tied specifically to the fact that she was linked to Thomas Jefferson (our Founding Father, U.S. President, and Declaration of Independence author) as his slave, concubine, mother of his unacknowledged illegitimate "octoroon" children, etc.

It was the memory of her inclusion and her sole representation for the "Black Herstory" part of this A&E biography program that prompted my own herstory series in the first place. And yet, when I reflect back on the different figures I've included here - from great warriors to sharp intellectuals to victims and survivors of bondage and imperialism - I now find myself pondering why Sally Hemings should not be part of my own line-up. I say this, having just come across this short film on YouTube (described as an "opera" by Garrett Fisher, titled Sally Hemings Wakes):




Um...yeah. I don't get it either. Considering that this is Fisher's style - to be avant-garde, abstract, and experimental - I can't really interpret his own ideas about Sally Hemings' history (i.e. what is she "waking up" to, especially since it begins with the "awakening" of Jefferson himself?). But I am intrigued because I see that he, like so many others today, are invested in "speaking for" Sally Hemings. A young slave girl, who was the daughter of a "mulatto" slave woman and white planter, the half-sister of Martha Jefferson, wife of Thomas Jefferson, and slave/mistress of Thomas Jefferson, in the wake of Martha's death. We are all caught up in translating Sally Hemings' experience to one of "love" (never really questioning her sexual choices as a 13 or 14-year-old - the age Sally Hemings was when she had her first child), or on the other end, reducing her to mere "rape victim" of a middle-aged slaveowner (PBS's Frontline documentary, Jefferson's Blood, has a great debate on this subject: Was it Love or Rape?)

In fact, the documentary is a worthy film, as is the website (including video segments), which links the past with the present, as it explores the events surrounding a DNA test in 1998 that was conducted to prove that Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children. The documentary addresses our complex interracial history, the sexual history of race, and the power dynamics inherent in affirming certain histories while ignoring others (like family oral histories, which kept alive the belief that all of Sally Hemings' children were fathered by Thomas Jefferson). Until the DNA test, Jefferson historians refused to acknowledge this oral history, even went so far as to change history (one account discussed how, in response to a Hemings biographer who revealed that Jefferson used a secret passageway in Monticello to visit Sally Hemings' room, certain Monticello archivists and custodians sealed up this passageway so as to disprove these claims - what insanity! what an investment in "white innocence": curiously, doesn't this type of behavior sound familiar?).

Beyond these historical denials, what do we now do with the scientific evidence that links these two individuals? Do we now view the entire episode as a scandalous love affair, as was portrayed in CBS's Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, a TV mini-series about this history? Ironically, the screenplay was written by a black woman, which was adapted from the historical novel of a black woman (Barbara Chase-Riboud's Sally Hemings), and while both authors were careful to present Sally Hemings as a full human being, as a thinking woman who made choices or was consigned to such choices, negotiating agency and oppression, the televised program managed to reduce this character to a convenient stereotype of the seductive Jezebel!

And, of course, it never ceases to amaze me how Sally Hemings' "black womanhood" is so racially constituted that few of us (including in Fisher's opera) can imagine what a "long-haired, white looking quadroon" (as Hemings was often described) might look like - she's either the biracial beauty (both in the CBS program, starring Carmen Ejogo, and in the film Jefferson in Paris, portrayed by Thandie Newton) or the "obviously black" heroine caricatured in comedy skits (I for one will never forget, in the wake of the 1998 DNA test, the spoof done on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect in which a modernized Sally Hemings confronts "deadbeat founding father" in Jerry-Springer-like, ghettofabulous fashion).

At the end of it all, who gets to speak for Sally Hemings? And, can she speak at all, cutting across the historical divide, if we wanted to listen, really listen, to her story? Whether or not we want to reduce her life just to the connection she had to Thomas Jefferson, and whether or not we want to reduce this story to one of "love" or "rape," we may want to place Sally Hemings in the larger context of enslaved women's history as a whole. The documentary, Jefferson's Blood, reveals that only three things exist in the historical record that are linked back to Sally Hemings:

1. A Bell (used to summon her when she was being called to serve).
2. Her Slave Price (listed as $50 in Thomas Jefferson's will).
3. Her Descendants (one of whose DNA would later prove in 1998 that Jefferson, indeed, had sexual relations with her - as her descendants already knew, as those of us with similar ancestry already know).

These three items should speak loudly enough for Sally Hemings. And those of us who know how to listen can readily bridge the gaps in the silences.

Enraged: My Response to the Blog Commenter Over on Black Women Vote! Who Doesn't Get the "Big Deal" About Lynching Comments

Any questions?

Note: Thanks to Professor Black Woman for giving me the idea of creating "postcards" that link historical lynch photography to contemporary statements that continue to use linguistic violence that connects the black body (especially of public figures) to historical ones. For more information, please visit Without Sanctuary, an online exhibit about the history of lynch photography.

My Super Post: Black Feminist Legacies

Because yesterday's entry on Claudia Jones was an incomplete response to Professor Black Woman's meme:

I am asking that each of my readers point to one or more books, articles, poems, and/or key female figures of color who have discussed feminism from 1492 to the present. Please choose: one historical figure, one from 1960-70, and one from the present from the U.S. Please also choose at least one from outside of Euro-America. Please include a trackback to this post so we can all see your answers or post a comment with your answers here

...And because there still exists today bloggers who don't have a clue of the legacy of women of color's feminism and their regular resistance to sexism in their communities, I will now seriously take on the meme, which is a mere continuation of my Black Herstory series, because, as a professor who takes on multiple roles - teacher, scholar, writer - I can no longer abide by ill-informed and miseducated comments in the blogosphere. In a nutshell:

THE IGNORANCE MUST STOP!

So, here I will do my part to combat such ignorance, to shed some light so that the ignorant masses might gain some sound knowledge.

Are you ready for some schooling?

Historical Figures:

Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964): black feminist intellectual who was the first African American woman to earn her PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris. Her dissertation explored the political impetus for the Haitian Revolution, which precedes the important intellectual work of CLR James' The Black Jacobins (see a recent biography that came out last year: Vivian May's Anna Julia Cooper: Visionary Black Feminist) . She was also equal to (and definitely influenced) more famous intellectuals such as W.E.B. DuBois. Her 1892 manifesto, A Voice from the South, should be included in every feminist canon offered in Women's Studies (lo and behold, it is not included, hence leading ill-informed and miseducated bloggers of today to make ignorant statements that women of color don't criticize sexism in their own communities!). An important quote from A Voice from the South: "When and where I enter, the Negro race enters with me."

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965): Hansberry is on my mind because ABC aired Monday night the latest version of her most popular play from 1959, A Raisin in the Sun (starring a terribly miscast Sean Combs, who can't hold a candle to either Sidney Poitier or Danny Glover, Phyllisia Rashad, Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan). While ABC and others who often resurrect this play or televised versions of it often do so because they wish to celebrate "Black History" month or African American heritage, they always, always miss the important feminist theorizing that underpins this play: her treatment of gendered labor and how this impacts the black family, especially in light of Mama Lena Younger's widowhood; the domestic work that she and her daughter-in-law Ruth Younger are resigned to do; the way that patriarchy and masculinity hoodwinks Walter Lee Younger into aspiring for white supremacist capitalistic pursuits and the greed and betrayal that crushes his dreams; the way that Beneatha Younger, college-educated Black Nationalist, assesses her opportunities (her questioning whether or not marriage should be her destiny, her choosing to wear her hair natural well before the Afro came into fashion - and interestingly, ABC does not include this scene, Go figure!, and her exploration of African colonial independence and how this is also tied to Civil Rights in the U.S.); the subject of abortion (ABORTION! In 1959!!) and the race, class, gender issues that shape this issue (when will mainstream feminists get a clue?). Hansberry, born to a middle-class family, was a black lesbian feminist who wrote essays in response to Simone DeBeauvoir's The Second Sex and plays dealing with issues of social justice (not all focusing on black people). She married a Jewish songwriter, Robert Nemiroff, whom she met while picketing New York University's discrimination practices. Hansberry died of cancer in her thirties, and her ex-husband, Nemiroff published a collection of her writings titled To Be Young, Gifted, and Black in 1969.

1960-1970 era

Florynce (Flo) Kennedy (1916-2000): The existence of Flo Kennedy should be enough to shut down all conversations that question whether or not black feminism is only a response to white women's racism. Where would the women's liberation movement be had it not included women like Florynce Kennedy (AKA "Flo Kennedy")? Kennedy was a civil rights lawyer, activist, and ardent feminist. In 1971, she founded the Feminist Party and nominated Shirley Chisholm for President. She also helped in the founding of NOW (National Organization for Women) and the Women's Political Caucus. She fought in the legalization of abortion and wrote Abortion Rap. She defended H. Rap Brown and several Black Panthers when they got in trouble with the law. She also toured with Gloria Steinem in promoting the feminist movement and, when asked by men in audiences if the two of them were lesbians, she famously responded, "Are you my alternative?"

Flo is notorious for some great one-liners. Yes, she's a proud black lesbian, but that did not stop her from entering a heterosexual marriage, which was short lived but prompted her to make such statements about the institution like "Why would you lock yourself in the bathroom just because you have to go three times a day?" or more famously, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" (often attributed to Steinem). Some other great quotes: On Abortion - "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." On Freedom struggles - "It's like taking a bath - you've got to do it every day." Her 1976 autobiography is called Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times.

In the Present U.S.

Hip-Hop Feminists - Yes, there are academic feminists like Gwendolyn Pough, Tricia Rose, and Imani Perry who have developed a "hip-hop feminist studies" curriculum, and public intellectuals like Joan Morgan who have coined the phrase "hip-hop feminism." But, since there is much confusion on hip-hop feminism, or that it only occurred in the 90s, here's a little history because I'm going to start with the women within hip-hop music culture. Sha Rock may have been the first female rapper during this disco/funk era; she first performed as an emcee with Funky Four + One, then later joined Lisa Lee and Debbie Dee to form Us Girls in the early 1980s. During this decade, rapper Roxanne Shante, who “answered” UTFO’s hit record “Roxanne, Roxanne” in 1984, thus sparking what was then called the “Roxanne Wars,” set the stage for “hip-hop feminists,” whom hip-hop scholar Gwendolyn Pough defines as “women and men who step up and speak out against gender exploitation in hip-hop.” Shante’s response opened up a space for other women rappers to express their own desires and discontent, most notably in the work of Salt-n-Pepa, who also began their careers with a similar satirical “answer” to Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s 1985 hit record, “The Show,” with “The Showstopper.”

Here's one of my favorite hip-hop feminist anthems from them, called "Tramp" - does this 1987 track bring back memories for you too? :)

Female rappers following in their wake include artists as diverse as MC Lyte, Queen Latifah (whose 1990 video with Monie Love, Ladies First, still sets the standard for hip-hop feminism), Yo-Yo, Da Brat, Sistah Souljah, and Eve (most notably her Love is Blind Foundation to raise awareness on domestic and sexual violence, which is a response to her rap "Love is Blind" on same subject), who have all evolved from simply “talking back” to sexist scripts produced by men to articulating their own perspectives on sexual, racial, and class politics in their music. Curiously enough, such rappers have resisted the label "feminism", even though more questionable rappers, like Lil’ Kim, do claim the word, so we need to have a serious conversation on what feminism really means. Beyond U.S. borders, female rap artists have adopted hip-hop to address their subaltern realities as marginalized women of color, including Monie Love in Britain, ALIF (Attaque Libératoire de l’Infanterie Féministe) in Senegal, MC Trey of indigenous Australia, and Las Krudas in Cuba. Within U.S. urban cultural and transnational spheres, hip-hop has also influenced and been shaped by its Caribbean musical cousins, Jamaican dancehall reggae and the Latin-based reggaeton, in which female emcees such as Lady Saw and La Bruja respectively have also emerged to counter male-dominated performances by infusing gender and sexual politics in their song lyrics. Additionally, women in hip-hop have shaped the culture in their other roles as breakdancers, graffiti artists, deejays, hip-hop novelists, filmmakers, and spoken-word poets. Most recently, a group of “B-Girls” assembled and showcased their contributions to hip-hop in the annual national event, B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop. Now that mainstream hip-hop has become corporate - meaning that women rappers, deejays, breakdancers, graffiti artists, and spoken-word poets have all been silenced (most infamously when Sarah Jones was fined by the FCC for her "Your Revolution" poem - see this article) and marginalized to make way for the video dancers, models, and sex workers who are employed to fuel the hip-hop pornography economy, this history and its continued work in the margins needs to be remembered and acknowledged.

Black Feminism Beyond Hip-Hop: At the same time, if we're going to assess women of color feminism in the present-day U.S., we can surely find it beyond hip-hop culture. Sista II Sista (see their website) definitely comes to mind, with their important work in bridging communities of young Latinas and African Americans in Brooklyn, offering a "Free School" to raise young women and girls' consciousness on cultural pride and women's empowerment, and holding media workshops so that they can reclaim their own images and their neighborhoods (for example, using video surveillance against Big Brother to capture police brutality), as does Kiri Davis, a teenager and budding filmmaker who has produced an informative video on black girls' body image, A Girl Like Me, available on YouTube. Then, there's Shana Griffin, local New Orleans activist and feminist, who is part of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, the People's Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund, and Oversight Coalition. Shana Griffin is a critical voice today (see interview), for she is one of the few who broke the silence on sexual violence as it occurred in the aftermath of Katrina and worked hard in raising awareness of intersectionality so that rape victims could tell their stories without having these stories paint the New Orleans black community with the unifying brush of criminalization. Not an easy task, especially in light of various folk who think intersectionality means that women of color are too busy criticizing white women's racism while letting men of color's sexism go unchecked. Read and learn and LISTEN, is all I say on that subject.

Feminism Beyond Euro-American Context:

There are so many feminists of color beyond North America, that I'm just going to do a brief roll call. These feminists exist and have been doing intersectionality quite well: in denouncing the racism of white women, the imperialism of all women in developed contexts, and the sexism of men in their communities.

