Womanism, Literature, and the Transformation of the Black Community, 1965-1980 (Studies in African American History and Culture)

122 Pages·2007·0.56 MB·English

by  Kalenda Eaton

Studies in African American
History and Culture
Edited by
Graham Hodges
Colgate University
A Routledge Series
Studies in African American
History and Culture
Graham Hodges, General Editor
The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Black Liberation in the Midwest
Marie Laveaux The Struggle in St. Louis, Missouri,
A Study of Powerful Female Leadership 1964–1970
in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans Kenneth S. Jolly
Ina Johanna Fandrich
When to Stop the Cheering?
Race and Masculinity in The Black Press, the Black Community,
Contemporary American Prison and the Integration of Professional
Narratives Baseball
Auli Ek Brian Carroll
Swinging the Vernacular The Rise and Fall of the Garvey
Jazz and African American Modernist Movement in the Urban South,
Literature 1918–1942
Michael Borshuk Claudrena N. Harold
Boys, Boyz, Bois The Black Panthers in the Midwest
An Ethics of Black Masculinity in Film The Community Programs and
and Popular Media Services of the Black Panther Party in
Keith M. Harris Milwaukee, 1966–1977
Andrew Witt
Movement Matters
American Antiapartheid Activism and Words and Songs of Bessie Smith,
the Rise of Multicultural Politics Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone
David L. Hostetter Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and
African Memory
Slavery, Southern Culture,
Melanie E. Bratcher
and Education in Little Dixie,
Missouri, 1820–1860 Blaxploitation Films of the 1970s
Jeffrey C. Stone Blackness and Genre
William Novotny Lawrence
Courting Communities
Black Female Nationalism and “Syncre- Womanism, Literature, and the
Nationalism” in the Nineteenth- Transformation of the Black
Century North Community, 1965–1980
Kathy L. Glass Kalenda C. Eaton
The Selling of Civil Rights
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee and the Use of Public
Relations
Vanessa Murphree
Womanism, Literature, and the
Transformation of the Black
Community, 1965-1980
Kalenda C. Eaton
New York London
First published 2008
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Eaton, Kalenda C.
Womanism, literature, and the transformation of the Black community, 1965–1980 / by
Kalenda C. Eaton.
p. cm. — (Studies in African American history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-96129-7
1. American fiction—African American authors—History and criticism. 2. American
fiction—Women authors—History and criticism. 3. American fiction—20th century—
History and criticism. 4. African American women authors—Political and social views.
5. Womanism in literature. 6. African Americans in literature. 7. African Americans—
Race identity. 8. African Americans--Social conditions. I. Title.
PS374.N4E37 2007
813.009'928708996073—dc22 2007020476
ISBN 0-203-93590-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-96129-7 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-93590-X (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-96129-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-93590-3 (ebk)
For the next wave
Yasmine
Morgan
Breana
Caché
Jada
Jayme
Jaysen
Germayne
Kelsey
Angelica
Angelia
Leigh
Chloe
Kristen
Contents
Preface
“Lifewriting” ix
Acknowledgments xi
Chapter One
“Let Me Know When You Get Through”: The Afro-Politico
Womanist Agenda 1
Chapter Two
“Look Before You Leap”: Reading Black Nationalist Rhetoric and Toni
Morrison’s Song of Solomon 15
Chapter Three
“Tomorrow the People Would Come”: The Crisis of the Black Middle
Clas in Alice Walker’s Meridian 39
Chapter Four
“Ain’t No Such Animal as an Instant Guerilla”: Composing Self and
Community in Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters 59
Chapter Five
“Something That’s Been Up Has to Come Down”: Global Black
Consciousness in Paule Marshall’s The Chosen Place,
The Timeless People 75
Conclusion 85
vii
viii Contents
Notes 91
Glosary 97
Bibliography 9
Index 105
Preface: “Lifewriting”
For most of my life I have been convinced that my physical body was born
a decade later than my soul. I have often been called an “old soul,” by
my elders, and have come to appreciate the term, but with that apprecia-
tion comes a feeling of displacement. My earliest memories involve a fierce
understanding of my position in the world as a Black person and the power
associated with that identity. Many would consider these sentiments more
in line with a generation of Black youth who came of age in the 1960s
rather than the early 1980s—but as I stated, I believe there was a slight
mix-up in the drawing room. Or maybe not.
When I was born, my mother had only recently returned home after
spending four life changing years as a college student on the other side
of the nation. Her decision to step out on faith and pursue her dream of
attending Howard University in Washington, D.C. simply because it was a
premier Historically Black University has stood as a testament to the con-
viction I associate with pride in one’s heritage. What she brought home
from her journey was both tangible and intangible, and has served me in
intimate and complex ways. I remember conversations we had in the lower
level of my grandparents’ house, a place where my mother would tell me
that I was beautiful and that I came from beautiful people. I remember
being instructed to ball up my little fist and pump it in the air while softly
saying, then shouting “I’m Black and I’m proud, and I’ll shout it out loud.”
I remember this.
As I got older the conservative backlash of the 1980s claimed the
views and convictions of the “quiet revolutionaries” like my mother. She
sacrificed our private affirmations in order to climb the corporate ladder
and take care of us, only to find out the historical truth that Black, female,
and educated meant enduring harassment, occasional jokes about “water-
melons” at the office party, as well as physical and emotional stress. During
ix