Black Women of the 20th Century

"GWENDOLYN BROOKS: (1917–2000)." In The New Anthology of American Poetry: Postmodernisms 1950-Present, edited by Axelrod Steven Gould, Roman Camille, and Travisano Thomas, 106-17. NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY; LONDON: Rutgers University Press, 2012. Accessed May 11, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1bj4sjv.16.

Brooks, Gwendolyn. “The Bean Eaters.” New York, Harper (1960). Accessed May 11, 2020.

Clabough, Casey. "Afrocentric Recolonizations: Gayl Jones's 1990s Fiction." Contemporary Literature 46, no. 2 (2005): 243-74. Accessed May 11, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/4489116.

Matthews, Kristin L. "Neither Inside Nor Outside: Mari Evans, the Black Aesthetic, and the Canon." CEA Critic 73, no. 2 (2011): 34-54. Accessed May 11, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/44378442.

"Remembering Audre Lorde (1993)." In New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000, edited by Bowles Gloria, Fabi M. Giulia, and Keizer Arlene R., by Christian Barbara, 164-68. University of Illinois Press, 2007. Accessed May 11, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcfc6.21.

HIGASHIDA, CHERYL. "Audre Lorde Revisited: Nationalism and Second-Wave Black Feminism." In Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995, 134-57. Urbana; Chicago; Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2011. Accessed May 11, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt2tt9dg.9.

SMITHERS, GREGORY D. "Challenging a Pan-African Identity: The Autobiographical Writings of Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, and Caryl Phillips." Journal of American Studies 45, no. 3 (2011): 483-502. Accessed May 11, 2020. doi:10.2307/23016785.

About Me

Maya Angelou

Of course, one couldn’t forget one of the most talked about and memorable female poets of the 20th century that bled into the 21st century--Maya Angelou. Her work has been talked about in many high school and college classrooms and she is a well-known close friend of successful Black talk-show host, Oprah Winfrey. She worked for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and was even an educator herself. Her writings consist (but are not minimized to) Black rights, personal experiences, and Black feminism. Something interesting that Angelou talks about in this article that talks about the Pan-African identity is how Black Americans not wanting to be associated with Africa (specifically Marcus Garvey’s movement “back to Africa”) was shown in all of the African diaspora, not just in America. This is also seen in the West Indies who would rather be associated as a British Citizen than someone from Africa. Upon reading about Marcus Garvey and his plans, I always wondered why many Black Americans (specifically) wanted to go everywhere (Paris, South America, etc) except back to Africa and why Garvey was seen as a threat for initiating this movement. Angelou doesn’t say whether or not she was against or for the movement, but she does point out how universal it is for African Americans to not want to go back or associate with the place they or their ancestors were stolen from (Smithers). 

In the early 1960s, Maya Angelou had the luxury of going back to Ghana and experiencing what many Black Americans were afraid of. She thought to herself--was this what she was missing this whole time in her adult and childhood? She compared the skin of Ghanians to some of her favorite foods and snacks and began questioning if Ghana could be a home for her still. She then goes on to compare Ghana to heaven. Of course, this didn’t last long as she began to be reminded that her ancestors were seen as “weak” by natives and the transatlantic slave trade began to peg her (Smithers).

Most of her popularized work isn’t focused around the Black American experience, but moreso her own experience, experiences of other women, and female empowerment in general. I found that quite interesting considering she was one of few women that was able to travel outside of the America and to Ghana. I find this poem coming up not only tackles the “Angry Black Woman” schema and the sexualization of Black women but this poem also uplifts women who are consistently being put down for showing a bit of edge. It’s one of my favorite poems of Maya Angelou and one of the first I’ve read in high school.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Audre Lorde

One of the most exciting poets I was able to discover was an influential Black lesbian social feminist--Audre Lorde. She was out and open about her sexuality and played a big part on advocating second-wave feminism and speaking out on Black rights simultaneously. This is where the term Womanism, the originator seeming to be Alice Walker, started to form as many Black women came to realize that feminism catered to white women while turning a blind eye to women of color, specifically Black women.

Speak earth and bless me with what is richest

make sky flow honey out of my hips rigis mountains spread over a valley carved out by the mouth of rain. And I knew when I entered her I was high wind in her forests hollow fingers whispering sound honey flowed from the split cup impaled on a lance of tongues on the tips of her breasts on her navel and my breath howling into her entrances through lungs of pain. Greedy as herring-gulls or a child I swing out over the earth over and over again.

Mari Evans

Another important and talented Black female poet of the 20th century. She was one of the most interesting 20th century poets I found--mainly because I couldn’t find much about her upon searching. Mainly because, like Gayl Jones, she tackled topics that Black people (at the time) did not want to tackle or read about. I could tell by her work that she was more of a Black Panther/Malcolm X follower than a Martin Luther King Junior follower.

i'm 

        gonna put black angels         in all the books and a black         Christchild in Mary's arms i'm         gonna make black bunnies black         fairies black santas black         nursery rhymes and                                 black ice cream ("Vive Noir" 72-3).

This poem in particular was compelling as it really shows that Mari was really for the reformation of Black specifically in America where Christianity was forced upon her ancestors and popularized. 

Gayl Jones

Gayl Jones wasn’t just a poet, she was also a novelist and playwrighter. She was an extremely talented and outspoken woman who, like rappers, find the beauty of their culture in (some may say) problematic ways. Before doing so, of course, “Jones prodigiously established a powerful and sometimes problematic dialectic between aesthetic experimentation--a highly unique combination of clinical psychology, eroticism, and applied African American musical elements (ritual, myth, repetition)--and the cultural investigation of what it means to be a modern African American woman” (Clabough). Since Jones’ work went against always portraying Blackness in a positive light during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, her work was often isolated from other Black works. Despite how uncomfortable and pragmatic Jones work was to many, it still fit Marable’s general definition of Afrocentrism: “A positive Black consciousness that is anchored in the knowledge of African culture and history” (Clabough).Jones never portrayed Black culture in a “Uncle Tom” manner, but only combated troubling cultural themes and dilemmas that are concerned with the importance of constructive tasks of earnestly defining and exploring African American consciousness, and the significant events that shaped it.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks has proven to be one of the most influential Black poets of the 20th century, using her writing skills as a means to speak out against stereotypes and racism--thus implying she was very passionate about social justice and breaking societal norms. Her writing is mostly about poor people of color, black rights, and women's liberation in the 1950′s and 60′s. “In her autobiography, Report from Part Two, she quotes the African-American poet Sonia Sanchez, who told her, “You demystified the Library!” Brooks commented, “True! To my great delight they came—to talk about poetry. Male, female; from nine to ninety. Heterosexual, homosexual, etc. Jew. Gentile. Muslim. Aristocrat, beggar. Domestic, foreign. Senator, scientist. The sinful and the saintly. A bag lady.” Brooks spent her entire career in a humanistic effort to raise up those who were oppressed and to find inventive ways for poetry to participate in that project” (Axelrod).

Gwendolyn Brooks was an Black American poet who was born in Kansas but raised in a Chicago neighborhood called Bronzeville. In her younger years, she found herself reading and being inspired by poets such as Ezra Pound and T.S Elliot. She even had the pleasure of meeting Langston Hughes, who told her she was a great writer and that she should keep on writing. She went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1949, being the first African American to win one, with her second volume Annie Allen.

We real cool. We Left school. We 

Lurk late. We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We Die soon.