Wangari Mathai - Kenyan environmental activist, feminist, leader of the Green Belt Movement, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Her memoir, Unbowed, was recently published.
Shirin Ebadi - Iranian lawyer, judge, human rights activist, advocate for women and children, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
Hauwa Ibrahim - Nigerian Muslim feminist, lawyer, and advocate who successfully defended Amina Lawal against Sharia Law during 2002-2003, which demanded that Lawal be stoned to death for giving birth to an illegitimate child. (See Full Story.)
Rebecca Lolosoli - founder and matriarch of the Umoja Village, an all-female village and refuge for women in Samburu, Kenya fleeing domestic and sexual violence. (See Full Story.)
Criola - an NGO based in Brazil, focused on black women and girls and on popular education on racism, sexism, and homophobia. (See their website.)

And, finally, here is a shout-out to all of the WOC bloggers keeping this vibrant legacy of black feminism alive. In light of the misinformed and the miseducated, may we continue to keep blogging, keep agitating, keep mobilizing, and keep educating!

Artist Meme: I Want My Portrait Taken by Lorna Simpson

I had forgotten that I was tagged to do a meme on which artist I would want to create my portrait. There are so many amazing talents out there, but the one who immediately comes to mind is contemporary photographer and film artist Lorna Simpson.

One of the things I love about this artist is that she tries to resist the very act of portraiture. Many of her photographic subjects are African Americans, and because of the history of the black body in photography - in which we have often been reduced to scientific spectacle - Simpson deliberately disrupts the fixed subject in her art - either through words (like in "The Waterbearer" above) or through angles (like in the image to the left). The body is sometimes fragmented or photographed from the back or viewed in hazy profiles. And there is always drama (sometimes explained in a simple caption or a provocative title).

So, why would I want such an artist to take my portrait? Because I think I would love to have someone capture me from a fascinating and unique angle - one that might be an image of my facial features, or maybe it would be the back of my head, maybe my posture in the way I stand in profile. Even when portrayed in a "conventional" portrait, the art would certainly be superb. I would love to get one of those nice, soft, smoky black-and-white portraits made (maybe with some sepia tones) so that I come off looking all classy and vintage.

I now tag my readers to participate in this meme: which artist would you want to create your portrait?

Images (clockwise, from top): The Waterbearer; Cloudscape (video still); She; Corridor (double video producton stills); Chuck Close; Call Waiting (video still); Figure.

To the Left, To the Left (of Karl Marx): Claudia Jones

In response to a meme by Professor Black Woman, which requested that we recall at least one woman of color feminist, from 1492 to the present, and since she already referenced my entire Black Herstory series as an example of doing this work, I thought I would highlight the name of a historical figure that she had alerted me to: Claudia Jones (1915-1964).

Claudia Jones is a Trinidadian-born Marxist and feminist, as well as the subject of a recent biography by Caribbean scholar Carole Boyce Davies, titled Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. The title refers to the fact that she was buried "to the left" of Marx in London's Highgate cemetery; we may also think about how this is also an accurate ideological portrayal of the radical activist, writer, and community advocate.

Jones migrated to New York in 1924, where she was active in the Communist Party and wrote journalistic articles and poetry, mobilized, and traveled the lecture circuit. In the 1950s, she was renowned for the column "Half the World" for the Daily Worker newspaper. During this era of McCarthyism, Jones was constantly arrested, spent nearly a year in prison, and was then deported. However, she received political asylum in Great Britain, where she continued her political organizing. One of her legacies in London was her work with the West Indian community there, where she founded a Caribbean festival, now known to the world as the Notting Hill Carnival, the largest street festival in Europe. Davies' biography provides an important glimpse into Jones's life, while offering stark contrasts with the FBI records, establishing her importance in feminist, communist, and black (and Diasporic) intellectual histories.

Revolutionary Cinema: Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust

I first saw Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust in 1992 when I was an undergraduate. I was truly awed and inspired by the images I saw on screen. I didn't understand the Gullah dialect in which the actors spoke, but I was simply blown away by the exquisite cinematography, turn-of-the-century costumes, and hypnotic soundtrack. Dash captured a black aesthetic, a diasporic consciousness, and a cinematic worldview that interwove the past and the present, the spiritual and the material, the African and the American so effortlessly. In light of the recent Academy Awards, it's highly unlikely that she will ever get the honor she deserves.

Sixteen years later, I teach this film to a new set of undergraduate students, many of whom have never heard of this film or of the filmmaker, who has never received the widespread critical acclaim nor the movie deals that should have come her way once she debuted with this incredible cinematic gem about a Gullah sea island family, living off the coast of South Carolina in 1902, preparing to migrate north in search of a better life of modernity. In her memoir, The Making of an African American Women's Film, Dash initially conceived of a short silent film that would capture the tableau of a "last supper" by the seaside before they left the islands for their journey north. But once she began researching her family's history and digging through national archives, the "short" film grew into a feature-length one, and we are the better off for this. It took Dash nearly 13 years before completing Daughters of the Dust, and through grassroots publicity (since film distributors couldn't imagine a "market" for the film's audience), the film became a hit and, in some ways, a cult picture for those of us who value independent black cinema. Dash's visual forbears - from James Van Der Zee (first image) to Doris Ulmann (image on left) - helped her frame unforgettable scenes of black beauty. Below is a series of clips from the film, which is its own celebration of Black Herstory. As a keeper of history and as the film slowly fades from our cultural memory, I offer this post to commemorate this moment in history as well.

Jon Stewart at the Oscars, Bill O'Reilly, and the Story of Lynching

Professor Black Woman offers an insightful post on the race-baiting of Jon Stewart at the Oscars, Bill O'Reilly's lynching statement, and a PBS documentary, "Banished," which explores the history of lynching and black expulsions. Read Full Story.

Another Book Review: The Hanging of Angelique

Ever heard of Marie-Joseph Angelique? Me neither. Not until reading Jamaican-Canadian poet and historian Afua Cooper's recent book, The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal.

This is one history that is truly gripping and highly informative. Cooper takes us through Old Montreal and various historical documents to present the story of Marie-Joseph Angelique, an African slave woman from Portugal, who is eventually trafficked to the New World and in Canada no less, and who is hanged for the burning of Montreal in 1734. She's a willful, rebellious woman, and in order to understand her actions, Cooper paints us a full and thorough picture of what the Atlantic Slave trade meant for someone like Angelique: first giving an account of Portugal's role in the early part of the trade, then illustrating Canada's role in slavery - despite the national amnesia that this country ever had such a period (what with their self-portrait as the "Freedom" route on the American Underground Railroad) - and what life may have been for enslaved Africans like Angelique.

Despite Angelique making continuous threats against her mistress to burn her house down (she had a harsh tongue, and despite the whippings and extreme abuse - or perhaps because of it - she wasn't above cussing her owners out on a daily basis), when she is arrested for arson, she maintains her innocence. Interestingly, Cooper presents the historical evidence, interprets from a black feminist lens how someone like Angelique would find herself in this predicament, and concludes that Angelique may very well have been guilty in setting fire to the city (with the help of her French indentured lover). What is useful here is the way that Cooper does not condemn Angelique. In fact, there is enough in the story to make us contemplate how violence occurs and how women, especially enslaved black women, become rebellious and resort to drastic acts when resisting the untenable conditions of their lives in captivity.

A truly compelling narrative and one that helps expand the accepted images of black women in slavery - which we often associate with the deep south of the United States or on some sugar plantation in the Caribbean - Cooper uncovers and restores the voice of a silenced but defiant black woman in history. Here is to another history-keeper, adding to the pantheon of Black Herstory another figure worth knowing and remembering.

1,000 Words...

This one I got from Black Looks, and the text is in Hebrew (see this link). Is there anything else to say? SMH.

Misogyny Combined with Racism = Bill O'Reilly Keeping His Job after Threatening to Lynch Michelle Obama

I've been taking the week to process the callous, insidious remarks of Bill O'Reilly (documented on Media Matters) in which he basically said he'd lead a "lynching party" against Michelle Obama if there is "enough evidence" that she's unpatriotic (more or less this is the summation of his words). One of the things I've noticed, in the wake of these remarks, is how there's only mere grumblings among those of us who were offended and not shrieking cries of outrage if, say, Senator Barak Obama were on the receiving end of this comment. If a news anchor and editor of a golf magazine can lose their jobs over loose words alluding to "lynching" Tiger Woods (or showing images of nooses), and if Clarence Thomas, back in 1991, could shame Congress into confirming his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court because of an alleged "high tech lynching," if thousands of protestors from every part of the country could rally around some black teenagers in Jena, Louisiana last year over a hanging noose, why does Bill O'Reilly still have his job?

One word: MISOGYNY. The person targeted is a black woman, not a black man.

And this is why I have no patience with second-wave feminists, who don't understand how racism intersects with misogyny to make sexual violence and undercurrents of racist thinking and behavior acceptable, normative phenomena in our society. This is why I'm more than perplexed why, those of us who were disturbed and outraged by O'Reilly's statements have only discussed the offense in terms of racism. This is about woman-hating too!

One of the things I've noticed, in the broadcast of O'Reilly's radio show, is that what got it all started was some woman (presumably white), who argued that Michelle Obama was an "angry woman," a "militant woman" (sounds familiar? Angry Black Woman extraordinaire! I'm sure she will ALWAYS be far scarier to America than the Black Man, be he angry or accommodating). O'Reilly retorted to this female caller on his show that, until there is real "evidence" and not just "hearsay" that Obama is this "angry black woman," he's reserving judgment, but not to worry because he'll lead the lynching party against her.

First, the obvious racism: that any black person - man, woman, or child - can always be threatened with lynching. Second, the obvious misogyny: that any agressive woman (or assertive, or in the case of Obama, who honestly needs to learn the value of political doublespeak, brutal sincerity) should be rightfully targeted if she makes any statements that seem to suggest that she's not fully, 100% behind American nationalism - no questions asked.

I think we need to unpack what's going on here, for this is one of the worst displays of sexism we've regularly witnessed. I for one will not forget (and hence why, despite my lack of interest in country music, I fully supported and purchased the Taking the Long Way album) the ordeal of the Dixie Chicks. Regardless of what one thought of how patriotic (or unpatriotic) the Dixie Chicks were when Natalie Maines told a London crowd at their concert back in 2003 that she was "ashamed the president was from Texas" on the eve of the war in Iraq, I hope we all paid attention to the way that misogyny shaped the hoopla, the boycotts, and the censuring of this group in a way that I just don't see happening if they were a boy band or any other male pop star.

Would men be criticized for their lack of patriotism? Of course, no doubt about that. But, would they have been silenced through terms like Dixie Cunts, Whores, Saddam's Angels, and - perhaps the most infamous - "Shut Up and Sing"? No, they would not! And that's the problem right there: women are constantly denied agency and expected to be supportive, little submissive women, standing loyally and unquestioningly behind her man and, always, behind her country. She is to not be a thinking, rational woman, and if she ever takes issue with her country - whether it's her country's stance on war or her country's stance on race relations - she had better "shut up and sing," or "shut up and wave her flag."

The Bill O'Reilly comment is deplorable, but so is the female caller's stereotypical reductions of Michelle Obama to the stock character of "Angry Black Woman." It calls up the double threat of a figure overstepping her racial and gender roles, something a number of Americans obviously will not tolerate. I no longer doubt Barak Obama's ability to run successfully toward the U.S. Presidency, but I sincerely doubt our country's ability to accept his spouse as a First Lady (I once wrote about this in an earlier post last year). Indeed, had Senator Hillary Clinton not been running as a presidential candidate and, hence, posing the bigger sexual threat, I have no doubt in my mind that Michelle Obama would have already been targeted ages ago in this race.

I think it's great to hope and to acknowledge the ways in which we have progressed, but let us not forget that, while we gloat in the accomplishments of both Clinton and Obama, that women and people of color are now, more than ever, on the receiving end of noose hangings, school shootings, and pornographic and sexual violence. The symbolic acts of violence, as demonstrated in the words of O'Reilly, must not be treated lightly in the face of continued real violence. I for one am predicting that an actual lynching will soon take place since it's been on the minds of too many in this country right now.

Rediscovering Our Ancestors' Journey: A Review of Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother

As part of my Black Herstory series, I think, before February is over, I need to also honor our history-keepers and not just the women of history. In this regard, I highly recommend Columbia University professor Saidiya Hartman's recent book, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route.

Now, before I wax poetic about the importance of such a book, I'm going to start with the negatives, for I reacted strongly in ways that kept me from writing earlier on it. I'll admit this book has flaws, and the reason why I didn't write earlier is because I was conflicted. Like too many scholars of late - especially those educated by feminists and black scholars - there is this emphasis to place oneself in one's own text, and as a result, I had to suffer from knowing too much about Hartman's personal reflections and perspectives. In some instances, that's a good thing (like when reading bell hooks - and even she can be too self-indulgent), but in this book, do I really need to know that before Hartman rediscovers the history of our slave ancestors' journey in the Middle Passage, she traveled to Ghana and stayed at the Marcus Garvey Guest House in the W.E.B. DuBois Center complex? I tell you, me and my friends laughed for days over such obviously U.S.-centric behavior when venturing into Africa. Nor did I need to know that, her first night in Ghana, there was some confusion on the streets at night and that she almost wet herself with fright, thinking that she was in the middle of a military coup. (She learns in the morning that it was a bunch of local soldiers in the army who were practicing one of their drills and, of course, feels very badly for buying into the stereotypes of African savagery and "dark continent" chaos.)

Now, of the different scenarios Hartman presented about her stay in Ghana while doing historical research, the most intriguing and useful piece was when she described a local woman, saying with disgust - when gazing upon the spectacle of a weeping Hartman, overwhelmed by the history at one of the slave dungeons:

"Americans come here to cry but don't leave their money behind."

There goes a quote that needs to be enshrined, reflected upon deeply, and eventually retorted, for I had questioned during one of my book club discussions with friends whether or not it would have been appropriate for me, a privileged African American traveling comfortably with my U.S. passport (earned because my West-Indian-born mother gave birth to me in this country in the nick of time), to say back to that impoverished Ghanaian, whose life of poverty stems from the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, colonization, globalization, and neoliberal capitalism: "Your ancestors more than profited from the sale of my ancestors, the results of which are social, cultural, economic, political, and psychological scars which I'm still healing from. I owe you nothing!"

And, of course, if after saying such a thing, and feeling self-righteous in saying such a thing, and then if I were to follow this local woman through the market and through her neighborhood, after witnessing the squalor and the purposely underdeveloped lifestyle to which far too many Africans have been subjected, if I can still feel justified in saying such a thing, then the purpose of taking this "journey along the Atlantic slave route" needs to be seriously questioned.

But, Hartman doesn't offer such a retort. She's too busy feeling conflicted, for even though she's still not compelled to "leave her money behind," she does feel very guilty for also feeling that maybe, just maybe, those of us who descended from those ancestors who had such an enormously painful, unimaginably horrific experience in the slave trade, should somehow be considered "lucky" for growing up on the American side of the Atlantic and not the African side.

I give Hartman major credit for admitting to such guilt, but she loses considerable points for not challenging herself further, especially in light of her project, which is to rediscover the "slave routes."

So, that's where my conflicts lie with the book. I wondered why the author contemplated these contemporary relations if she were not going to make explict the connections between the past and the present, beween the injustices of the slave trade of yesterday and the injustices of African poverty of today. As such, this book never moves beyond her African-American worldview to establish a global, African Diasporic worldsense (borrowing a term from scholar Oyeronke Oyewumni).

Nonetheless, what I find valuable about Hartman's book is the history she unfolds for us, for it is truly amazing! I absolutely love what she attempts to do: which is to disavow a need to locate specific tribes from which she might have descended and, instead, articulate a new "Tribe of the Middle Passage," for the trade stripped our ancestors of these ethnicities, who then emerged as different kinds of Africans, soon to be reborn (for those who survived) as African Americans in the new world. Interweaving historical records with geography, Hartman tells a powerful narrative about what the journey for the "Tribe of the Middle Passage" might have been like. The chapter titled, "The Dead Book," which explores the abuse and murder of a young girl aboard a slave ship, on which this popular abolitionist cartoon from the 18th century is based, is alone worth the price of the book.

Whatever misgivings I have about the author's interpretations of contemporary scenarios, I certainly find no fault with her history. It's an enormous history that we all must know and that we all should bear, and reading such an important account is a start.

The Original Black Diva: Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield

Since I'm now celebrating black female vocalists, I thought I would dig deeper into history and recover a lesser known figure than our iconic singers like Billie, Bessie, Ella, Nina, or even Marian. Have you ever heard of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield(1824-1876)? She was the first black female opera singer in America, more popularly known as the "Black Swan." But, before we delight in knowing this little historical detail, Greenfield's struggles for celebrated success were not easy, especially when her audiences often attended her performances to ridicule her instead of admiring her talents. Yes, life in antebellum America as a free black woman was not too pleasant if you can imagine (even if it's better to be free than a slave).

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield has the distinction of being perhaps the earliest, well-known black female singer of the antebellum period, who was revered by audiences for her “purity” and beauty in voice but was repulsed for the blackness of her body. Her concert viewers often contended with this perception, as the following comment illustrates: “’Why, we see the face of a black woman, but we hear the voice of an angel: what does this mean?’”

Such a statement reveals that Greenfield disrupted their expectations and ideas concerning race and gender, as she challenged her audience to redefine her body from its usual associations of grotesquerie and savagery to those of humanity and even divinity. She further challenged her audiences to view her “angelic” voice as an extension of her body, even as they constantly attempted a separation of this voice from that body. They struggled with an incongruous match, so they perceived, between a divine voice and a “black” body.

Born in Nachez, Mississippi to slave parents, Greenfield was raised in Philadelphia by her wealthy slaveholding mistress, Elizabeth Holiday Greenfield, who had eventually freed her parents and helped them settle in Liberia. While Greenfield remained with her mistress, who served as her benefactress, she was able to develop her musical talents and was mainly self-taught, most likely because she could not enlist any music instructors who would tutor a black student. As a result, Greenfield not only taught herself to sing classically, but she also learned to play the piano, harp, and guitar, skills that testify to her self-determination and musical genius. When her mistress died in 1845, Greenfield received support from friends in New York until she attracted the attention of another patroness in Buffalo and gave one of her earliest performances there in 1851.

While Greenfield attracted crowds to her performances—undoubtedly because she was singled out as a rare “Black Swan” singing in the classical style of European and American music—she received praise for her talent, with some dissenters, from critics and spectators alike. However, they occasionally commented upon her body, as they were often distracted by her blackness. Described in one instance as an “African cow” in the press, Greenfield’s body sometimes received more attention than the talent she exhibited at her concerts: talent which, nonetheless, elicited comments and criticism on her lack of professional training. As Rosalyn M. Story suggests in the following:

For white music patrons in the early nineteenth century, the very idea of a
refined voice emerging from an African-looking woman evoked a myriad of
reactions, from amazement to amusement . . . More than once the sight of the
ungainly black woman . . . was enough to provoke laughter and gave her concerts
the atmosphere of a carnival freak show. (21)

That Story herself would describe the heavyset Greenfield as “ungainly” belies her own contemporary prejudice that female stage performers should somehow be delicate and flawless in their appearance before the public. Even if Greenfield were thinner and resembled more the white beauty standard, she may still have attracted the complaints of her white audiences who could not overlook her “African” features. As one reviewer of her concert reveals in his assessment of Greenfield’s physicality, her black body was the show, and, contributing to the “atmosphere of a carnival freak show,” Greenfield often did not transcend the level of freakery and spectacle in her performance of classical music since her white audience insisted on defining her according to racial difference.

While Greenfield elicited these responses from her white audiences, she excited members of her own race, who viewed her accomplishments as proof that black people were on equal par with whites when given a chance to excel in the arts. When Greenfield was invited to open and close an 1865 fundraising affair with song—an affair that celebrated Emancipation and raised funds for freed persons and wounded soldiers—she was regarded, alongside keynote speaker Frederick Douglass, with great prestige. She and Douglass were both perceived as powerful enough to “remove much prejudice, and promote measurably the cause of freedom and equal rights.” Through her black body on display, Greenfield confounded and subverted ideas of race, aesthetics, and civilization. She also paved the way for later opera singers, such as Sisseretta Jones in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who often performed in blackface minstrel shows, and of course Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, and Denyce Graves.

Black "divas" are now such a common occurrence and a regular staple (usually called upon to open or close some important national or international event) that it's strange to imagine that someone like Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield would have been considered an oddity. Especially in our own times when we can honestly say: IT AIN'T OVER UNTIL THE BLACK WOMAN SAAAANGS.

Further Readings:
Young, W. S. The Black Swan at Home and Abroad, or, A Biographical Sketch of Miss Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield Philadelphia: W. S. Young, 1855.

Story, Rosalyn M. And So I Sing: African-American Divas of Opera and Concert. New York: Warner Books, 1990.

Our Lady of the Gardenias

Is she the most celebrated and most revered African American woman in history? Perhaps, maybe after Harriet Tubman, but Billie Holiday (1915-1959) is definitely part of the Black Herstory pantheon. I imagine, after highlighting more obscure historical figures, I didn't need to post on a more popular icon like Lady Day. But, if I'm going to do a proper Black Herstory series, I need to commemorate those widely known alongside the lessser known. Besides, how many of us really know the woman behind the gardenias and her unique voice and style in singing jazz and the blues?

Holiday (née Eleanora Fagan) has one of those tragic life stories that seem to follow in the trajectory of the blues woman: born in poverty in Philadelphia before settling in Baltimore, raised by a single mother, abandoned by an absentee father (whose surname Holiday she took for her stage name), raped by the time she was 11, sent to a Catholic reform school after making these allegations and being perceived as a wild child, and moving to New York City with her mother in 1928 where she would again experience sexual assault, which her mother reacted to by turning in her perpetrator.

While Holiday's "autobiography," Lady Sings the Blues, is viewed as an inconsistent and fabricated life story, I do wonder if we should not allow an individual to tell her own story the way she wants to. Indeed, in this book, Holiday reveals that she was recruited to work as a prostitute in a brothel and spent some time in jail. During the 1930s, she started singing for tips in nightclubs in Harlem and once reduced her audience to tears when singing "Travelin' All Alone." When one listens to her voice, this is not hard to believe. In a recent biography by Farah Jasmine Griffin, titled If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery, the argument is made that Holiday deliberately creates a mystery out of her persona as a way to counter the limitations of her race and gender.

In 1935, she made her screen debut in Duke Ellington's "soundie" (early version of the music video), Symphony in Black. Although Holiday is unceremoniously dumped by her lover as the "other woman," what I find remarkable in this footage (see below) is the way Holiday's voice holds its own against the other masters of the trumpet and trombone (Ellington strategically features Holiday's vocals for a segment in his symphony called "The Blues").



However, four years later, Holiday would be approached to sing and eventually record what Time Magazine calls the song of the 20th century: "Strange Fruit."



In 1938, a progressive interracial Greenwich Village nightclub called the Café Society invited Holiday to sing a song composed by Lewis Allen (ne Abel Meerpol), a Jewish songwriter who was politically progressive and a member of the Communist Party, which described the grotesqueries of a Southern lynching through the metaphor of "strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees." Eventually, in April 1939, she recorded with Commodore Records her haunting rendition of the antilynching song after her record company, Columbia Records, refused to issue this controversial piece. She defined "Strange Fruit" as her signature song and eagerly performed it as a form of protest, as well as a proud "race woman."

Regardless of the mysteries surrounding her life - including rumors of her bisexuality as well as documented accounts of her drug abuse, most notably heroine addiction - we may be able to glean something about her life through the songs she sang and especially the way she sang. As Angela Y. Davis argues in her book, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Holiday sang with an "ironic edge," whether singing sentimental love songs or political lyrics. “In the music, in her phrasing, her timing, the timbre of her voice, the social roots of pain and despair in women’s emotional lives are given a lyrical legibility” (Davis, 177).




Holiday, who professed that she never got in trouble with the law over her drug problems until she "tried to get off," died of a drug overdose at the young age of 44. Yet, she will not be so easily forgotten. The year that she died, a commemorative ballet number by John Butler, in the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, was choreographed, titled "A Portrait of Billie" (left image) . Then, in 1972, Hollywood made a movie based on her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues (starring Diana Ross, who was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Lady Day). For a brutally sharp and tough woman with a brutally honest singing voice, Holiday comes off in this film version as a sad, tragic, weak individual who, despite these flaws, was so revered by her adoring public. As James Baldwin so aptly puts it in his film review in The Devil Finds Work: "The film suggests nothing of the terrifying economics of a singer's life, and you will not learn, from the film, that Billie received no royalties for the records she was making then: you will not learn that the music industry is one of the areas of the national life in which the blacks have been most persistently, successfully, and brutally ripped off. If you have never heard of the Apollo Theatre, you will learn nothing of it from the this film, nor what Billie's appearances there meant to her, or what a black audience means to a black performer."

While Hollywood cannot tell us these things, I would like to suggest that her voice tells us something more than celluloid could ever hope. As African American artist Amalia Amaki suggests in her quilt, Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue (below), Holiday is a key voice weaving the experiences of black womanhood and building on a legacy set by the blues foremothers before her - Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, among others.

Pop-Culture Confession Time: Another Season of That Show That is Not Worth My Time and Investment

Okay, where are my trusted readers to remind me that I was to swear off of American Idol forever? (I swore I would never watch after Melinda Doolittle lost last year and, before that, when Elliott Yamin had the indignity of finishing third to no-talent hacks like Taylor Hicks and Katherine McPhee).

I was done. Through! Completely over the damn thing!

Then yesterday, aimlessly flipping through the channels, I came upon this adorable little boy (love, love, want to kiss him all over, but he's sooooo not of legal age!) singing "Heaven," one of my favorite ballads from the eighties.



So, here I am, interrupting my Black Herstory series, to say, I've got a crush! :) And this was how I started watching the darn show in the first place.

During season 2, when I used to watch the TV show, 24, back when it used to be really good, I had patiently waited for AI to finish since it came on before the show. That was how I caught a segment with Ruben Stoddard performing a Luther Vandross song (or so I believe, or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me). I thought, then, "Oh my God! It's Luther, Part Two!!" And had tuned into American Idol eversince. No, Ruben was not my type (I usually am not into heavyset men of any race or ethnicity), but damn it, if you sing like Luther, I'm gonna get hooked!

I was overjoyed when Ruben won that season, then completely pissed when Clay Aiken was treated as the defacto winner (because, so the prevailing opinion went at the time, how dare the fat black guy beat out the cute Broadway-singing white one).

Not sure I can completely explain why this show appealed to me, other than featuring adorable guys with lovely voices every now and then. Plus, I've always had a soft spot for talent shows; got hooked on Eurovision when I spent a summer in England and France, and in my youth, I used to love watching Star Search. Still, there's so much that's wrong with AI and the way they get to define what's "talent," what's real "music," that I really was not trying to support their enterprise this year. So, I now find myself pleading to my faithful readers to remind me of my pledge to swear off this show and NOT get sucked into it again because of an adorable 16-year-old named David Archuleta singing a ballad "from his heart," he says. Sigh.

Drana, Delia, and Celia: Some Slave Women Worth Remembering

We only know of these women because they were being used to establish certain standards and measures. One would create a pattern in legal history in the way that the rights of African American women were understood (or not). The other two would be used to establish (through photographic records) the so-called racial inferiority of black people.

Around 1850, two slave women called Delia (left image) and Drana (right image) were included in a photographic record made by daguerreotypist Joseph T. Zealy, which was included in zoologist Louis Agassiz's scientific book, Types of Mankind. The two women were part of a group of slaves from a plantation near Columbia, South Carolina. They were forced to pose for supposedly "scientific portraits" that were created to argue for scientifically racist theories on black people's "racial inferiority." However, the renowned African American feminist artist, Carrie Mae Weems, recovered and reframed their portraits to recuperate a different reading of these women's images as a reminder of how our bodies were sexually exploited and slandered. This artwork by Weems came out in 1995 under the title, From Here I Saw What Happened, and I Cried.






















In 1855, a slave called Celia, who was pregnant with her third child for her master, Robert Newsome, defended herself from rape by hitting him over the head with a stick and burning him in the fireplace. In the morning, she would scatter his ashes in the dust. Her case was brought forth in State of Missouri vs. Celia. The defense argued that Celia had a right to protect herself from rape since statutes in the law recognized women’s right to self-defense from sexual violence, but the court found Celia guilty, ruling that Celia was a slave, not a woman. She was hanged in December that year, after giving birth.

While these women are not given a voice in history, since their bodies are reduced to either legal or scientific spectacle, I invoke their names here because I want to remind us all that these women had full humanity and, if given the chance, could tell their own stories. When looking at the images of Drana and Delia, what stories might we hear? What do their eyes tell us? When they are stripped from the waist down, did they passively consent, or did the photographer suffer any scratches if they tried, at any point, to resist?

When Celia's case was brought on trial, we don't really get to hear her voice. We are made to believe that Celia killed her master, at the request of her slave-lover, who did not want her to continue having relations with her slaveowner. Did she resort to murder (and a brutal one at that) just to appease her lover? Did she have her own motives? When she burns her master's body and scatters his ashes into the dust, what might we be able to comprehend about her experiences with sexual assault? If we took the time and listened to history's silences and try and fill in the gaps, what Black Herstory will be told?

I honor these three women because their names are included in the historical record, but I ask everyone to read beyond the written (or photographic) record and detect their whisperings.

Further Readings:
McLaurin, Melton Alonza. Celia, A Slave: A True Story of Violence and Retribution in Antebellum Missouri. Athens: University of Georgia, 1991.

Willis, Deborah and Carla Williams. The Black Female Body: A Photographic History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

African Queens: Not Just Myth, More than Legend

Reprinting here part of an entry that I entered last year on two African Queens, which I offer today as part of the Black Herstory series.

Queen Hatshepsut (ruled in Ancient Egypt from 1479 to 1458 BCE) - I've been impressed with this ruler since I got to visit her temple when I vacationed in Egypt in the summer of 2006. And, even though it's hard to imagine such a movie being made that doesn't reproduce those gorgeously junky and overdone "Cleopatra" type productions of the past, let's at least hope that, this time, they get this Nubian queen appropriately represented in all her dark-skinned glory! Besides, any queen who dons a beard and demands to be treated like a man, while also plotting to ensure that her daughter ascends the throne after her, so as to subvert the male dominance of her kingdom, is a woman whose story needs to be told!


Queen Nzinga (1583-1663) - I learned about this African queen, who ruled over what is now Angola, in a Black History lesson. And while I was disturbed by the way she treated one of her "ladies in waiting" - she turned one of them into a "seat" when the Portuguese, in their attempts to disrespect her when she met with them, expected her to sit on the floor while they sat in chairs - I still like the story of how she led her people in armed resistance against the Portuguese and prevented them from becoming captives in the slave trade. Although she joined the Dutch by way of building an alliance against the Portuguese and even converted to Christianity when she thought it was political to do so, her story reveals some important lessons about resistance and accommodation. She never surrendered.

Is This a Story to Pass On? Memorializing Margaret Garner

On this day - the birthday of Toni Morrison, who turns 77 - I highlight Margaret Garner (dates unknown), whose "herstory" was eulogized and memorialized in what is often considered Morrison's greatest work: the 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, which was eventually made into a film a decade later, produced and starring Oprah Winfrey and directed by Jonathan Demme.

In 2005, Morrison revisited Margaret Garner's story again, penning a libretto for the opera bearing the name of this remarkably tragic slave woman in American history. As Morrison described, "If Beloved is about forgetting, Margaret Garner is about remembering."

What is it that we're supposed to remember? The details are sketchy but, pieced together, we know that in January 1856, Margaret Garner escaped slavery in Kentucky with her husband, her in-laws, and her four children, Tom, Sam, Mary, and Cilla. They crossed the frozen Ohio River to get to the "free side" of Cincinnati, Ohio. They were eventually pursued by slave catchers, who - thanks to the Fugitive Slave Law - had legal rights to reclaim runaway slaves. However, Margaret Garner chose to kill her children rather than return to slavery. She was successful in killing the second youngest daughter, two-year-old Mary, by slitting her throat. Abolitionists immediately magnified the case of Garner's eventual trial to dramatize the evils of slavery, thus turning this figure into a "cause celebre". Yet, in the end, Margaret Garner was tried and convicted, not for the murder of her own daughter, but for theft (you see, her life and her children's were not hers to claim). If that ain't slavery, I don't know what is. Especially when, after all the hoopla and agitation, Garner and the children who lived, were still seized and returned to slavery.

What is truly remarkable is the way that Morrison forces the issue of her humanity and the humanity of all of our enslaved ancestors, for this murder, this infanticide was a gesture of motherhood and family reclamation. Or, what Morrison so radically argues: a gesture of "love." Those of us who read the novel Beloved know that the baby girl who was sacrificed was, indeed, "beloved," despite the paradoxes inherent in such claims. Or, rather, Margaret Garner's act indicts the entire system of slavery for its perversion of motherly love and inhumane gestures of such humanity. And, thanks to Morrison, who resurrected Garner from a distant past, Margaret Garner has become a subject of documentaries and historical books, not to mention novels, films and operas already mentioned.

If Garner (as symbolized by the character Sethe in the novel) is haunted by the ghost of her baby daughter (who appears in the flesh at the age she might have been had she lived), Garner as heroine in the opera is the ghost who haunts us and indicts, not the community of her own time, but our own. The stage production eerily fades to black as Garner drifts in and out of the crowd, draped in white, while her hanged body on the gallows looms ominously in the background. Unlike the film adaptation, which reduced the pain and the trauma of the story to histrionics and horror-film grotesqueries, the opera magnifies the despair and the sadness that her story is supposed to represent.

During her own time, Margaret Garner was the subject of African American poet, novelist and abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's melodramatic epic poem, "The Slave Mother: A Tale of the Ohio"; she was also the main figure in an 1867 painting by T. S. Noble (see first image). She haunted her contemporaries then, and she haunts us still.

Further Readings:
Reinhardt, Mark. "Who Speaks for Margaret Garner? Slavery, Silence, and the Politics of Ventriloquism." Critical Inquiry 29: 1 (Fall 2002).

Weisenburger, Steven. Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder in the Old South. Hill and Wang, 1999.

Dance Africa! Tribute to Katherine Dunham

I would love to do a more detailed write up about the great dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham (1909-2006), but this holiday weekend has gotten tremendously busy for me.

However, I came across this fabulous video on the life and times of Dunham. In honor of Black Herstory and now turning my attention to our dancers, here is a spirit worth remembering and celebrating.

Reflecting on Current Events through Black Herstory

In tribute to the victims of the recent campus shootings on Northern Illinois University, I offer the words of Nikki Giovanni, who only ten months ago offered solace in the wake of another campus tragedy, at Virginia Tech where she teaches. Great poet, Black Arts activist, and a prophet of righteous anger, I think it appropriate to invoke her words since they resonate on so many levels.

Reading Herstory through Marble: Edmonia Lewis, 19th-Century Artist

It dawned on me today that I have yet to feature a visual artist in my Black Herstory series, so the first historical figure of this ilk I wish to honor is Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1843-1911), aka "Wildfire," the first documented American woman sculptor (or "sculptress," if we want to be precious, "antebellum" and "Victorian").

Lewis was born to an African American man of Haitian descent and a Chippewa mother, but she was orphaned at an early age, with an older brother who left her in a boardinghouse while he traveled out West in pursuit of gold. This same brother would eventually pay Lewis's way through college, as she eventually enrolled in Oberlin College in Ohio, the first college in the country to admit both African American and female students. Lewis soon distinguished herself as an art student and focused her studies on drawing. Despite her attendance at such a progressive school, she would struggle against racial injustice.

In January of 1862, she was accused of poisoning two of her housemates. A local mob had beaten her and left her to die in the snow. Lewis survived the attack but was later brought to trial; she was eventually released due to insufficient evidence. The following year, Lewis was then accused of stealing art supplies. Although she would be exonerated, she was expelled and never graduated.

However, Lewis would not be daunted. She took the opportunity to migrate to Boston, a hub of artists at the time. She stayed in a room, financed by her brother, at the Studio Building on Tremont Street, and began studying sculpture and interacting with the abolitionist crowd, for whom she began creating busts and medallions - including a bust of Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw, leader of the first black 54th Massachusetts Regimen (on which the movie Glory was based), and a medallion of John Brown. The proceeds from these works helped finance her trip to Europe. Rome in particular proved to be a valuable location for Lewis's development of her skills in neoclassical sculpture.

Though her sculptures resemble westernized classical figures, Lewis's themes remain deeply connected to African American or African themes. Perhaps her most famous sculpture is Forever Free (1867), her homage to the Emancipation Proclamation.

While the female character seems subjugated in her kneeling position, we might recognize how Lewis signifies on the popularized abolitionist icon of the "kneeling slave woman" in women's antislavery circles, as well as her positioning the possibility and promise of the family unit - freed man and woman - united and hopeful. The male figure breaks his chains and offers a protective arm around his woman, something that was simply untenable under slavery. Her sculpture, Hagar (1875, below left), alludes to the Biblical story of Hagar, the Egyptian slave to Sarah and Abraham, and in many ways, Lewis references "Black Herstory" through this recognizable African (Egyptian) figure, especially in her slave/concubine status. Despite these hopeful creations that ruminate on the promise of freedom, we are left to ponder if she eventually gives up the dream, once the "liberation" of emancipation soon leads to the disenfranchisement of African Americans during Reconstruction, especially in her sculpture, Death of Cleopatra (1876, right).

Often times, Black His/Her/Hir/story is documented in words or music. For me, Lewis's work offers us a new way of "reading" history through a visual medium. When art and art history classes tend to marginalize artists like Edmonia Lewis, I offer this invocation to remind us all that there was no art, no tool, no medium that we, black women, did not engage and excel.

Further Readings:

Benjamin, Tritobia Hayes. "Triumphant Determination: The Legacy of African American Women Artists." Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African Amerian Arists. Atlanta: Spelman College and Rizzoli International Publications, 1995. 49-82.

Wilson, Judith. "Hagar's Daughters: Social History, Cultural Heritage, and Afro-U.S. Women's Art." Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African Amerian Arists. Atlanta: Spelman College and Rizzoli International Publications, 1995. 95-112.

Shout Out to "Mama Afrika"

In light of V-Day events on college campuses, which includes performances of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues (which has been including letters from rape survivors in the Democratic Republic of Congo), and having just watched one of those "oh, those poor suffering African female victims!" shown on my TV today, including my coming across on the Internet some plans for American women to participate in "Run for Congo Women" marathons for International Women's Day on March 8 this year, I want to instead highlight the joys and strengths of women in the African Diaspora, particularly on the African continent.

This is not to minimize the real atrocities impacting black women in the Congo, who are caught in the present rape epidemic, but when American feminists and other privileged women are ready to sit down with women of African descent and engage in serious, egalitarian conversations about how "All Oppression is connected" and how sexual violence is rooted in imperialistic and racial violence, then maybe I will react to such news and international efforts, on the part of women in the Global North, with more enthusiasm.

But, I know so many of us are not willing to confront history: to confront the legacy of Belgium's King Leopold II's genocidal onslaught in the same region from 1885 to 1908, which claimed the lives of around 8 million people (EIGHT MILLION!) when he set up his "Congo Free State" - which the United States, during their own slaughter of African Americans in various southern lynchings at the time, was the first nation to recognize this state - that relied on forced labor and a reign of terror to fuel a rubber economy; to confront this genocidal history that was documented in novels like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which most spineless academics would rather read through Jungian or Freudian interpretations and not as the cautionary tale of global white imperialism it was supposed to represent; to confront the postcolonial efforts of Patrice Lumumba (whose name was already invoked in June Jordan's 1980 poem in my last Black Herstory post) to rule the region as the first democratically elected socialist and Pan-Africanist prime minister, only to be assassinated - with the help of European powers and the CIA - and seceded by ruthless dictators and military coups that profit, much like Leopold before them, off of forced labor in lucrative mines of diamonds, ivory, uranium, and coltane (fueling our current digital information age). Of course, to confront history and the sociopolitical and economic realities of today is just too hard when we'd rather reduce - conveniently - African women to images of "poor suffering victims" and not recognize their full humanity, let alone their full identities as our sisters.

But, looking at Africa through a "Black Herstory" lens makes me too angry to function. So instead, I will play here a lovely gem from 1968 that I discovered over on You Tube, featuring a young Miriam Makeba, aka "Mama Afrika" in her native South Africa: this vibrant songstress of international fame and a symbol of the resistant spirit against South African apartheid, as well as a Diasporic sister fighting in solidarity with all oppressed peoples who struggle for liberation. Here is her performance of "Pata Pata," in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Free the New Jersey Four: Another Issue of Concern

This just in from Elle PhD and Professor Black Woman about another miscarriage of injustice. If we've all heard of the Jena 6, perhaps fewer of us have heard of the New Jersey 4. Now, a new site is up with information on seven black lesbians who were involved in a violent altercation with Dwayne Buckle, a black man who taunted the group with homophobic and sexist slurs. After a fight ensued, in which one of the women drew a knife, the women involved were arrested and then placed on trial for attempted murder. Four of the women were sentenced in June 2007. The women, who were all acquainted with Sakia Gunna, another black lesbian who was slain for her sexual orientation (not nearly as well known as Matthew Shepard), felt targeted for their gender and sexual orientation.

For more detailed information on the case, please visit Justice 4 NewJersey 4 which also includes instructions on how to give your support and spread the word.

Here, in the spirit of freedoms for all black women, is a reminder from Jamaican spoken-word lesbian poet, Staceyann Chin, who proclaims (herself having migrated from her intensely homophobic island home, after suffering from sexual violence when she was targeted for her sexual orientation) that "ALL OPPRESSION IS CONNECTED."

WARNING: PROFANITY AND RIGHTEOUS ANGER ARE INCLUDED!

Rally Against Hate Crimes This Weekend

Oh, Megan, Don't You Weep: Unity Rally against Hate Crimes

A Black History Month Benefit & Open Mic for the Williams Family

Saturday, February 16, 2008 4:00-9:00 PM
Medgar Evers College Founders Auditorium
1650 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11225

Doors open at 3:00 PM

Featuring Megan Williams interview, Carmen Williams, lead attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz, Imani Singers, Imani Dance Ensemble, Medgar Evers College Drama Club, DuPrée, Spoken-word artist Christopher Slaughter

Co-sponsors: Black Lawyers for Justice, Black Professors for Justice, John Henrik Clarke – CLR James African World Research Institute, International Cross-Cultural Black Women's Studies Institute, Medgar Evers College Center for Women's Development, Medgar Evers College Film and Culture Series, Medgar Evers College Students & Faculty in Support of Megan Williams, Medgar Evers College Women's Studies Program, National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault, New Black Panther Party, The People of the Sun Middle Passage Collective and more...

Poem About Her Rights: In the Words of June Jordan

Today, I will honor June Jordan (1936-2002), black feminist, queer, radical, marxist, poet, writer, activist, scholar by invoking her own words. Two years ago, I directed a few students in a spoken-word dance performance based on the powerful words of some choice feminist poets of color. The one poem that had the audience in tears was this one, "Poem about My Rights," by June Jordan. In this moment of progress and regression - when so many of us have forgotten the simple premise that all oppression is connected and that our understanding of these intersections is crucial - here was a sistah poet who told the truth.

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can't
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can't do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/
or thinkingabout children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence;
I could not go and I could not think and i could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can't do what I want to do with my own
body and who in the hell set things up
like this

and in France they say if a guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him and if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that
he and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Black land
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:

Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being so reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin and wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong say that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should

just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me

I am the history of rape

I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
my self
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it's about walking out at night

or whether it's about the love I feel or
whether it's about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/

but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hard on
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can't tell you who in the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
might very well cost you your life

Performing with Dignity: Fredi Washington

Rather than waste brain power trying to critique the actions of rappers like Nas, who thought it prudent to wear a T-shirt with the words "Nigger" on the red carpet pre-Grammy Awards show on Sunday, in attempts to promote his latest album of the same name (regardless of the self-critique and parody, we need only think of the many white suburban kids who listen to his music and would then go on to don blackface during Halloween costume parties, resembling their favorite rap artists), it's time for me to dig through the annals of Black Herstory once again and recall the name of a performer many of us probably don't know but who is worthy of our remembrance.

Today, I remember Fredi Washington (1903-1994), an actress and entertainer who stressed above all things dignity and Black Pride. Washington, born in Savannah, Georgia, began a career on the stage, appearing as a chorus girl alongside the likes of Josephine Baker in shows like "Shuffle Along" (1921). She remained friends with Baker, especially when she was one of the few light-skinned chorus girls who stuck up for her when the others treated the darker-skinned Baker in disparaging ways. Of course, while Baker went on to fame and iconicity through her banana skirt over in France, Washington chose to cultivate her career as a respected artist and entertainer. She made her film debut in a short, 19-minute "soundie" (early version of the music video narrative), "Black and Tan" (starring alongside Duke Ellington in his jazz symphony), in which she plays a character who must perform at a jazz club despite illness. It's rather dramatic (see this link) but does showcase some interesting work here.

Washington is best known for her role as Peola in the 1934 film, Imitation of Life, based on Fannie Hurst's tear-jerker novel, starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers. In this film, Washington's character passes for white and rejects her mammy-like mother (played by Beavers). However, Washington was so convincing in the role that many African Americans believed that she did reject her African American heritage. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Washington received several offers by studio heads in Hollywood, who promised to turn her into a bonafide superstar who would outshine her contemporaries, like Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford. Provided that she agree to pass for white. Washington refused and, as a result, was relegated to the margins. She was often passed over for the prime roles offered to black women: the "maid" role, for which studios felt she wasn't "black enough." On the other hand, when performing in non-maid roles, as in the film Emperor Jones (1933), starring Paul Robeson, she would be forced to wear dark makeup to prevent audiences from viewing her as a white woman and, subsequently, as a white woman in a romantic entanglement with the black male protagonist since such portrayals violated the anti-miscegenation codes in early cinema.

Let's think about this, shall we? Here was a woman, who could have easily accepted the offers of studios to transform her into a "blonde bombshell" the likes of Jean Harlowe and Marilyn Monroe or into a dark vixen type, like Joan Crawford, Ava Gardner, or Jane Russell, but her stubborn Black Pride kept her pigeonholed into these stifling roles. First, her decision makes me wonder how many of those "white" starletts really are "white." Second, her decison also makes me wonder how different Black Theatre history might have been, for we would know the name of Fredi Washington (except I wouldn't be able to include her in a "Black Herstory" series) but we would not have seen the kinds of inroads made on behalf of black actors and entertainers.

In lieu of a Hollywood movie star career, Washington took up the mantle of theatrical activism and racial uplift. In 1937, she became a founder of the Negro Actors Guild, which served as an advocacy group for black actors on stage and on screen. They advocated for better scripts and diverse working opportunities for such actors. So, for example, in the 1939 film, Gone with the Wind, the Negro Actors Guild supported the actresses Hattie McDaniel (who played Mammy) and Butterfly McQueen (who played Prissy: "I don't know nutthin' bout birthin' no babies!") in the following ways:

• with the help of the Guild, McDaniel successfully got studio heads to erase the N-word from the script of Gone With the Wind.
  
• McDaniel also refused to do a scene that expected "Mammy" to shine the shoes of her master.
  
• McQueen refused to do a scene in which she would eat watermelon (Ugh!).
  
• McQueen also refused to be slapped on screen by actress Vivien Leigh (you will note, in the movie, when Scarlett slaps Prissy, who tells her she "knows nutthin' bout birthin' no babies," Leigh does the "slap" off screen since McQueen was not having it!).

So, in other words, had these actors, and the Negro Actors Guild that supported them, not intervened on one of AFI's top 10 movies of all time, Gone with the Wind would have been ten times more offensive than it already is! Let's really think about that and what it means for actresses like Fredi Washington to work behind the scenes for political and cultural agitation to advance equality and dignity for black performers.

Washington herself appeared in other, less well known films with more celebrated stars like Robeson and Ethel Waters, but she served as a major critic and columnist for the radical Harlem newspaper, The People's Voice, in which she urged black audiences to support political theater, boycott offensive Hollywood movies and entertainment shows featuring toms, coons, and mammies, and advocated behind-the-scenes with the NAACP and a Hollywood equity commission to ensure respectable roles and scripts for black actors, directors, and others in the entertainment industry. While she was not condemnatory, like other NAACP members who wrote scathing critiques of actors who portrayed stereotypical roles, she did challenge actresses like Hattie McDaniel to stop defending her right to play the "mammy" roles, even while understanding the limitations of the industry; Washington also rhetorically challenged Hollywood to offer actresses like McDaniel prime roles like Mary McCloud Bethune (I see they never did take Washington up on her challenge). Eventually, Washington left the paper in 1948, when the McCarthy era was on the rise and various "Un-American" radical voices like Washington's was being silenced. She married a second time to a dentist in Connecticut (her first marriage was to a trombonist in Duke Ellington's orchestra) and retired from public life.

Unfortunately, Fredi Washington's most famous role as the "tragic mulatta who passes for white" would be erased from cultural memory with Douglas Sirk's 1959 remake of Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, and Sandra Dee, with a white actress, Susan Kohner, portraying Washington's character this time. Knowing Washington's advocacy for portraying dignified roles, no way, no how, would she have ever agreed to do a scene in which she gets the crap beaten out of her by a white man, who learns that the woman he's been dating has a "N---- for a mother," nor would she have consented to "pass for white" in order to fulfill her ambitions as a burlesque dancer (in the 1934 film, Washington's Peola passes for white to avoid discrimination since she merely wants to avoid the hardships of living a professional life as a working woman - in this case, a librarian). So, how sad then, that her most memorable role has been eclipsed by a more demeaning stereotype and a white actress to boot!

Nonetheless, I invoke her memory today because, in our "I've got to get paid" and "fame at any costs" era, we may want to pay homage to the performers who came before us, who knew that dignity and integrity would far advance the race than individual gains (Nas, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and all the "hip-hop honeys," I'm looking at all y'all!). Poor Fredi Washington would be rolling over in her grave if she knew what now passes as black entertainment today!

Further Reading:

Black, Cheryl. "'New Negro' Performance in Art and Life: Fredi Washington and the Theatrical Columns of The People's Voice, 1943-47." Theatre History Studies 24 (June 2004): 57-72.

Ar'n't We Women? Reflections on Sojourner Truth

Often, when students frame my efforts at disrupting whiteness and its hegemonic presence in the college curriculum--even in the counter-hegemonic education of Women’s Studies--through an interpretation of my embodiment of racial “difference,” I usually call this the Sojourner Truth complex. Or, a configuration of black womanhood that is somehow dismissed from categories of “real” womanhood. It is a “difference” that continues to echo Sojourner Truth’s famous question: “Ar’n’t I a Woman?”

So, today, I invoke the history of Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), née Isabella Baumfree. She is the stuff of legend, yet because of her illiteracy, most of what we know of her has been recorded by white women, including her autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, written in 1850 by Olive Gilbert. Through their eyes, we can glimpse some of her most daring acts of resistance. As these accounts attempt to capture the difficulties in Truth’s entrance into public speaking due to her race and gender, we gain some idea that Truth often incorporated attention to her body—not intentionally, as she felt her words were what her audiences needed to hear, but when the body did get in the way, she sort to redefine it to her audience.

Born a slave in Ulster County, New York, Truth eventually gained her freedom and, when she did, changed her name from Isabella to Sojourner Truth. She also became an itinerant preacher—influenced by a Millerite religious sect—as well as an abolitionist and feminist. Nonetheless, due to her literary representation—most notably in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s essay, “The Libyan Sibyl,” and Frances Dana Gage’s rendition of Truth’s “Ar’n’t I a Woman” speech—we tend to place Truth in the antebellum South. This is perhaps shaped by the southern “black” dialect written in these texts to “mark” Truth’s speech as an authentic African American. Moreover, this may also be shaped by Truth’s own speech acts as she referenced her body and symbolically re-presented it as a former slave’s body that “evoked her symbolic history . . . rather than her own actual experience” (Painter 141).

Truth is perhaps most famous for her “A’r’n’t I a Woman” speech. Delivered at a women’s rights convention in 1851 at Akron, Ohio, Truth’s refrain, “Ar’n’t I a Woman?,” demanded the recognition of black women’s femininity and, possibly, their sexuality, since Truth’s sexual identity had frequently been called into question. This is captured in one of her more subversive speech acts in which she bares her breasts to a hostile audience, who questioned her female identity, in 1858. When asked to show her breasts aside to a few white ladies at the assembly, Truth chose instead to bare her breasts to the entire audience, to “shame” not herself but the few audience members who suggested this action. As the newspaper, The Liberator, relates in the following:

Sojourner told them that her breasts had suckled many a white babe, to the
exclusion of her own offspring; that some of those white babies had grown to
man’s estate; that, although they had suckled her colored breasts, they were, in
her estimation, far more manly than they (her persecutors) appeared to be; and
she quietly asked them, as she disrobed her bosom, if they, too, wished to
suck![1]

Here, Truth challenges her audiences to view her breasts and the black female body in general as honorable rather than shameful. A bold move! Breasts themselves, especially from a black female body, are publicly displayed to “prove” the sanctity and dignity of the work many black women perform in their nourishment of the future generation rather than prove that they merely serve as “erotic” or animalistic spectacle. Through her speeches and her public performances, Truth restores our dignity and, in the realm of religion and spirituality, she sanctifies and makes whole the body, the spirit, and the mind. Yes, she is a woman, and her words often have to be parroted by many of her 21st-century counterparts who must constantly assert black women's rights to womanhood.

[1] The Liberator 15 October 1858.

Further Reading:

Painter, Nell. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996.

Remembering Those We Recently Lost: Octavia Butler

I've been under the weather today and definitely trying to recuperate on this lovely wintry Sunday. What usually gets me through such days is a good book. So, I want to take today to remember a writer. However, rather than dig through the old, dusty archives to recover the name of a well-known or obscure black female figure for this Black Herstory series, I thought it just as appropriate to recall those figures whom we have recently lost.

Today, I remember Octavia Butler (1947-2006), a pioneering figure in the world of science fiction literature. Butler was born in Pasedena, California, where she was raised by her mother and grandmother. At a very young age, she began writing fantasy literature, eventually honing her skills for science fiction writing. She once described herself as "comfortably asocial—a hermit in the middle of Seattle—a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." What an honest, unpretentious way to describe oneself. Butler suffered from paralytic shyness in her youth and eventually turned her shyness and loneliness into introspective opportunities to create and write.

Butler died after suffering head injuries from a fall just outside her home. A Memorial Scholarship was establishished in her name to award promising writers of color. To me, the best way to know and honor a writer's memory is to read her books, so here is a list for interested science fiction readers.

Highly recommended:
Kindred (1979) - the black female protagonist unexplicably travels back in time and encounters her ancestors on a slave plantation.

Most recent novel:
Fledgling (2005) - a novel about vampires who coexist peacefully with humans.

The Patternist series:
Patternmaster (1976)
Mind of My Mind (1977)
Survivor (1978)
Wild Seed (1980)
Clay's Ark (1984)
Seed to Harvest (compilation; 2007)

The Lilith's Brood series (also known as the Xenogenesis trilogy):
Dawn (1987)
Adulthood Rites (1988)
Imago (1989)

The Parable series:
Parable of the Sower (1993)
Parable of the Talents (1998)

Short stories:
Blood Child and Other Stories (1st edition - 1996; 2nd edition - 2006)

I've always viewed Octavia Butler more as a fantasy genre writer than a sci-fi writer, but perhaps some people don't make distinctions. What I do find inspiring about Butler is her limitless imagination and her gift for writing it all down. She was definitely one of our most prolific black female writers in our era, and although her life ended tragically in middle age when, I'm sure, she was not done sharing her tales with us, I invoke her here today to remind us of our recent Black Herstory and the need to keep her books in circulation. Such stories (and the woman behind them) should be kept alive.

page 123 meme

I got tagged to do a meme.

Here are the rules:

• Pick up the closest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
• Find page 123
• Find the first five sentences
• Post the next three sentences

I'm planning to teach the book, Pedagogies of Crossing, by M. Jacqui Alexander, so since it was on my coffeetable, I decided to use it for this meme:

It has the effect of "ordering blacks away; it welcomes whites; it permits
whites to act in discriminatory ways towards blacks and it subordinates
blacks." Such speech acts "rank, legitimate, discriminate, and
deprive." Thus, (white) people understand their actions - of ranking,
discriminating, depriving - to be legitimate because they have already been
legitimated.

I guess, considering the subject matter of my blog, this is very much in keeping with the general philosophy that I hold to, doesn't it? The idea of this meme is to see if what we read reveals something about who we are.

Since I was tagged by PBW, who herself was tagged by La Rebelde, I now tag all of my readers!

What Progress We've Made! (Yeah, Right!)

You know, had the second-wave feminists been able to articulate a sound argument about the problems of misogyny in our culture (without the racist filter that they seem not to be able to discard) we might be able to have a sensible discussion about the latent ways that sexism and racism have shaped the way the public views the Democratic frontrunners in this year's presidential race.

Because, honestly, there is something to be said about dolls like this:

or Obama T-shirts and mousepads featuring sambo-like figures like this (thanks, Professor Black Woman):

And regardless of who you will be voting for in the end, do we really want to condone signs like this?

Notice the racist AND sexist reductions of both candidates to stereotypical roles: the "Bro" (hip-hop thug-nigga intellectual that Obama is supposed to convey, I suppose) and the "Ho" (see what happens, second-wave feminists, when you don't join African Americans in public condemnation of radio personalities like Don Imus when he targets young black college women as "nappyheaded ho's"? That's right: ALL women get targeted, including white female candidates running for the U.S. presidency).

Then again, why should any of us be surprised by these offensive and ignorant displays of racism and sexism? After all, we've already witnessed this drama play out well before "Hillary Iron My Shirt" and "Hillary Should Have Married OJ" T-shirts (in the latter slogan, let's think about how the combined racism and misogyny works so potently as to conjoin both candidates in a taboo-like moment of miscegenation, in which a vilified white woman would be murdered, if one believes in OJ's guilt, by the historically presented BLACK BRUTE NIGHTMARE OF AMERICA - how interesting to latently join Clinton and Obama in this historic framing).

Well before this nonsense, so many people thought it hilarious to see that foolish woman, Amber Lee Ettinger (more popularly known as the "Obama Girl"), recreate that miscegenated racialized fantasy of a white woman "crushing" on a black man, while also satirizing images of black sexuality - from recreating the "video ho" to sexualizing black masculinity in a way that renders his candidacy as illegitimate and unintellectual. Lo and behold, that stupid woman didn't even bother to vote on Super Tuesday when she was in a state that held primary elections, let alone vote for the candidate she so has a crush on and on whose body she has ridden to fame. Two things here about that ignorant fool, who in one fell swoop, rendered both Obama and Clinton as questionable candidates for the presidency by 1.) playing on latent racist images about black sexuality and 2.) rendering women in general as irrational and unintelligent and, therefore, since our reasons to be politically involved gets reduced to our libidos and not our intellect (and not even since we don't show up at the polls), then why would anyone take a female candidate seriously?

To be honest, that silly Obama Girl would not even be worth the time for critical analysis if 1.) my Newsweek magazine, which I received in the mail recently, didn't feature an articule about her latest and greatest viral video and 2.) CNN didn't feel the need to update us on whether or not Obama Girl voted during Super Tuesday (that's when I learned that she did not).

Why these "news" media are taking her seriously is worth questioning, but I'm pretty clear. Now that Big Media holds shares in corporate pornography and black minstrelsy shows, it certainly serves the purpose to circulate familiar images, albeit racist and sexist ones. And as long as there is currency in presenting the "novelty" of a black man and white woman running for the presidency, we will keep receiving these "jokes." I'm wondering, of course, once one of these candidates does ascend the position of the leader of the world's Superpower, if we're all going to stop laughing. Then again, when all those pundits and talking heads made endless jokes about the movie Brokeback Mountain before it actually lost its biggest prize - an Oscar for Best Picture - back in 2006, in hindsight, I realized that all the humor should have prepared me for that shocker. This year's humor about the presidential race makes me wonder if Big Media has not already crowned McCain as the next president of the United States.

And, if we are the kind of nation that really can't elect a candidate for the U.S. Presidency because of that candidate's race or gender, then it really is time for us to stop at the pretense of being "superior" to other countries.

The Woman Who Started the Haitian Revolution

As scholar Joan Dayan asks in her essay, "Erzulie: A Women's History of Haiti," "What is the name of the mambo, or vodoun priestess, who assisted the houngan Boukman in the legendary ceremony that began the Haitian Revolution in 1791 in the Caiman woods? ... As history tells it she made the conspirators drink the blood of the animal she slaughtered, while persuading them that therein lies the proof of their future invincibility in battle..." (p. 17).

While I do not know the name of this woman (and maybe some more knowledgeable reader can help me out here), I would like to invoke her spirit today. Although historians are in disagreement about whether or not the legenday Bois Caiman vodoun ceremony is fact or myth, or even if it was the pivotal moment that led to the Haitian slave uprising, I do know the moment is annually celebrated on the island as the beginning of revolution.

What I am interested in doing here is to re-center such important moments in Black History as Black "Herstory," for we should not ignore the role of this female mambo; legend has it that she was possessed by the lwa Ogoun, god of war as she sacrificed a black pig and ordered those at the ceremony to drink its blood. Of course, some historians discredit this story because it plays to the worst fears of black people by Europeans, especially the French who painted the slaves involved in the uprising as the most demonic figures ever. It mirrors very well the kinds of stories about satanic cults that Christian Europeans feared. However, to dismiss the story because it resembles the demonization of black people and black religion is to also dismiss a different kind of interpretation of such a ceremony, since Haitian locals do celebrate this legend as an important moment for black liberation.

The mambo in this story may be nameless in history, but her leadership in the revolution is just as critical as the roles that Boukman, Toussaint L'Ouverture, and Dessalines played in the quest for black liberation and national independence.

Obviously, I'm not so quick to dismiss legendary and mythic heroes as are historians, for somewhere in these tales that are kept alive today is an embodied understanding that we, as black women, have been central to our communities and to our people in modeling acts of resistance.

Citation:

Dayan, Joan. "Erzulie: A Women's History of Haiti." Research in African Literatures 25: 2 (1994): 5-30.

Sukie: Resistance on an Auction Block

Since people seem confused about what subversive representations of the body look like, let me offer a tale of resistance. It's the story of Sukie.

Who is Sukie? Sukie is one of those memorable figures in history who inspires others who survive, others who are "left to tell the tale."

I first learned of Sukie in a play that I once saw performed on the campus of my undergrad during a series of Black History Month programs. The play, Do Lord, Remember Me, was a reenactment of different scenarios offered in the 1930s WPA slave narratives, an intitiative during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, which employed academics, writers, and artists to collect oral histories from former slaves in an attempt to preserve their stories before their generation died out.

As a doctoral student, while researching nineteenth-century black women's representations, I came upon Sukie's story again. This time, I found the original WPA oral narrative, as told by an ex-slave named Fannie Berry in the historical collection, Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves, based on the 1937 WPA slave narratives. When I read the account of Sukie in this book, I was so excited to have encountered this fierce woman once again.

Fannie Berry, who tells her story to a black female interviewer (for what it's worth, we may want to think whether or not Ms. Berry would have been as forthcoming to a white and/or male interviewer), describes her remembrance of Sukie, a strong and willful slave woman who flat out resisted her master's sexual advances. As Berry put it: "She tole him no," which led to a fight between the two parties. "Den dat black gal got mad. She took an' punch ole Marsa an' made him break loose an' den she gave him a shove an' push his hindparts down in de hot pot o' soap ... It burnt him near to death... Marsa never did bother slave gals no mo'."

For this little insurrection, according to Berry, Sukie was then sold off. But strong-minded Sukie would not be bothered. When she was on the auction block, and as potential buyers were examining her, including prying into her mouth to check her teeth - as was routine - Sukie abruptly lifted up her dress to her audience and told them to "see if dey could fine any teef down dere." (Heh)

I like Sukie. I admit it. I like her brazenness, I like her self-possession, I like that she was able to tell her master "No!" Even if it meant punishment, like being sold away from all your loved ones. Even if it meant further humiliation on the slave auction block, which she then turned this public exposure on its head by volunteering self-exposure as a clear act of defiance: "Eat Me!"

But, notice. Her actions of resistance prevented the master from trying to sexually assault another slave (according to Berry, he "never did bother slave gals no mo'). Moreover, she clearly warns her future "master," that he's going to be in for some serious violence if he tries to subdue her like her former master. We will never really know the full story behind Sukie's actions and what did finally happen to her when she lived out the rest of her life on some other plantation. Maybe she was able to run off, maybe she committed suicide, maybe she was eventually freed during emancipation, like Berry. What we do know is that other slaves took solace in her story, a reminder to all black women that, even under slavery, we can resist and reclaim our very bodies.

Further Reading:

Discovering the Women in Slavery: Emancipating Perspectives on the American Past, edited by Patricia Morton. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Image:

Kara Walker, African/American.

Speaking of the "Hottentot Venus," Is This Supposed to Be Positive?

Here's a trailer for a film called Venus Lives, which supposedly celebrates and reveres voluptuous black women, while providing stark contrasts with Baartman's history.



I don't know. I'd have to see the film for myself to see if there is anything remotely subversive about contemporary portrayals of black women's behinds, especially in hip-hop and other aspects of popular culture.

It seems to me that far too many people are assuming that the proliferation of black women's butts in popular culture is some kind of affirmation of black women's sexiness and attractiveness and, therefore, view this new way that "Venus Lives" as some kind of reversal of Baartman's history without realizing that - JUST LIKE BAARTMAN IN THE 19th CENTURY - black women are still being turned into sex objects and, more importantly, they, like Baartman before them, continue to signify on heightened sexuality, exoticism, and dangerous, uncontrollable libido. So, just because today's admirers are presumably black men (as if white boys aren't purchasing the same magazines featuring Buffie the Body), and not their 19th-century European counterparts, does NOT necessarily change the same paradigm at work in history.

And this is why I will continue to remind us all of Black Herstory because, obviously, those of us who forget "HER STORY" (Baartman's in particular) are condemned to repeat it.

Saartjie Baartman: The "Hottentot Venus"

Now that I've already invoked the name of Anarcha, whose history is virtually unknown to many, I think it's time to do a piece on another woman, who has been given a great deal of attention recently. I am talking about none other than Saartjie (Sara or Sarah) Baartman (ca. 1788-1816), the original "Hottentot Venus."

Before Baartman's remains were finally returned to South Africa in 2002, I had already gone to Paris to bear witness. I will never forget the time I encountered her skeletal frame at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris and the plaster cast that was made of her by George Cuvier, the celebrated 19th-century scientist and Surgeon General to Napoleon, who dissected her brains and genitalia, soon after Baartman's death, and preserved both in jars of formaldehyde fluid, which were then placed on public display as late as 1985. Baartman was one of many other skeletons, whose remains were gathered by European scientists to prove the "inherent inferiority" of non-white peoples, and in my mind, seeing her bones among so many others suggested to me the mad-house horrors one would find in a haunted mansion. Instead, what haunts us in this case is the legacy established by scientific racism. Here is Baartman's story.

Baartman was born at a time during the period of Dutch colonization in South Africa. Her indigenous name is uncertain, but the name Saartjie is Dutch for “little Sara.” Baartman was raised in a rural indigenous community of Khoisan, the descendants of the Khoi Khoi people (who were already rumored to have been wiped out during her time period) and the San. The Khoi Khoi were derogatorily referred to as “Hottentots,” while the San were called “Bushmen.” Both Khoi Khoi and San were labeled “missing links” between humans and apes in racist scientific arguments because of their hunter-gatherer lifestyles and unusual speech patterns, which the Dutch dismissed as guttural animal sounds. Such views dehumanized the Khoi Khoi and San, who were targeted for extermination and removal.

Baartman was already a married woman when she experienced one of these extermination raids on her community;. she lost her husband and family in this the raid, and eventually she migrated to the urban center of the Cape Town for survival, where she worked as a servant to a Boer farmer named Peter Cezar.

It was at Cezar’s home where his brother, Hendrik Cezar, first noticed Baartman during a visit to the house and later conceived of the “Hottentot Venus” show during his visit. The show, which would take place in London at the famous Piccadilly Circus, would exploit European interests in African natives, especially in the “Hottentots,” who had already become mythical in the European imagination. The Hottentot Venus show would also capitalize on the prurient interests in so-called primitive sexuality, described in the tall-tale accounts of explorers who fabricated stories of “Hottentot” women’s oversized buttocks and mysterious “Hottentot apron,” an extra flap of skin covering the vaginal area.

Hendrik Cezar formed a partnership with a British ship surgeon, Alexander Dunlop, who both entertained the idea of Baartman's exhibition. They convinced Baartman to enter into a contract on the “Hottentot Venus” show, in which she would share in the profits of her exhibition. They left the Cape for London in 1810 and arrived in September of that year. Dunlop eventually dropped out of the business transaction when a local merchant purchased a giraffe skin from the two men but refused to invest in Baartman. Nonetheless, Cezar advertised the show and billed Baartman as a “most correct specimen of her race.” The “Hottentot Venus” exhibition, which took place at 225 Egyptian Hall at the Piccadilly Circus, was instantly popular and inspired bawdy ballads and political cartoons, thus demonstrating how the icon of the Hottentot Venus became a fixture in the culture. This image created a fetish out of her backside, and it possibly served as the basis for a fashion development: with the mid- to- late--nineteenth-century bustle, which gave the illusion of a large bottom.

The show also provoked outrage, as various witnesses complained about seeing Baartman in a cage. These witnesses also described Baartman appearing nearly nude and being threatened with violence by her exhibitor. These complaints soon led to the intervention of the African Institution, an abolitionist organization that brought Hendrik Cezar to trial for practicing slavery and public indecency. Baartman testified on her own behalf, but she did not corroborate stories of being held against her will and only complained about not having enough clothes to wear. The courts eventually dismissed the case but mandated that Cezar discontinue in the show’s indecency. As a result, the show disappeared from London but may have surfaced in the English countryside.

In 1814, Cezar and Baartman arrived in Paris, where Cezar abandoned her to an animal trainer named Reaux. Baartman continued in the “Hottentot Venus” show, which caused the same sensation in Paris as it had in London. Baartman later attracted the attention of three revered natural scientists, including the infamous George Cuvier. In March 1815, Baartman was subjected to scientific observations; she was already an alcoholic at the time, and the scientists enticed her with alcohol and sweets to pose nude. Baartman refused, however, to reveal what they had hoped to witness: a view of her “Hottentot apron.”

In less than a year after this scientific inquest, Baartman died from complications of alcoholism. Upon her death, Cuvier acquired her cadaver, using it to write his 1817 scientific thesis unveiling the mystery of her “apron.” In this thesis, Cuvier compared her genitalia with those of apes and crafted racist scientific theories, which circulated for more than a century, on African women’s oversexed and subhuman status.

In 1995, under Nelson Mandela’s post-apartheid government, South Africa agitated for the return of Baartman’s remains and began a nearly decade-long feud with the French government over this troubling history. Seven years later, in March 2002, the French Senate finally agreed to return Baartman’s remains—including her preserved organs—for burial in her homeland. On August 9, 2002, National Women’s Day in South Africa, thousands attended Baartman’s centuries-delayed funeral in Cape Town. She was buried along the River Gamtoos.

Further Resources:

www.hottentotvenus.com

Exhibiting the "Other" in the West

Altick, Richard. The Shows of London. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Gilman, Sander. Difference and Pathology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.

Gould, Stephen Jay. “The Hottentot Venus.” The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History. New York: Norton Press, 1985. 291-305.

Hobson, Janell. Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture. NY: Routledge, 2005.

Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Willis, Deborah and Carla Williams. The Black Female Body: A Photographic History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

A Bit of Jamaican History: Nanny and Other "Soul Rebels"

Since I did not post any "Black Herstory" fact yesterday - having been so caught up with Super Tuesday and other incidents - I am doubling up

on my posts today. So, today on Bob Marley's birthday, né Robert Marley (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981), who would have been 63 years old if he were still alive, I am going to dig through Jamaica's history to invoke the memory of Nanny of the Maroons.

Bob Marley's politics is in keeping with Nanny, fellow Jamaican "soul rebel." A fierce fugitive slave in the eighteenth century, Nanny, from the Asante in West Africa, who forged her own community called Nanny Town in the Jamaican rainforests with other fugitives known as maroons, is credited with defeating English armies by catching their bullets in her buttocks and hurling back their ammunition. A historical account of Nanny of the Maroons in Jamaica is included in Jenny Sharpe’s Ghosts of Slavery (2002) and Spirits of the Passage (1997), edited by Madeleine Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham; also Jamaican author Michelle Cliff includes this local legend in her novels, including Abeng and Free Enterprise. It is believed that Nanny, who held out against the British colonizers and slaveowners through both militaristic and magical powers (it is believed) died in battle around 1734.



Bob Marley's "Natural Mystic" Live.

Apart from these historical and mythical tales and her legendary status, Nanny of the Maroons is officially recognized as a Jamaican national hero (the only female among seven heroes), is featured in the Jamaican Heroes National Park, and is on the $500 Jamaican dollar.

Not too long ago, Jamaican-American artist Renee Cox featured Nanny as a subject in an art series, Queen Nanny of the Maroons (including first and bottom images).

Here, Cox invokes different visual manifestations of Nanny as quintessential Jamaican woman - warrior, mother, spiritual leader, teacher, etc.

So, today I thought it appropriate - with these double posts for Black Herstory - to highlight the dual heritage of black women: our victimization and our successful resistance strategies in history. May we pour libation for these spirits who both placed their bodies on the line for our freedoms.

There's a natural mystic blowing through the air/ If you listen carefully now, you will hear...

Anarcha - Black Women and the History of Gynecology

Today, while dealing with the stresses and anxieties of being a black woman trying to get adequate healthcare, I thought I would remind everyone about an obscure black woman in history who was crucial to the founding of gynecology.

Her name is Anarcha, a slave woman on whose body the antebellum physician, J. Marion Sims, invented the speculum (you know, that invasive painful instrument gynecologists use to conduct Pap Smear exams). While she was one of a number of slave women who were experimented on by this Sims guy, I'm specifically invoking Anarcha because her story highlights for me the unspeakable horrors that were visted upon our foremothers. From 1845 to 1849, Sims rented the bodies of slave women from their masters in Alabama to perfect his surgical experiments, and Anarcha was operated on THIRTY TIMES WITHOUT ANESTHESIA.

So, the next time you go in for your annual, and especially if you have grievance with the kind of healthcare you receive as a woman of color, recall Anarcha and the ways that her experience has basically set the foundation for racism and misogyny to shape the way women are treated in medicine, especially since gynecology was designed, not only to subjugate the female body, but to discredit the knowledge base of midwives and herbal specialists that our traditional medicine women and men represented.

Curiously enough, the white people living in antebellum America in the South trusted their enslaved black medicine women far more than they trusted their white male medical counterparts since white physicians engaged in invasive practices that were just too painful. How ironic that the same white physicians, like Sims, legitimated their practice through their medical experimentations on black women's bodies like Anarcha.

Further Reading:

Kapsalis, Terri. Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of Speculum. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

Targeted for Violence: Some Other Concerns This Super Tuesday

Let's all hope our votes will count, despite voting machine breakdowns, resorting to paper ballots and the like (in terms of other voting irregularities today). However, I am now compelled to raise another issue that I learned today about a disturbing incident this past weekend.

It's been only two weeks since our new semester started, and there has already been issued two campus-wide alerts about students (presumably white since they were not racially marked) who've been attacked off campus by locals, who have been identified as African Americans. Yet, I am still waiting for the campus-wide alert about a violent incident that happened on campus on Saturday in which a group of African American students, who congregated in a dorm commons room, playing cards and listening to music, were targeted by an unidentified assailant(s) (possibly other students) just outside the dorm who threw two bottles through the window where they were sitting. One young woman was slightly cut in the back of her neck by the broken glass. When they called campus police, it took them 30 minutes to respond, and the response came in the form of a custodial worker who showed up to examine the damage done to the broken windows. The police finally came the next morning to file their report.

So, while we await with anticipation of the news that is delivered later tonight, or perhaps we won't know until tomorrow or a few days, and while we eagerly look forward to days of progress in this history-making event, let us not forget to remain vigilant in these "hateration" times. Hate crimes have been on the rise, and we need not imagine that any symbolic changes that might come will quell these trends.

Voting Irregularities Alert!

And this is why I remember history and plan on highlighting history this month, because I don't take any kind of action during an election lightly or as mere coincidences. I'm speaking specifically about the voting primary in New York state this Super Tuesday.

I'm already inconvenienced by the decision made to open the polls at noon (with closing time at 9 pm) because I showed up early in the morning, along with two other elderly white women, to cast my vote. We were all turned away and told to come back when polls open. I trust that they gave us the right information, for if it was only me, I would've immediately been suspicious. I already was, considering that the usual place where I show up to vote had changed buildings.

So, when I showed up at work to find that other faculty and students of color were also experiencing certain irregularities (one faculty said she showed up at her regular polling place, only to discover that - after voting in the same place for the last 14 years - it had changed to a completely new location, which she had spent a good half hour searching for!), red flags went up. All of us had also noticed that none of us received the usual notification in the mail, to remind us about voting and where to show up.

So, I think it's time I put everyone on notice. I will be leaving work early to try and vote again, and if I get turned away for any other reason, it's on!

I'm also going to ask everyone to share similar stories because we did nothing back in 2000, and we cannot afford to do nothing again this year.

Exercise Your Right to Vote!: Remembering Fannie Lou Hamer

Now that Super Tuesday is upon us, I know that tomorrow will be a busy day for me. So, I definitely wanted to take the time to remind everyone that exercising the right to vote in our democracy is a long hard-won fight that too many of us take for granted today. And in the interest of combining both current events and my blog's recent focus on Black Herstory, I thought it would be appropriate to invoke the memory of Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) of civil rights Mississippi fame. A major activist who worked tirelessly for African Americans to gain their voting rights, Hamer also famously proclaimed that she was "sick and tired of being sick and tired."

So, for those of us who are "sick and tired of being sick and tired" of these identity politics and who simply want to vote their conscience, let us remember her courage and her commitment to political activism.

As someone who has been bombarded all day today by various Clinton and Obama supporters who've been clogging my email inbox (some of my coworkers even extended an invitation to attend an "election night party" - as if I'm showing up anywhere now that people have pretty much shown, in their fanatacism, that they will treat you as a sworn enemy for life if you don't vote the way they do), I just have three points of advice:

1. Vote! - It's your democratic right, no matter who you vote for.

2. Vote your conscience! - Do not succumb to peer pressure; make your own decisions and vote in a way that you can live with the consequences.

3. Keep your vote to yourself! - I'm half-joking with the "sworn enemy" statement. Never have I seen so many people invested in the possible outcome of tomorrow's vote. Voting for identity politics means that people will take how you vote personally. However, the privilege of voting in a democracy is that you can vote behind a curtain in whatever way you feel best, and NO!, you do not have to confide in anyone about how you cast your vote unless you want to.

However one votes, tomorrow's results will be an exciting event, so as we cast our votes, let's all remember the women warriors of the past, like Fannie Lou Hamer, who made it possible for women like ourselves to be viable decision makers for a major political party. That in and of itself is worth celebrating!

Intervention Time Once Again!: Second-Wave White Feminists On the Offensive

I guess I will just get used to integrating current-event posts with my Black Herstory ones, because I must issue a commentary on the latest offensive statement by another second-wave white feminist icon. This time the culprit is Robin Morgan.

Reprising, or rather, updating her 1970 classic essay, "Goodbye to All That," Morgan thought to do a Gloria-Steinem-like comparison between the sexism that Senator Hillary Clinton has suffered and the racism that Senator Barack Obama has apparently not suffered since, of course - if we are all to believe the crap that we spew forth - it does not exist since he is obviously doing so well in the campaign. In her statement, included on the Women's Media Center website, Morgan argues that "not since the suffrage struggle have two communities—joint conscience-keepers of this country—been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls." Like Steinem, Ms. Morgan also seems to have an obtuse and myopic view of history since, last time I checked, for all the hand-wringing over black men gaining the right to vote before white women, not only did black men not get the chance to even exercise the right to vote before they were quickly strung up on trees, but white women certainly didn't help the situation, as they were implicated in these lynchings and - WORSE! - began arguing for woman's suffrage based on the premise that white supremacy could only be ensured if white women (and not any other woman) were granted the right to vote. Why bring up any allusions to this racist history!

But, of course, Morgan's critique gets worse. Here is an excerpt of her "Oprression Olympics":

Goodbye to the double standard . . .
—Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
—She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains?)
—When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.
—Young political Kennedys—Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.—all endorsed Hillary. Senator Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)

Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.” Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters). John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?" with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.

Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.

Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.

Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame.

Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?

Sigh. Now, don't get me wrong. The above mentioned examples of misogyny directed at Senator Clinton are absolutely deplorable, and, yes, I do share Morgan's concern that we, as a nation, have not addressed sexism in this campaign head on (in a way that we might have had these kinds of verbal and representational attacks been directed at Obama; but the fact that neither Morgan nor Steinem have acknowledged that Obama and family have already received lynching threats means that they intend to skew this discussion in the same old "see, racism isn't a problem! It's only sexism that's keeping us down" argument when we all know that's absolute nonsense).

My concern with Morgan's arguments is her insistence on creating this dichotomy in which sexism is the only problem. There is no engagement with how both isms intersect in this presidential campaign. There is no critique of how the Clintons relied on race-baiting to narrow the focus of the race on identity politics - and subsequently asking voters to choose between race and gender, which resulted in the complete erasure of Senator Edwards as a viable candidate. And while I do have questions about Obama's treatment of gender politics, of which he has not been forthcoming, I cannot condone the tactics of second-wave white feminists fanning the flames in a way that will vilify Obama, the black man with the "unfair" advantage of "male privilege" (all the while ignoring Clinton's "unfair" advantage of "white privilege") who will benefit from the country's misogyny to advance ahead of her. Tell me this isn't a ploy to mobilize the "older white woman vote," while relying on covert racial sentiments even while downplaying racism, especially in the wake of Oprah's combined offensive with Caroline Kennedy to rally the masses in California.

Wait, there's more! As is typical of these kinds of pro-woman statements, the second-waver always trots out the women of color as a rallying point, as a way of saying: "see, black woman? It would behoove you to take our side because we are your sisters!" while conveniently ignoring the ways that, once again, they have forged this connection through THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK!

For example, Morgan says

I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote—until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they’re being called “race traitors.”

So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the U.S. and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.

See how easy it is to trot out our backs and cross over these bridges to make their "Oppression Olympics" argument? See how the subtle message delivered here is, not that the media has been overly simplistic in its construction of discussions about race and gender by imagining that only African American women had so-called pivotal power in the voting elections (while ignoring how white women were also mobilized in similar ways) but that only black feminists would be voting for Clinton because those who would vote for Obama must not be feminists?

And, the most egregious offense of all: did you catch how she appropriated our historical experience of slavery - a system based primarily on RACE - to misrepresent sex trafficking today, a system based primarily on GENDER (while I agree there are many conditions in present-day human trafficking that mirror African American slavery in the past, this analogy is highly inappropriate and designed to make the point, YET AGAIN, that racism is a problem of the past, sexism is a problem of today). Moreover, how convenient, whenever a point must be made about the evils of today's misogyny that women of color's bodies are placed on exhibit for white women's arguments since we, invariably, suffer the worst forms of sexism. I wonder why? Hmmm.... might this have something to do with, I don't know...

THE INTERSECTIONS OF SEXISM AND RACISM!

But, second-wavers don't have to deal with these intersections since they would have us believe that sexism is the greatest evil in the world, as well as the "original" oppression. This is debatable, as far as I'm concerned.

When Morgan argues that a " few non-racist countries may exist—but sexism is everywhere," she fails to acknowledge that a world like ours has already felt the deep effects of global white imperialism, thanks to globalization and colonization before it. Sexism may be everywhere, but sexism has been shored up by systems of white supremacy and imperialism, and no amount of "sexism is worse than racism" proclamations is going to erase the fact that racism is intrinsically connected to sexism and that racism, especially in this country of ours, has shaped and will shape the way that we are discussing issues of gender in this election.

I am just tired and completely disgusted by the ways that certain women will camouflage their race-baiting tactics through these so-called feminist rants. These rants recreate racial hierarchies, and I believe these are the worst ways to rally support for a candidate. If you want to vote for Senator Clinton, do so because you believe she supports your political views. The same goes for why you would vote for Senator Obama. If you are a feminist, and you have certain political issues in line with that ideology, then vote for a candidate that you feel best represents your issues.

A friend of mine once told her students, who asked if she would like to see a woman president, that she would like to see a feminist president. Does that mean that a feminist president can only be a woman? Can a man be a feminist president?

Of the various candidates on the ballot, which one best fits that bill? You decide.

While Morgan ends her rant by saying, "Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman—but because I am," I would happily challenge this premise by remarking, "Me, I've voting for _________ not because s/he is a feminist - but because I am."

And for me, a feminist is one who is committed to the elimination of racism alongside sexism because these are oppressions affecting all women.

Note: Please don't start assuming whom I'm voting for - I believe in secret ballots, and I have no interest in playing partisan politics on my blog. If I criticize Robin Morgan here, it's because I reject her main premise that sexism is a greater problem than racism.

Emerging from the Shadows of History: Mary Ellen Pleasant

When a blogger, who does biographical work on John Brown, commented on my earlier Harriet Tubman post, I was reminded of yet another black female historical figure who was connected to the man (or rather, who connected herself to him). I'm referring to Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814-1904).

Ever heard of her?

Neither did I until I read Michelle Cliff's Free Enterprise, which came out in 1993 and then disappeared quickly, remaining out of print for some time until, a few years ago, a small San Francisco publishing house resurrected the novel and, in the process, the memory of an extraordinary black woman.

And for those of you who have never heard of M.E.P., I'm sure you've all heard of Madame C.J. Walker, the first black female millionaire in U.S. history (courtesy of black women's hair anxieties, for Ms. Walker got rich through hair-straightening products).

I bring up Madame C.J. Walker because I just thought you all should know that there was another black female millionaire who preceded her. That's right. Mary Ellen Pleasant was not only a successful business woman who struck it rich out in the West during the Gold Rush in the 19th century, but she was also an instrumental force within the Underground Railroad. She was also rumored to have financed John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.

Amazing, isn't she?

If I thought Harriet Tubman was worthy of a grand movie epic, so is M.E.P. And according to her biographer, Lynn M. Hudson, apparently, she already inspired dozens of legends, plays, films, and other stories. And, yet, here we are this Black History Month, and I doubt she'll be showing up on anybody's February calendar.

Sad, isn't it?

Perhaps this is understandable. At times, M.E.P. seems more mythic than historic. Even her origins are in question. Some say she was born a slave in Georgia, others say she is the daughter of a Haitian voodoo priestess and a Virginia planter. Either way, somehow she became free and, later, she became a wealthy woman in San Francisco. Among her various accomplishments, she operated boardinghouses, hotels, restaurants, invested in mines and stocks and used the secrets she learned from boardinghouses to capitalize on her wealth. She was both revered as "Mammy Pleasant" (in Cliff's novel, she cleverly presents a "mammy"-like M.E.P. playing the part while shrewdly smuggling fugitive slaves, whom she hid in her various houses and real-estate property, and moving about strategically in her militant support of the Harper's Ferry raid) and reviled as a "Voodoo Queen" (of course any black woman with that kind of power must have been putting spells on everyone, right?).

We cannot know for certain how many of these stories are factual versus mythic, but as Michelle Cliff muses, upon viewing Mary Ellen Pleasant's headstone, which bears the epitaph - "She was a friend of John Brown" - somewhere in the myths and the legends and the tales is the kernel of truth.

Further Reading:

Hudson, Lynn M. The Making of "Mammy Pleasant": A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Go New York Giants!

Just taking the time out to give a shout out to the New York Giants who just won the Super Bowl! Woo-hoo!

(I will resume my "Black Herstory" focus momentarily...)

Why is There No Great Movie Epic about Harriet Tubman?

Of all the black female figures in history, Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913), aka Araminta Ross, has always struck me as the one whose life story would make an awe-inspiring, spine-tingling, impressive cinematic venture (if done properly). In fact, we should all be questioning, after all the great movie epics and biopics of great historical warriors treated on screen - Braveheart, Alexander, Troy, 300, Lawrence of Arabia, etc. - why we have yet to see just one American movie (that's right, take note: start checking out some foreign-language films like Quilombo or The Last Supper), just one! of a great black warrior. (And, Nooooooooo, I do not count Spielberg's Amistad, in which Cinque, who led a revolt on a slave ship - courtesy of unchained black female captives, who helped free the men since the women were often unchained so that the ship's crew could easily access their bodies - spent the duration of that movie in chains, in captivity, at the mercy! of an American court system of all things.)

Granted, I can already hear some of you - now that I brought up the example of the movie Amistad - tell me that no way, no how, should anybody working in Hollywood even touch Harriet Tubman's story. That, if they could reduce one of the bravest, most admirable African warriors like Cinque into a chained "noble savage" lifting his arms in that typical abolitionist tableaux - Am I Not a Man and a Brother? - crying, "Give us free! Give us free!" (I'm still shuddering at the image), what wouldn't they do to Mrs. Tubman?


Obviously, the issue isn't just why Tubman's story hasn't been made into a movie epic, but how such a movie could be made that was sincere to her radical, militant vision (did I use the words "radical" and "militant"? Yes, I did). While I'm pleased to see that Tubman has been "safely" transformed into a historical figure that we can teach the children at elementary school every Black History Month, I would like the grown-ups to take her history seriously at some point. I do believe there are many children's books that feature her, which of course should make us question why a Disney animation has yet to tackle her story: But if some of you would be sickened at the sight of a cuddly yellow North Star singing a spiritual-like melody while Harriet Tubman journeys on her way North to freedom, or better yet, at an entourage of little forest animals cracking various jokes in "ghetto" slang during her trips on the Underground Railroad, perhaps it's for the best.

Can we take seriously the life of an enslaved girl, who at age 12, refused to collaborate in the punishment of another slave and was subsequently injured, the results of which were violent seizures that made her a disabled person (albeit, she took strength in this affliction through visions and spells) for the rest of her life?

Can we take seriously the life of an enslaved woman, who found her way out of the "hell" that she called slavery and then found her way back into hell numerous times, to lead an estimate of 300 slaves into freedom, often times by holding a gun to their heads to urge them on the journey?

Can we take seriously the life of a woman, who led a posse of other woman through the streets of a Northern city to get a fugitive slave out of jail?

Can we take seriously the life of a woman, who wasn't above "shucking and jiving" as a ruse to camouflage the different secret trips she made on the Underground Railroad?

Can we take seriously the life of a woman, who would have accompanied John Brown and his guerrilla band of men to Harper's Ferry had she not taken ill at the time and, might I add, whom many believed they would have been more successful had they had such a woman, who knows a thing or two about guerrilla warfare, among their ranks?

Can we take seriously the life of a woman who led one of the most successful all-black military victories during the Civil War at the Combahee River in South Carolina?

And on top of all these activities, she took the time to adopt a little girl (whom she found in the wake of the great war), marry twice, and live to a ripe old age in her 90s.

So, these are some of the highlights of her life, all poised to be framed for jaw-dropping scenery with some good sound cinematography, art direction, costume design, sound mixing, visual effects, and some fine solid acting and direction. Tubman, who loved to tell stories about her life, I'm sure would appreciate a good cinematic adaptation had she lived during our era.

While I agree there aren't too many folks working in the movie industry at present who are up to the task (maybe Kasi Lemmons or Julie Dash could do a good direction, with Don Cheadle producing), I will say this: if you're interested, give me a call. Perhaps I should get working on a screenplay! :)

Most recent biographies on Harriet Tubman:

Humez, Jean M. Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003).

Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (Ballantine Books, 2003).

Ida B. Wells: "Iola," Pen Warrior

Today, I honor my favorite black woman in history: Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), married name Barnett, fierce, articulate, determined, courageous, and completely uncompromising in her fight for racial and gender justice. And, she did most of her fighting with a pen - best known for writing anti-lynching newspaper articles. She signed under her pen name, "Iola."

Here's how much of a fierce warrior Ms. Wells-Barnett was. When her parents, both former slaves, died when she was sixteen during a yellow fever epidemic that affected Memphis, Tennessee where they were living, Wells took on the responsibility of raising her five siblings - rather than have them separated among family. She lied about her age to get a job as a schoolteacher and went about on a demanding schedule of teaching, housework, childcare, and attending college to receive an elementary school license. Not long after, in 1884, she would set a "civil rights" example when, in the wake of Plessy vs. Ferguson which established legal racial segregation, Wells was evicted from the "Ladies' Coach" of a train. But, of course, not without a fight! When she refused to move to the "smoking car" in the back - now reserved for "Coloreds" - the conductor tried to manhandle her, the result of which led to Wells biting the man's hand. It took two more conductors to drag her kicking and screaming out of the car. Afterwards, Wells sued the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad company (AND WON!!) but eventually lost in the appeals case.

It was around this time that Wells began her journalistic career, writing for a Baptist newspaper, Living Way, before writing for the independent African American newspaper, Free Speech, of which she invested in a third of the shares for this paper. In 1891, this proved profitable for she eventually lost her teaching job when she wrote a scathing editorial about the local school board. When her good friend Thomas Moss, and his business partners, who owned a collective grocery business catering to the black community were lynched by an angry mob on March 9, 1892, Wells started investigating the numerous lynchings taking place in the South. Here, she developed meticulous research and sound journalism and concluded that the lies spread about the "black rapist" on the prowl for white women were a cruel cover-up for white supremacy and black disenfranchisement. Her inflammatory editorials put her life on the line, and she took to carrying a pistol underneath her petticoats since, as she put it, she was determined to "sell my life as dearly as possible" and further advocated that a "Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every home" of a black family.

By the time Wells wrote the editorial that would ban her from the South forever - in which she basically challenged that no one believes the lies white men were telling about the reasons for lynching and that they need to "be careful lest an unfavorable picture is drawn about white women" and their proclivities for being in questionable situations with black men - her Free Speech office was ransacked and burned, and an effigy of Wells was hanged at the local train station (this occurred while she was out of town in New York). She had to take her battle elsewhere, which she did. She eventually toured Europe, where she spread her antilynching crusade in 1893, including selling copies of her booklet, Southern Horrors, which documented various cases of lynching, and helped create several antilynching organizations over there, which were instrumental in leading boycotts against cotton - the leading export from the South. Lo and behold, lynchings started to decrease. Yeah, Ida's the woman, isn't she?

One of the things I really admire about Wells is her keen sensibility to recognize not only the intersections of race, class, and gender, but also how these issues factor in global contexts. Aside from her tour of Europe - part of which was financed by the National Association for Colored Women (see that, sisters? We got to support one another!) - she also joined with Frederick Douglass and other prominent men in the community in creating a pamphlet to protest the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. A world fair designed to highlight white supremacy while subjugating Africans, Native Americans, and other people of color as wild savages in various human exhibitions, Wells and her educated cohort put together the pamphlet, The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the Columbian Exposition, which included Wells' essays on lynching, disenfranchisement, and the convict leasing system. It was also Wells' idea to translate the pamphlet into five different languages so that they could disperse copies of the pamphlets to the international audience in attendance. Since they didn't have the budget for this, they settled with translating the introduction.

Eventually, Wells would marry in her thirties, have several children, and still not let marriage or motherhood interrupt her activism. She remained committed to fighting lynching, racial discrimination, and woman's suffrage (one anecdote that I read described how, when she and a group of black suffragettes attended the Suffrage Parade of 1913 in D.C., the racist suffragettes ordered that they hold up the rear of the parade. Naturally, Wells refused and snuck into the front of the parade when they least expected it! :) )

So, today I want to remember Ida B. Wells, "pen warrior," to remind us all of the power of an individual to agitate and to mobilize against injustice, indeed against evil. I particularly would like us to think about the lessons her life story offers in an age of Big Media, which is inclined to spin, distort, and rely on the same negative stereotypes designed to cast black people in the worst light (Obama's success notwithstanding). I often wonder, were Wells alive today, how would she use media to fight against the unjust criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex? How would she tie these issues to a black feminist agenda (for she clearly was)? As an ardent journalist, who would balk at the subtle ways Big Media gradually chips away at freedom of the press, what new ways would she approach her role as a "pen warrior"?

Let us celebrate her spirit and her wisdom, even as we draw inspiration from this history to forge our own paths, fighting different and similar battles.

Forthcoming book this March: Ida B. Wells: A Sword Among Lions; Ida B. Wells and the Campaign against Lynching, new biography from Amistad Press by historian Paula Giddings.

Also by Paula Giddings, which documents Wells' activism, see When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (William Morrow & Co., 1984).

See Wells' autobiography: Crusade for Justice (University of Chicago Press, 1988 reprint).

Documentary film on Ida B. Wells: Ida B. Wells, A Passion for Justice (from William Greaves Productions).

Black History Month: My Black "Herstory" Focus

Today is the first of February, thus beginning what is recognized as "Black History Month," the shortest month of the year. While on my blog, I do black history month every month, I thought I would nonetheless highlight different individuals in history, with a feminist twist. I remember a few Black History months back how angered I was when A&E, for example, once promised to highlight black historical figures in their Biography series for the month of February; as it turned out, they only highlighted one black historical figure each week (and not for the entire month as promised - and don't tell me you can't find 20 black historical figures, if this were based on a M-F schedule, to highlight just for one month!), and the only woman they included in the mix was Sally Hemings, whom they admitted they didn't really know much about because there weren't enough historical records to document her life story; her life story, as it turned out, was only tied to the number of children she may have had with President Thomas Jefferson, which is why she was remembered in the first place!

I was so angry at the way black women's history in particular was marginalized and erased (and don't get me started with other channels, like History, for example - although TCM once surprised me one fine Black History Month when they highlighted various silent films by Oscar Micheaux) that I would like to use my blog to focus on some worthwhile black women from whom we have so much to learn.

Last month, I already highlighted the historic turn presented by Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to run for president of the United States (this is worth remembering when we vote on Super Tuesday for a "history-making" candidate). However, my next post (perhaps later today) will highlight the life of my absolute favorite black female historical figure ever (wonder if you can guess who she is?). And, yes, I will prove that each day I can find some worthy black female historical figure to write about. That is the challenge I present before you.

CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH!