M. C. Higgins, the Great, first published in 1974, is a realistic novel by Virginia Hamilton that won the 1975 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature. It also won the National Book Award in category Children's Books


and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; it was the first book to do so, and only one other book has done so since ("Holes", by Louis Sachar).


"M.C. Higgins" is a bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel) that covers three eventful days in the life of teenager Mayo Cornelius Higgins. It is set in the Appalachian Mountains on Sarah's Mountain, a fictional mountain in Kentucky, near the Ohio River, that is being encroached upon by a mining company. The book highlights the strange, almost surreal customs of the hill people, including their traditions of song and superstition. At its core is the reconciliation M.C. must make between tradition and change.


The book has been translated into many languages, including Japanese and German, and was made into a movie in 1986.


Kindred is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. First published in 1979, it is still widely popular. It has been frequently chosen as a text for community-wide reading programs and book organizations, as well as being a common choice for high school and college courses.


The book is the first-person account of a young African-American woman writer, Dana, who finds herself being shunted in time between her Los Angeles, California home in 1976 and a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. There she meets her ancestors: a proud black freewoman and a white planter who has forced her into slavery and concubinage. As Dana's stays in the past become longer, the young woman becomes intimately entangled with the plantation community. She makes hard choices to survive slavery and to ensure her return to her own time.


"Kindred " explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a late 20th-century black woman, who is aware of its legacy in contemporary American society. Through the two interracial couples who form the emotional core of the story, the novel also explores the intersection of power, gender, and race issues, and speculates on the prospects of future egalitarianism.


While most of Butler's work is classified as science fiction, "Kindred" is considered to cross genre boundaries. It has been classified also as literature or African-American literature. Butler has categorized the work as "a kind of grim fantasy."


"Kindred" scholars have noted that the novel's chapter headings suggest something "elemental, apocalyptic, archetypal about the events in the narrative," thus giving the impression that the main characters are participating in matters greater than their personal experiences.


Dana wakes up in the hospital with her arm amputated. Police deputies question her about the circumstances surrounding the loss of her arm and ask her whether her husband Kevin, a white man, beats her. Dana tells them that it was an accident and that Kevin is not to blame. When Kevin visits her, they are both afraid of telling the truth because they know nobody would believe them.


In a flashback, Dana recounts how she met Kevin while doing minimum-wage temporary jobs at an auto-parts warehouse. Kevin becomes interested in Dana when he learns she is a writer like him, and she befriends him even though he is white and their coworkers judge their relationship. They find they have much in common; both are orphans, both love to write, and both their families disapproved of their aspiration to become writers. They become lovers.


In a flashback, Dana remembers how she and Kevin were married. Both of their families opposed the marriage due to ethnic bias. While Kevin's reactionary sister is prejudiced against African Americans, Dana's uncle abhors the idea of a white man eventually inheriting his property. Only Dana's aunt favors the union, as it would mean that her niece's children would have lighter skin. Kevin and Dana marry without any family present.


Dana's and Kevin's happy reunion is short-lived, as Kevin has a hard time adjusting to the present after living in the past for five years. He shares a few details of his life in the past with Dana: he witnessed terrible atrocities against slaves, traveled farther up north, worked as a teacher, helped slaves escape, and grew a beard to disguise himself from a lynch mob. Disconcerted about his trouble in re-entering his former world, he grows angry and cold. Deciding to let him work his feelings out for himself, Dana packs a bag in case she time travels again.


Dana and Kevin travel to Baltimore to investigate the fate of the Weylin plantation after the death of Rufus, but they find very little; a newspaper notice reporting Rufus's death as a result of his house catching fire, and a Slave Sale announcement listing all the Weylin slaves except Nigel, Carrie, Joe, and Hagar. Dana speculates that Nigel covered up the murder by starting the fire, and feels responsible for the sale of the slaves. To that, Kevin responds that she cannot do anything about the past, and now that Rufus is finally dead, they can return to their peaceful life together.


Realistic depiction of slavery and slave communities.


"Kindred "was written to explore how a modern black woman would experience the time of a slavery society, where most black people were considered as property; a world where "all of society was arrayed against you."


In several interviews, Butler has mentioned that she wrote "Kindred" to counteract stereotypical conceptions of the submissiveness of slaves. While studying at Pasadena City College, Butler heard a young man from the Black Power Movement express his contempt for older generations of African-Americans for what he considered their shameful submission to white power. Butler realized the young man did not have enough context to understand the necessity to accept abuse just to keep oneself and one's family alive and well. Thus, Butler resolved to create a modern African-American character, who would go back in time to see how well he (Butler's protagonist was originally male) could withstand the abuses his ancestors had suffered.


Therefore, Dana's memories of her enslavement, as Ashraf A. Rushdy explains, become a record of the "unwritten history" of African-Americans, a "recovery of a coherent story explaining Dana's various losses." By living these memories, Dana is enabled to make the connections between slavery and current social situations, including the exploitation of blue-collar workers, police violence, rape, domestic abuse, and segregation.


Trauma and its connection to historical memory (or historical amnesia).


Many academics have extended Dana's loss as a metaphor for the "lasting damage of slavery on the African American psyche" to include other meanings: Pamela Bedore, for example, reads it as the loss of Dana's naïvete regarding the supposed progress of racial relations in the present. For Ashraf Rushdy, Dana's missing arm is the price she must pay for her attempt to change history. Robert Crossley quotes Ruth Salvaggio as inferring that the amputation of Dana's left arm is a distinct "birthmark" that represents a part of a "disfigured heritage." Scholars have also noted the importance of Kevin's forehead scar, with Diana R. Paulin arguing that it symbolizes Kevin's changing understanding of racial realities, which constitute "a painful and intellectual experience."


The construction of the concept of "race" and its connections to slavery are central themes in Butler's novel. Mark Bould and Sherryl Vint place "Kindred" as a key science fiction literary text of the 1960s and 1970s black consciousness period, noting that Butler uses the time travel trope to underscore the perpetuation of past racial discrimination into the present and, perhaps, the future of America. The lesson of Dana's trips to the past, then, is that "we cannot escape or repress our racist history but instead must confront it and thereby reduce its power to pull us back, unthinkingly, to earlier modes of consciousness and interaction."


The novel's focus on how the system of slavery shapes its central characters dramatizes society's power to construct raced identities. The reader witnesses the development of Rufus from a relatively decent boy allied to Dana to a "complete racist" who attempts to rape her as an adult. Similarly, Dana and Kevin's prolonged stay in the past reframes their modern attitudes. Butler's depiction of her principal character as an independent, self-possessed, educated African-American woman defies slavery's racist and sexist objectification of black people and women.


"Kindred" also challenges the fixity of "race" through the interracial relationships that form its emotional core. Dana's kinship to Rufus disproves America's erroneous concepts of racial purity. It also represents the "inseparability" of whites and blacks in America. The negative reactions of characters in the past and the present to Dana and Kevin's integrated relationship highlight the continuing hostility of both white and black communities to interracial mixing. At the same time, the relationship of Dana and Kevin extends to concept of "community" from people related by ethnicity to people related by shared experience. In these new communities whites and black people may acknowledge their common racist past and learn to live together.


The depiction of Dana's white husband, Kevin, also serves to examine the concept of racial and gender privilege. In the present, Kevin seems unconscious of the benefits he derives from his skin pigmentation as well as of the way his actions serve to disenfranchise Dana. Once he goes to the past, however, he must not just resist accepting slavery as the normal state of affairs, but dissociate himself from the unrestricted power white males enjoy as their privilege. His prolonged stay in the past transforms him from a naive white man oblivious about racial issues into an anti-slave activist fighting racial oppression.


Originally, Butler intended for the protagonist of "Kindred "to be a man, but as she explained in her interview, she could not do so because a man would immediately be "perceived as dangerous": "[s]o many things that he did would have been likely to get him killed. He wouldn't even have time to learn the rules...of submission." She then realized that sexism could work in favor of a female protagonist, "who might be equally dangerous" but "would not be perceived so."


Similarly, Missy Dehn Kubistchek reads Butler's novel as "African-American woman’s quest for understanding history and self" which ends with Dana extending the concept of "kindred" to include both her black and white her heritage as well as her white husband while "insisting on her right to self definition."


"Kindred"’s title has several meanings: at its most literal, it refers to the genealogical link between its modern-day protagonist, the slave-holding Weylins, and both the free and bonded Greenwoods; at its most universal, it points to the kinship of all Americans regardless of ethnic background.


Since Butler’s novel challenges readers to come to terms with slavery and its legacy, one significant meaning of the term "kindred" is the United States’ history of miscegenation and its denial by official discourses. This kinship of black people and whites must be acknowledged if America is to move into a better future.


On the other hand, as Ashraf H. A. Rushdy contends, Dana's journey to the past serves to redefine her concept of kinship from blood ties to that of "spiritual kinship" with those she chooses as her family: the Weylin slaves and her white husband, Kevin. This sense of the term "kindred" as a community of choice is clear from Butler's first use of the word to indicate Dana and Kevin's similar interests and shared beliefs. Dana and Kevin's relationship, in particular, signals the way for black and white America to reconcile: they must face the country's racist past together so they can learn to co-exist as kindred.


Publishers and academics have had a hard time categorizing "Kindred". In an interview with Randall Kenan, Butler stated that she considered "Kindred" "literally" as "fantasy." According to Pamela Bedore, Butler's novel is difficult to classify because it includes both elements of the slave narrative and science fiction. Frances Smith Foster insists "Kindred" does not have one genre and is in fact a blend of "realistic science fiction, grim fantasy, neo-slave narrative, and initiation novel." Sherryl Vint describes the narrative as a fusion of the fantastical and the real, resulting in a book that is "partly historical novel, partly slave narrative, and partly the story of how a twentieth century black woman comes to terms with slavery as her own and her nation's past."


"Kindred" ’s story is further fragmented by Dana’s report of her time traveling, which uses flashbacks to connect the present to the past. Robert Crossley sees this "foreshortening" of the past and present as a "lesson in historical realities." Because the story is told from the first-person point of view of Dana, readers feel they are witnessing firsthand the cruelty and hardships that many slaves faced every day in the South and so identify with Dana's gut-wrenching reactions to the past. This autobiographical voice, along with Dana's harrowing recollection of the brutality of slavery and her narrow escape from it, is one of the key elements that have made critics classify "Kindred" as a neo-slave narrative.


Another strategy Butler uses to add dramatic interest to "Kindred"’s story is the deliberate delay of the description of Dana and Kevin’s ethnicities. Butler has stated in an interview she did not want to give their "race" away yet since it would have less of an impact and the reader would not react the way that she wanted them to. Dana's ethnicity becomes revealed in chapter two, "The Fire," while Kevin's ethnicity becomes clear to the reader in chapter three, "The Fall," which also includes the history of Dana's and Kevin's interracial relationship.


Butler also uses Alice as Dana's doppelgänger to compare how their decisions are a reflection of their environment. According to Missy Dehn Kubitschek, each woman seems to see a reflection of herself in the other; each is the vision of what could be (could have been) the possible fate of the other given different circumstances. According to Bedore, Butler's use of repetition blurs the lines between the past and present relationships. As time goes on, Alice and Rufus’ relationship begins to seem more like a miserable married couple while Dana and Kevin become somewhat distant.


Butler's field research in Maryland also influenced her writing of "Kindred". She traveled to the Eastern Shore to Talbot County where she wandered a bit. She also conducted research at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and the Maryland Historical Society. She toured Mount Vernon, the plantation home of America's first president, George Washington. At the time, guides referred to the slaves as "servants" and avoided referring to the estate as a former slave plantation. Butler also spent time reading slave narratives, including the autobiography of Fredrick Douglass, who escaped and became an abolitionist leader. She read many grim accounts, but decided she needed to moderate events in her book in order to attract enough readers.


"Kindred "is Butler's bestseller, with Beacon Press advertising it as "the classic novel that has sold more than 450,000 copies."


Among Butler's peers, the novel has been well received. Speculative writer Harlan Ellison has praised "Kindred "as "that rare magical artifact… the novel one returns it to again and again", while writer Walter Mosley described the novel as "everything the literature of science fiction can be."


Book reviewers were enthusiastic. "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" writer Sam Frank described the novel as "[a] shattering work of art with much to say about love, hate, slavery, and racial dilemmas, then and now." Reviewer Sherley Anne Williams from "Ms". defined the novel as "a startling and engrossing commentary on the complex actuality and continuing heritage of American slavery. "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" writer John Marshall said that "Kindred" is "the perfect introduction to Butler’s work and perspectives for those not usually enamored of science fiction." "The Austin Chronicle" writer Barbara Strickland declared "Kindred" to be "a novel of psychological horror as it is a novel of science fiction."


High school and college courses have frequently chosen "Kindred" as a text to be read. Linell Smith of "The Baltimore Sun" describes it as "a celebrated mainstay of college courses in women's studies and black literature and culture." Speaking at the occasion of Beacon Press' reissue of "Kindred" for its 25th Anniversary, African-American literature professor Roland L. Williams said that the novel has remained popular over the years because of its crossover appeal, which "continues to find a variety of audiences--fantasy, literary and historical" and because "it is an exceedingly well-written and compelling story… that asks you to look back in time and at the present simultaneously."


Ordinary Light: A Memoir is a 2015 book by poet Tracy K. Smith. It was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction.


The 368-page book was published by Alfred A. Knopf on April 2, 2015.


Writing in "Slate", Stacia L. Brown says "most of the time", "Ordinary Light" is "a coming-of-age story about a middle-class black girl with a relatively idyllic life...the story of the healthy, nurturing bond between a black mother and daughter." However, Brown found the book "most powerful when it returns to the subject" with which Smith opens the narrative: "her mother’s illness and Smith’s slow-dawning realization that she will not recover"—Smith's mother died shortly after Smith graduated from college.


Smith, whose first books were poetry, has said that in retrospect, the move to writing in prose was a necessity for her to engage the story of her relationship with her mother. "I had found a way of exploring my own private material in poems. I knew the kinds of answers—that’s not the right noun because I don't think a poem "solves" things—but I knew the kind of encounter I was capable of creating in a poem. I realized that if I wanted to get something new out of that material I needed to shift languages."


"Ordinary Light" received widely favorable reviews and was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction.


Piecing Me Together is a 2017 children's book by Renée Watson. The first person novel tells the story of Jade, an ambitious African American high school student. The book was well reviewed and won several awards.


The book was well reviewed including starred reviews by "The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books", Kirkus Reviews, which also named it a best book of 2017, and "School Library Journal", which also named it a best book of 2017.


The book was recognized by the American Library Association at the 2018 Youth Media Awards. Watson was awarded the Coretta Scott King Author Award; in her acceptance speech Watson thanked the award committee for, "bring visibility to black characters who are bold and brave, beautiful and brilliant." "Piecing Me Together" was also named a Newbery Honor book with the award committee citing its, "Through artful and poetic language, Watson explores themes of race, class, gender and body image in this dynamic journey." Bank Street College of Education also recognized the novel with its Josette Frank Award.


So You Want to Talk About Race


So You Want to Talk About Race is a 2018 non-fiction book by Ijeoma Oluo. Each chapter title is a question about race in contemporary America. Oluo outlines her opinions on the topics as well as advice about how to talk about the issues. The book received positive critical reception, with renewed interest following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, after which the book re-entered "The New York Times" Best Seller list.


Author Ijeoma Oluo was an editor-at-large at "The Establishment". "So You Want to Talk About Race" is her first book. Oluo was convinced into writing a book by her agent, who conceived of a "guidebook" in which Oluo answered questions she regularly received on social media or addressed in her essays. Oluo was reluctant to spend so much time writing about race, but was inspired after beginning to ask people what issues they face when talking about race and hearing the responses of people of color.


The book was published by Seal Press.


The book is about race in the contemporary United States, each chapter titled after a question. Oluo makes the argument that America's political, economic and social systems are systematically/institutionally racist. The book provides advice for readers when discussing race-related subjects, such as how to avoid acting defensive or getting off-topic. Statistics are used to support the book's arguments. Oluo also describes her upbringing and experience living in Seattle, Washington. She was raised by a white single mother and became a single mother herself to two mixed-race sons at a young age.


The book also covers topics including affirmative action, cultural appropriation, intersectionality, microaggressions, police brutality and the school-to-prison pipeline. Oluo argues that use of the word "nigger" or other racial slurs by white people is not appropriate even if the intention is ironic or the motive anti-racist.


The book received renewed attention following the killing of George Floyd in May 2020. Having been listed for one week previously, it re-entered "The New York Times" Best Seller list in the category Combined Print & E-book Nonfiction on June 14, 2020, peaking at position #2 on June 21. It remained on the list until September 13 and reappeared October 4.


"Bustle" named "So You Want to Talk about Race" to a list of 14 recommended debut books by women, praising Oluo's "no holds barred writing style", as well as to a list of the 16 best non-fiction books of January 2018. "Harper's Bazaar" also named it to a list of 10 best new books of 2018, saying "Oluo crafts a straightforward guidebook to the nuances of conversations surrounding race in America." "The New York Times" listed the book in its "New & Noteworthy" column.


Ferguson criticised the use of the term "Indigenous American" in the book as an example of "Oluo's own basic assumptions that create an inhospitable climate for other racially marked bodies". Oluo responded that future editions of the book would instead use the term "indigenous peoples". Bhatt suggested that a further reading list would have improved the book.


Arilla Sun Down is a 1976 children's novel by Virginia Hamilton and is about the life experiences of Arilla, a young girl of African American and American Indian parentage.


A review of "Arilla Sun Down" in "The Best in Children's Books: The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1973-78" stated "Hamilton is a genius with words; once accustomed to the pattern, the reader hears the singing quality. What is outstanding in the story is the depth and nuance of the author's perception of the young adolescent, the brilliant characterization, and the dramatic impact of some of the episodes." and Margaret Bernice Smith Bristow, writing about Hamilton in "The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature", found "Her use of unconventional stream of consciousness and language in "Arilla Sun Down" (1976) is also noteworthy."


"Arilla Sun Down" has also been reviewed by "Kirkus Reviews", "Children's Literature Association Quarterly", the "English Journal", and the "School Library Journal".


The press was closed down in 2004 due to lack of funds and energy. It then had reopened in 2011 by Dr. Alarcon with the help of Christina L. Gutiérrez and Sara A. Ramírez.


TWP taught Ramirez a deeper sense of women of color, all of which were thinkers, writers, and artists in which their activism; this led to her passion of finding their publishing. Alarcon was at the top of her list of activists in which she learned about TWP and its closing.  Ramirez brought back the publishing movement because she and the resources support to do so for feminism of color. In 2011, Ramirez asked Alarcon if she could revitalize TWP project and resulted in the rebirth of TWP. Without Ramirez, the press would not have reopened or functioning as of today.


She is also the First Core Collective Member is the first member of a national collective working that helped revive TWP.


TWP was revived to honor and continue the legacy of women of color publishing. It has also published works by notable women of color such as Gloria Anzaldúa's "Living Chicana Theory" (1998), Cherrie Moraga's "The Sexuality of Latinas" (1993)"," Carla Trujillo's "Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About" (1991), Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's "Writing Self, Writing Nation: A Collection of Essays on Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha" (1994) and Ana Castillo's "The Sexuality of Latinas" (co-editor, with Norma Alarcón and Cherríe Moraga) (1993).


TWP believes that language, art, and media are tools for creating dynamic social change. The tools expand access to the work of activist scholars and artists dedicated to liberation from the historical injustices of colonialism and imperialism. They also encourage reader to collaborate with them to envisioning a world for women of color that incorporates migratory, diasporic, and indigenous women both within and beyond U.S. national borders.


All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave


All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982) is a landmark feminist anthology in Black Women's Studies printed in numerous editions, co-edited by Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith.


Hull received the National Institute's Women of Color Award for her contribution to this book. Her contribution to this "landmark scholarship directed attention to the lives of Black women and, combined with the numerous articles she wrote thereafter, helped remedy the emphasis within Feminist Studies on white women and within Black studies on Black men".


The interest in black feminism was on the rise in the 1970s, through the writings of Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others.


In 1981, the anthology "This Bridge Called My Back", edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, was published and "But Some of Us Are Brave" was published the following year. In both anthologies, the emphasis was placed on the intersection between race and gender. The contributors argued that previous waves of feminism had focused on issues related to white women. They wanted to negotiate a large space for women of color. According to Teresa de Lauretis, "This Bridge Called My Back" and "But Some Women Are Brave" revealed "the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism" and created a "shift in feminist consciousness."


In the 2000 reprint of their anthology, editors Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith described how in 1992 black feminists mobilized "a remarkable national response" - "African American Women in Defense of Ourselves" - to the controversy surrounding the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States against the backdrop of allegations by law professor Anita Hill, about sexual harassment that became part of Thomas' confirmation hearings.


Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw cited "But Some of Us Are Brave", at the beginning of her seminal 1989 paper, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" in which she introduced the concept of Intersectionality. Crenshaw is known for introducing and developing intersectional theory to feminism. Crenshaw noted that it was one of the "very few Black women's studies books". She used the title "All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave", as her "point of departure" to "develop a Black feminist criticism".


Barbara Y. Welke published her article entitled "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855–1914", in reference to Hull et al., in 1995 in the "Law and History Review." Welke wrote how Crenshaw, referring to "But Some of Us Are Brave", said that the title "sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis.


Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment is a 1990 book by Patricia Hill Collins.


In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In "Black Feminist Thought", originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without. Here Collins provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Drawing from fiction, poetry, music, and oral history, the result is a book that provided the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought and its canon.


For young Black girls, the manipulation of images is also an influence. From a 2016 study by University of Pennsylvania associate professor, Charlotte E. Jacobs, utilizing Black Feminist Thought as an educational work for Black girls in media depictions. Coupled with the inherent knowledge and experiences of Black girls, Jacobs explained how it is able to provide an "opportunity to develop critical media literacy skills." Knowing this frameworks aids in their own viewpoints and stances to media representations in understanding and deciphering the images and meaning behind such imagery. Moving beyond the surface images and using this framework as a means of combatting against the prevalent, normalized view of characters and ideals within the media that are shown as representations of and for young Black girls.


With the success of "Black Feminist Thought", Collins gained more recognition as a "social theorist, drawing from many intellectual traditions." Collins' work has now been published and used in many different fields including philosophy, history, psychology and sociology.


The University of Cincinnati named Collins The Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology in 1996, making her the first ever African-American, and only the second woman, to hold this position. She received Emeritus status in the Spring of 2005, and became a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. The University of Maryland named Collins a Distinguished University Professor in 2006."


"Black Feminist Thought" is used in various university African American and Women Studies courses.


Black feminism remains important because U.S. Black women constitute an oppressed group. As a collectivity, U.S. Black women participate in a dialectical relationship linking African American women's oppression and activism. Dialectical relationships of this sort mean that two parties are opposed and opposite. As long as Black women's subordination within intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation persists, Black feminism as an activist response to that oppression will remain needed.


"With the publication of Black Feminist Thought, black feminism has moved to a new level. Her work sets a standard for the discussion of black women's lives, experiences, and thought that demands rigorous attention to the complexity of these experiences and an exploration of a multiplicity of responses."


Black Feminist Thought provides a synthesis of a body of knowledge that is crucial to putting in perspective the situation of Black Women and their place in the overall struggle to reduce and eliminate gender, race, and class inequalities. The book provides an analysis of the ideas of Black Women, particularly those ideas that reflect a consciousness in opposition to oppression.


"Black Feminist Thought" won the Jessie Bernard Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in 1993 and the C. Wright Mills Award of The Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1990. According to the American Sociological Association, "The Jessie Bernard Award is given in recognition of scholarly work that has enlarged the horizons of sociology to encompass fully the role of women in society. The contribution may be in empirical research, theory, or methodology. It is presented for significant cumulative work done throughout a professional career."


The Society for the Study of Social Problems "annually gives its C. Wright Mills Award to the author of what the committee considers to be the most outstanding book written in the tradition of C. Wright Mills and his dedication to a search for a sophisticated understanding of the individual and society."


Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More is a memoir and the debut book by Janet Mock, an American writer and transgender activist. It was published on 1 February 2014 by Atria Books. The book has been praised by Melissa Harris-Perry, bell hooks, Laverne Cox, and Barbara Smith. It debuted in 19th position on "The New York Times" Best Seller list for Hardcover Nonfiction. The book's original title was "Fish Food". The memoir follows Mock's journey as a transgender girl and young woman in Hawaii.


In "Redefining Realness," Janet Mock describes her life as a transgender woman from childhood to adulthood. Mock opens the book with a scene from 2009, where she starts to tell her boyfriend Aaron that she is transgender and then starts telling her story from childhood.


In 1989, as children, Mock's friend and neighbor Marylin dares Mock to take her grandmother's dress down from the clothesline and put it on. After being caught, Mock is scolded by her grandmother and mother for wearing a dress. At four years old, Mock discovers that her father is cheating on her mother. Her parents eventually split up and at age seven Mock is sent to live with her father and brother, Chad, in Oakland, California. While there, her father tries to instill masculinity into young Mock, pushing her to participate in sports and other activities that her brother enjoys.


Mock's father gets a new girlfriend, and that girlfriend's son, a boy much older than Mock, molests her.


Mock, Chad, and their younger brother Jeff lived with their older sister Cori and her children. While in school in Hawaii, Mock meets Wendi, another transgender girl. Through her friendship with Wendi, Mock becomes more confident, dresses more feminine, and has access to estrogen pills. At age thirteen, Mock comes out as gay to her mother, and Wendi helps her become even more feminine. Together, they meet other transgender women and drag queens.


Mock's mother gets back together with Cori's father, her boyfriend from high school, named Rick. Mock attends Moanalua High School, a rigorous school. She joins the volleyball team, and becomes more confident in her femininity. She continues to meet up with Wendi, who develops a passion for makeup.


Mock becomes class treasurer at Moanalua. After taking estrogen in secret, she talks to her family to come out as a woman and ask to be called Janet. She repeatedly gets sent home from school for breaking the dress code by wearing skirts. She graduates from estrogen pills to shots, which she pays for in cash. She meets a boy named Adrian, who shows interest in her but rejects her when he discovers she is transgender.


Mock poses for a photographer, Felix, in lingerie. This is, she says, the decision she regrets most. She gets $1500 for two modeling sessions.


Mock goes to Bangkok, Thailand, for GRS. Dr. R. and Dr. C. perform the surgery. In recovery, Mock meets an older transgender Australian woman, Genie. Mock returns to Hawaii on December 28 and her mother embraces her tearfully. While Mock recovers, her mother takes care of her. Mock accepts her mother's faults and the family is loving.


Returning to 2009, having told her story to Aaron, Mock waits for a reaction. Their relationship is inconsistent for a while, and Mock makes a new friend in Mia, the woman who hired her for a "People" magazine job. Mock comes out to Mia as transgender. After eight months of no contact from Aaron, he comes to her apartment in the middle of the night. They reconcile, and move in together soon after. The book ends with a discussion of LGBT representation in the media and the perception that transgender women need to be out and visible at all times.


On Christmas Eve 2013, Mock launched the "Redefining Realness Storygiving Campaign". The campaign fulfilled 127 book requests from people who wished to read "Redefining Realness" but had financial constraints.


Mock has said that she wrote "Redefining Realness" for transgender girls of color, particularly, her own childhood self. However, many cisgender women of color have connected to themes and moments in the memoir.


"Redefining Realness" is praised for being one of a small number of literary texts written by transgender people of color, especially ones that feature themes of reading. "Redefining Realness" has also been praised for its complexity in representation of transgender people of color and for combining Western and African structures of autobiography.


A 2014 review of the book claims that while Mock's memoir is personal, it reaches across the queer, transgender, and female communities to relate to many people.


In the paper "Redefining Realness?: On Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, TS Madison, and the Representation of Transgender Women of Color in Media", scholar Julian Kevon Glover complicates the popular reception of "Redefining Realness". Glover states that Mock's memoir has gained such high esteem because Mock's transition journey reflects traditional heteronormative norms, beauty standards, and respectability politics. Glover states that many transgender women who do not uphold heteronormative ideals rarely get as much media prestige. While the popularity of "Redefining Realness" is significant for representation of transgender women, Glover states, many transgender activists are denied media presence because their bodies or actions are not in line with respectability politics.


Mock published a second memoir, "Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me," which covers her twenties, a period not much discussed in "Redefining Realness."


Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" was a significant influence in Mock's writing of "Redefining Realness." "Their Eyes" was an important book in Mock's girlhood because it was a book about Black women, identity, and love. Other Black female authors that were formative for Mock and her development of "Redefining Realness" were Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, and Audre Lorde. References to "Their Eyes Were Watching God" appear throughout the book. She also includes quotes from Ralph Ellsion, Gloria Anzaldua, and James Baldwin.


In a review by David B. Green Jr., "Redefining Realness" was stated to do more than just tell a personal story as it builds from the tradition of earlier women of color writers, such as those Mock references in the memoir. Green states that Mock's memoir relates to women of all kinds, not just transgender women of color.


Autobiography of a Family Photo is a 1995 book by Jacqueline Woodson. The book covers childhood, the growth of dark emotional and sexual tension, and the terrors of war.


Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 is a 2018 children's picture book told in poetry and prose by writer Alice Faye Duncan and illustrator R. Gregory Christie, published by Calkins Creek.


The book received the 2019 Coretta Scott King Honor Award for Illustration. In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews praised the ability of how the "strong historical details back up the organizing feat…(t)he narrative is set in vignettes that jump between verse and prose, set against Christie’s bold paintings… encapsulates the bravery, intrigue, and compassion that defined a generation, presenting a history that everyone should know: required and inspired." The School Library Journal noted the book as a "a superbly written and illustrated work. A first purchase for public and school libraries.”


An Untamed State is the debut novel of writer Roxane Gay, first published in 2014 by Grove Atlantic.


Mireille Duval Jameson is born and raised in the United States, her parents are from Haitian descent. Her parents move back to Haiti. While vacationing at her parents' house with her husband and child in Haiti, she is kidnapped. When her father, who by now has become a wealthy Haitian developer, refuses to pay her ransom, she is gang-raped and tortured by her captors, who keep her imprisoned for 13 days before finally releasing her.


In the first portion of the book, called "Happily Ever After," the novel moves back and forth in time between Mireille's captivity and her earlier life, meeting and falling in love with husband Michael during graduate school in the Midwest of the United States.


The latter section of the novel, "Once Upon a Time," follows Mireille in the aftermath of her trauma, including her time living with Michael's mother, Lorraine, on the family farm in Nebraska.


"An Untamed State" received positive reviews upon publication. Nolan Feeney writing for Time (magazine) called it a "riveting debut" that "captivates from its opening sentence and doesn’t let go." The Los Angeles Times called it "suspenseful, immediate and realistic." The A.V. Club awarded it an A letter grade and praised it as "a gripping psychological portrait of how trauma remakes the body to respond only to itself."


Gay was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction in 2015 for "An Untamed State".


In March 2016 director Gina Prince-Bythewood announced she would be adapting the novel into a feature film for Fox Searchlight. Prince-Bythewood and Gay will co-write the film, to star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Prince-Bythewood will direct and will also produce with Michael De Luca. Prince-Bythewood and Mbatha-Raw previously collaborated on "Beyond the Lights".


Men We Reaped is a memoir by African-American writer Jesmyn Ward and published by Bloomsbury in 2013. Ward describes her own personal history and the deaths of five Black men in her life over a four-year span. "Men We Reaped" won the Heartland Prize for non-fiction, and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction.


The book’s title comes from a Harriet Tubman quotation, on the occasion of the unsuccessful assault of the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry upon the Confederate forces at Fort Wagner during the American Civil War: "We saw the lightning and that was the guns; We heard the thunder and that was the big guns; We heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped."


Five men in Ward's life die in the space of four years. Black men between the ages of 19-32, including her brother, Joshua, killed by a white drunk driver. Though seemingly unconnected, Ward takes her readers on a journey—personal, familial and communal—showing how they were in reality bonded by identity and place, and how race, poverty and gender predetermined the outcome of their lives.


Ward learns at an early age how girls are treated differently than boys, when she gets into trouble for doing things her cousins do freely (smoking), and also seeing how her father gets to spend the family money on a motorcycle, and then ride away on it, while her mother works extra hard to put food on the table. She also learns that for her male relatives, being Black is dangerous in itself, as her mother and grandmother worry about them being arrested or experiencing violence.


As her mother works long hours as a maid, Ward is expected to care for her younger siblings and the household. She suffers from depression. At school, she experiences bullying. Her mother's rich, white employer offers to pay Ward's tuition for private school. There, however, she must deal with being the only Black girl in a white environment. She experiences racism and rejection.


Ward's father is now living in New Orleans. When Ward and her siblings visit, their mother sends them with groceries, because she doesn't trust him to feed the children. Her brother Joshua moves in with him, and Ward later learns that he is dealing crack to help his father pay his bills.


Ward heads out of state for university, to Stanford, becoming the first member of her family to attend college. Her grief for the loss of her brother never leaves her, but she knows it will change over time. Ward closes with her memory of riding in a car with Joshua, declaring, "I don't ride like that anymore", and imagining that when her life is over, Joshua will ride up and ask her to go for one more ride.


The men "reaped" in the book, narrated in reverse of the order in which they died:


"Men We Reaped" was enthusiastically received by critics, and was named one of the best books of 2013 by "The New York Times Book Review", "Publishers Weekly", "Time", and "Vogue".


"NPR"'s Richard Torres calls "Men We Reaped" a "superb memoir", that takes the reader behind the statistics of Black deaths, on an ambitious journey into the history of the small deep-south town, Ward's own community and family, and the individual stories, intertwining them capably and sensitively. He writes, "Ward's deceptively conversational prose masks her uncommon skill at imagery. She makes you feel the anguish of each lost life, as well as her survivor's guilt, with its ever-present haunt of memory," and lauds how Ward is "candid enough to paint the flaws in the deceased as well as their good qualities. (In other words, Ward humanizes instead of canonizes.) She's also talented enough to turn such prose into poetry."


"Kirkus Reviews" summarizes that "Men We Reaped" is "a modern rejoinder to "Black Like Me", "Beloved" and other stories of struggle and redemption—beautifully written, if sometimes too sad to bear", while "Publishers Weekly" calls it "riveting", and declares that "Ward has a soft touch, making these stories heartbreakingly real through vivid portrayal and dialogue."


After Tupac And D Foster (2008) is a novel written by Jacqueline Woodson. Set within a community affected by the life of Tupac Shakur, the novel follows three young girls as they group up in that community. The novel received a Newbery Medal Honor in 2009 and won the American Library Association Award and the 2009 Josette Frank Award.


"After Tupac And D Foster" is based on three girls: two black eleven year old girls, Neeka and the anonymous narrator, and D Foster, who was of mixed race and had just moved into Neeka and the narrator's neighborhood in Queens, New York. Their experiences are set within a world impacted by Tupac Shakur, describing events and experiences in his life during the mid 1990s, such as run-ins with the cops and events that foreshadowed his death.


Growing up together on the same block of their safe neighborhood, Neeka and the narrator have been friends since birth. When D. Foster first moved into a house on their block, her initial impression as unconventional and different had left the two girls in a bit of shock, as well as their mothers hesitant to let them interact with her. However, they then discovered that they both were greatly influenced by Tupac Shakur's music which caused the three girls to gradually develop a lasting friendship.


Later in their teens, Foster opens up to her two close friends about her alcoholic mother who had abandoned her as a child, leaving her in the care of constantly changing foster homes. She also shares with them the news of her biological Mother now wanting her back. However, relating her relationship with her Mother to that of Tupac's and his Mother, Foster realizes that even through the conflicting relationship, there is still love.


The Road to Paris is a 2006 children's fiction chapter book by American writer Nikki Grimes, originally published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.


Paris is a nine-year old, biracial girl who is placed in the foster system. Her white father left the family while she was young, and her mother has problems with alcohol. She and her older brother Malcolm are placed in different homes after running away from an abusive foster family. She is finally placed with the Lincolns, where she faces racism and loneliness, yet also learns what it is like to have a loving family.


The Road to Paris received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor in 2007. Kirkus Reviews wrote that Paris's growth was "perfectly paced," even if supporting characters were "not all perfectly realized." Deborah Stevenson at "The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books", disagreed, writing that "the book tells rather than shows and does so episodically, so Paris jerks along from stage to stage without any clear indication of how she gets there."


Becoming Billie Holiday is a 2008 book of poetry for young readers by American poet and author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Floyd Cooper, originally published by Wordsong. It won an honorary Coretta Scott King Award in 2009.


Floyd Cooper created the illustrations in the book using an eraser to make subtractive shapes in paint. He also used other mediums on top that were oil based, all put on with a drybrush technique.


The book was awarded the honorary Coretta Scott King Award in 2009.


The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States, but Alexander noted that the discrimination faced by African-American males is prevalent among other minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged populations. Alexander's central premise, from which the book derives its title, is that "mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow".


According to the author, what has been altered since the collapse of Jim Crow is not so much the basic structure of US society, as the language used to justify its affairs. She argues that when people of color are disproportionately labeled as “criminals”, this allows the unleashing of a whole range of legal discrimination measures in employment, housing, education, public benefits, voting rights, jury duty, and so on.


Alexander explains that it took her years to become fully aware and convinced of the phenomena she describes, despite her professional civil rights background. She expects similar reluctance and disbelief on the part of many of her readers. She believes that the problems besetting African American communities are not merely a passive, collateral side effect of poverty, limited educational opportunity or other factors, but a consequence of purposeful government policies. Alexander has concluded that mass incarceration policies, which were swiftly developed and implemented, are a “comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow”.


Alexander contends that in 1982 the Reagan administration began an escalation of the War on Drugs, purportedly as a response to a crack cocaine crisis in black ghettos, which was (she claims) announced well before crack cocaine arrived in most inner city neighborhoods. During the mid-1980s, as the use of crack cocaine increased to epidemic levels in these neighborhoods, federal drug authorities publicized the problem, using scare tactics to generate support for their already-declared escalation. The government's successful media campaign made possible an unprecedented expansion of law enforcement activities in America's urban neighborhoods, and this aggressive approach fueled widespread belief in conspiracy theories that posited government plans to destroy the black population. (Black genocide)


Alexander maintains that this "undercaste" is hidden from view, invisible within a maze of rationalizations, with mass incarceration its most serious manifestation. Alexander borrows from the term “racial caste”, as it is commonly used in scientific literature, to create “undercaste”, denoting a “stigmatized racial group locked into inferior position by law and custom”. By "mass incarceration" she refers to the web of laws, rules, policies and customs that make up the criminal justice system and which serve as a gateway to permanent marginalization in the undercaste. Once released from prison, new members of this undercaste face a “hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion”.


Alexander writes that Americans are ashamed of their racial history, and therefore avoid talking about race, or even class, so the terms used in her book may seem unfamiliar to many. Americans want to believe that everybody is capable of upward mobility, given enough effort on his or her part; this assumption forms a part of the national collective self-image. Alexander points out that a large percentage of African Americans are hindered by the discriminatory practices of an ostensibly colorblind criminal justice system, which end up creating an undercaste where upward mobility is severely constrained.


Alexander states in the book: "I was careful to define "mass incarceration" to include those who were subject to state control outside of prison walls, as well as those who were locked in literal cages." The scope of Alexander's definition of "incarceration" includes people who have been arrested (but not tried), people on parole and people who have been released but labelled as "criminals". Alexander's definition is intentionally much broader than the subset of individuals currently in physical detention.


Darryl Pinckney, writing in the "New York Review of Books", called the book one that would "touch the public and educate social commentators, policymakers, and politicians about a glaring wrong that we have been living with that we also somehow don't know how to face... [Alexander] is not the first to offer this bitter analysis, but NJC is striking in the intelligence of her ideas, her powers of summary, and the force of her writing".


Forbes wrote that Alexander "looks in detail at what economists usually miss", and "does a fine job of truth-telling, pointing the finger where it rightly should be pointed: at all of us, liberal and conservative, white and black".


The book received a starred review in "Publishers Weekly", saying that Alexander "offers an acute analysis of the effect of mass incarceration upon former inmates" who will be legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives, and described the book as "carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable".


James Forman, Jr argues that though the book has value in focusing scholars (and society as a whole) on the failures of the criminal justice system, it obscures African-American support for tougher crime laws and downplays the role of violent crime in the story of incarceration.


The 10th Anniversary Edition (2020) was discussed with Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen Show on network TV, and reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review section on January 19, 2020.


"The New Jim Crow" was listed in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" as one of the 11 best scholarly books of the 2010s, chosen by Stefan M. Bradley.


"a."The persistently lingering result of the lack of land reform, of the fact that the former slaves were not granted any of the property on which they had long labored (unlike many European serfs, emancipated and economically empowered to various degrees by that time, their American counterparts ended up with nothing), is the present extremely inequitable distribution of wealth in the United States along racial lines. 150 years after the Civil War, the median wealth of a black family is a small fraction of the median wealth of a white family.


"b."According to Ruth W. Grant of Duke University, the author of the book "Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives" (Princeton University Press 2011, ), the expediency-based plea bargain process, in which 90 to 95% of felony prosecutions never go to trial, but are settled by the defendant pleading guilty, undermines the purpose and challenges the legitimacy of the justice system. Justice won't take place, because "either the defendant is guilty, but gets off easy by copping a plea, or the defendant is innocent but pleads guilty to avoid the risk of greater punishment". The question of guilt is decided without adjudicating the evidence-the fundamental process of determining the truth and assigning proportionate punishment does not take place.


"c."Michelle Alexander suggested in a March 2012 "New York Times" article a possible strategy (she attributed the idea to Susan Burton) for coping with the unjust criminal justice system. If large numbers of the accused could be persuaded to opt out of plea bargaining and demand a full trial by jury, to which they are constitutionally entitled, the criminal justice system in its present form would be unable to continue because of lack of resources (it would "crash"). This last resort strategy is controversial, as some would end up with extremely harsh sentences, but, it is argued, progress often cannot be made without sacrifice.


I, Tina: My Life Story is a 1986 autobiography by Tina Turner, co-written by MTV news correspondent and music critic Kurt Loder. The book was reissued by Dey Street Books in 2010.


The book details Tina Turner's story from her childhood in Nutbush, Tennessee to her initial rise to fame in St. Louis under the leadership of blues musician Ike Turner which became an abusive marriage, leading up to her resurgence in the 1980s.


The book contains passages from many of Turner's family, friends and associates, among those are:


The book became a worldwide best-seller when it was released and led to the film adaptation, "What's Love Got to Do with It", in 1993 starring Angela Bassett as Turner.


In 1999, Ike Turner released his own autobiography, "Takin' Back My Name", which in part is a rebuttal of the image presented of him in Tina's book and the film.


The Other Side is a children's picture book written by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by E. B. Lewis, published in 2001 by G. P. Putnam's Sons. In 2012, the book was adapted into a film by Weston Woods Studios, Inc., narrated by the author's daughter, Toshi Widoff-Woodson.


The narrator and protagonist of the story is Clover, a young African-American girl. She lives beside a fence which segregates her town. Her mother instructs her never to climb over to the other side. Then one summer, she notices a white girl on the other side of the fence. The girl seems to be very lonely and is even outside when it is raining.


Clover decides to talk to the girl on the other side of the fence. Both girls are not allowed to cross the fence, so they simply decide to sit "on" the fence together. First, Clover's friends will not let Annie, the girl from the other side, play with them but then all of the girls realize that the fence (a symbol separating the whites and blacks) should not be there.


Drylongso is a 1992 children's book by Virginia Hamilton and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is about a farming family who is experiencing a drought and takes in a stranger.


"School Library Journal", in a review of "Drylongso", wrote "As in many of her other works of fiction, Hamilton combines myth and realism to create a poignant, powerful tale. .. Pinkney's illustrations are exquisite, expressive, and perfectly in tune with the tone and spirit of the text." and concluded "Despite the occasional seams, this is a fine book." "Booklist" wrote "In an understated story of drought and hard times and longing for rain, a great writer and a great artist have pared down their rich, exuberant styles to something quieter but no less intense." and "Publishers Weekly" called it a "thoroughly captivating story firmly rooted in the folktale tradition."


"Drylongso" has also been reviewed by "Kirkus Reviews", "The Horn Book Magazine", and the "Smithsonian".


The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton is a children's mystery novel, with sinister goings-on in a reputedly haunted house. It was published by Macmillan in 1968 with illustrations by Eros Keith. The novel received the 1969 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery. "The House of Dies Drear" is the first book in the Dies Drear Chronicles; the second is "The Mystery of Drear House" (1987).


The story is set in Ohio, in 1968.


Thomas Small is a 13-year old African American boy, who has moved with his family from North Carolina to Ohio. His father is a history professor who has leased the historic home of the abolitionist Dies Drear. The house has been mostly empty for years, and is riddled with hidden passageways that were used to hide escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad. An elderly caretaker, named Mr. Pluto, lives in a cave on the property, which he has converted into a home. There are rumors that the house is haunted by the ghosts of two escaped slaves who were captured and killed, and by the ghost of Dies Drear himself.


After the Darrows are driven off, Mr. Small helps Mr. Pluto catalog the artifacts in the cavern. They agree to keep the secret, at least until the cataloging is done and the collection is ready to show to the historical society. Thomas looks forward to starting school and making friends, possibly including young Mac Darrow.


Library of Congress Subject Headings for "The House of Dies Drear" are: African Americans, Mystery and detective stories, Underground Railroad, and Ohio-History.


The film was adapted into the 1984 television film "The House of Dies Drear" directed by Allan A. Goldstein.


This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. First published in 1981 by Persephone Press. The second edition was published in 1983 by . The book's third edition was published by Third Woman Press until 2008, when it went out of print. In 2015, the fourth edition was published by State University of New York Press, Albany.


The book centers on the experiences of women of color and emphasizes the points of what is now called intersectionality within their multiple identities, challenging white feminists who made claims to solidarity based on sisterhood. Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism. It has become "one of "the most" cited books in feminist theorizing" (emphasis in original).


Though other published writings by women of color existed at the time of "This Bridge"'s printing, many scholars and contributors to "This Bridge" agree that the bringing together of writing by women of color from diverse backgrounds in one anthology made "This Bridge" unique and influential. Barbara Smith, a contributor, wrote that Black, Native American, Asian American, and Latina women "were involved in autonomous organization at the same time that we [were] beginning to find each other. Certainly "This Bridge Called My Back" […] has been a document of and a catalyst for these coalitions."


However, even with these aforementioned impacts, many individuals contend that women of color feminisms still remain marginal within women's studies in the United States. Chela Sandoval, in her essay on third-world feminism, writes: "The publication of "This Bridge Called My Back" in 1981 made the presence of U.S. third world feminism impossible to ignore on the same terms as it had been throughout the 1970s. But soon the writings and theoretical challenges of U.S. third world feminists were marginalized into the category of what Allison Jaggar characterized in 1983 as mere 'description.'"


"This Bridge" "offered a rich and diverse account of the experience and analyses of women of color; with its collective ethos, its politics of rage and regeneration, and its mix of poetry, critique, fiction and testimony, it challenged the boundaries of feminist and academic discourse."


Anthologists Moraga and Anzaldúa stated in the preface that they expected the book to act as a catalyst, "not as a definitive statement on Third World Feminism" in the United States. They also expressed a desire to "express to all women, especially white, middle class women, the experiences which divide us as feminists ...we want to create a definition that expands what 'feminist' means."


Teresa de Lauretis noted that "This Bridge" and "All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies" (1982) created a "shift in feminist consciousness" by making "available to all feminists the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism."


Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Norma Alarcón adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language "Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos". Moraga and Castillo served as editors, and Castillo and Alarcón translated the text. In 2002, AnaLouise Keating and Gloria Anzaldúa edited an anthology ("this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation") that examined the impact of "This Bridge" twenty years later while trying to continue the discussion started by Anzaldúa and Moraga in 1981.


No Disrespect is a 1994 American memoir written by Sister Souljah.


I Put a Spell on You (book)


I Put A Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone is the 1992 autobiography by Nina Simone (1933–2003), written with Stephen Cleary.


The 192-page book was published February 1, 1992 by Pantheon. It was re-released in a 2003 Da Capo Press reprint edition following Simone's death on April 21, 2003; this edition included an introduction, "I Know How it Feels To Be Free: Nina Simone 1933–2003", written by Dave Marsh.


Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race is a 2018 picture book by Margot Lee Shetterly with Winifred Conkling, illustrated by Laura Freeman. The picture book is adapted from Shetterly's 2016 non-fiction book "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race".


"Hidden Figures" tells the story of four African-American women mathematicians and the work they did at NASA from the 1940s to the 1960s.


"Kirkus Reviews" called the "Hidden Figures" "an important story to tell about four heroines." Writing for "School Library Journal," Megan Kilgallen said "Freeman’s full-color illustrations are stunning and chock-full of details, incorporating diagrams, mathematical formulas, and space motifs throughout . . . enhancing the whole book."


"Hidden Figures" was named a Coretta Scott King Award honor book for illustration.


Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me is a 2017 memoir by Janet Mock.


Published June 13, 2017 by the Atria imprint of Simon & Schuster, "Surpassing Certainty" is Mock's second memoir, following her 2014 "New York Times" bestseller "Redefining Realness". The book's title is an allusion to Audre Lorde, who wrote, "And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking."


Following on the discussion of her childhood and adolescence in "Redefining Realness", in "Surpassing Certainty", Mock describes life in her twenties.


Writing in "The New York Times", Jennifer Finney Boylan described "Surpassing Certainty" as "position[ing] its story within a larger history of a struggle for human rights. But Mock’s book is also a work of the heart, much of it focusing on the dissolution of her first marriage, and her journey from a Honolulu strip club to an editor at "People" magazine." "Cosmopolitan" said the book "should be required reading for your 20s." "Elle" named to a list of three "must-read" books for June 2017.


Coal is a collection of poetry by Audre Lorde, published in 1976. It was Lorde's first collection to be released by a major publisher. Lorde's poetry in "Coal" explored themes related to the several layers of her identity as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet."


"Coal" consists of five sections. While Audre Lorde presents poems that express each part of her identity, race undoubtedly plays a significant role in "Coal". A major theme within the volume is Lorde's angry reaction towards racism. For Lorde, expressing anger was not destructive. Instead, Lorde transforms "rage at racism into triumphant self-assertion." She specifically dedicates the book "To the People of Sun, That We May All Better Understand." In addition, another significant part of the volume explores her existence as a lesbian, friend, and a former lover, specifically in the fourth section that consists of one long poem titled "Martha" that outlines the recovery of Lorde's former lover after a car accident.


The volume's namesake comes from a poem in the first section titled "Coal". It is written in free-verse and first-person. The idea of an identity consisting of several layers is exemplified in this poem. One's true identity is often hidden behind several muddled layers. Lorde alludes toward this concept by her recurrent use of the dual imagery of a piece of coal and a diamond. As the speaker of the poem, Lorde begins by equating herself with a piece of coal.


Part three of the anthology consists of eleven poems. The poems in this section predominantly discuss Lorde's experiences as both a wife and a mother. In the poem "A Child Shall Lead" Lorde uses sensory imagery to express her concerns about her son and what will become of him in the future. Another poem "Paperweight" describes her frustrations with her heterosexual marriage. Throughout the poem, Lorde likens paper to something that can console her, because she uses it to write her poetry. The poem takes a dramatic turn in tone in the last stanza stating "or fold them [paper] all into a paper fan / with which to cool my husband's dinner."


"Coal" received generally positive reviews from critics, especially among her peers and other female poets.


The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race is an essay and poetry collection edited by American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2016. The title, "The Fire This Time" alludes to James Baldwin's seminal 1963 text, "The Fire Next Time".


The book was published by Scribner on August 2, 2016.


Writing for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Imani Perry described Ward's collection as, "a composition made by someone who is as careful a reader as she is a writer. Ward is attuned to the spirit of this moment and she is its conductor, gifting insight to us all." Dwight Garner particularly praised contributions by Ward, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Carol Anderson, Kevin Young, and Garnette Cadogan, saying their works are "[e]ach...so alive with purpose, conviction and intellect that, upon finishing their contributions, you feel you must put this volume down and go walk around for a while."


The Meaning of Mariah Carey is a memoir by Mariah Carey, released on September 29, 2020. It was written with Michaela Angela Davis and shared previously untold experiences. The book was published by Andy Cohen Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, and is also available in an audiobook format on Audible read by Carey herself. The memoir became a number one "New York Times" Best Seller after its first week of release.


Mariah Carey had considered writing a memoir since 2010 when she was pregnant with her twins Moroccan and Monroe. In the two years prior to "The Meaning of Mariah Carey"s release, she told stories to co-writer Michaela Angela Davis. The book was first rumored in April 2018, and Carey acknowledged she was working on it during promotional appearances for her fifteenth studio album "Caution" (2018). On July 9, 2020, she announced the memoir was complete.


The book includes a preface and epilogue and is divided into four parts: "Wayward Child", "Sing. Sing.", "All That Glitters", and "Emancipation". It focuses on Carey's childhood, career, and personal and professional relationships, with less of a focus on events after 2001. Alongside the plot, the inspirations and meanings of many of Carey's songs are explained and are often accompanied by excerpts from them. Chapters occasionally begin or end with lyrics from Carey's songs as epigraphs, and Bible verses are incorporated.


Media outlets noted that men associated with her such as Eminem and former fiancé James Packer are absent. Her role as a judge on "American Idol" and feud with Nicki Minaj is unrecognized. She explained: "If somebody or something didn't pertain to the actual meaning of Mariah Carey, as is the title, then they aren't in the book."


In December 2020, Carey said she was exploring how to adapt the memoir into a limited series or film. "The Guardian" reported in February 2021 that Lee Daniels is working on a miniseries based on the book.


The book received positive reception from critics, general audiences, and Carey's fans alike. Based on 11 reviews, aggregation website Book Marks reported a "rave" response to the memoir. Numerous publications listed "The Meaning of Mariah Carey" in their rankings of the best music books or celebrity memoirs of 2020, including "The Atlantic", the "Financial Times", "The Globe and Mail", "The Guardian", the "Irish Independent", "NME", "Pitchfork", "Rolling Stone"/"Kirkus Reviews", "The San Diego Union-Tribune", "The Times", and "Variety".


Alison filed a lawsuit against Carey with the New York Supreme Court in February 2021 seeking $1.25 million for emotional distress caused by the memoir. She disputes her depiction and says it was used to generate book sales. In the same court the following month, Morgan filed a lawsuit against Carey, Davis, and the publishers for emotional distress and defamation for his portrayal.


Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl


Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl is a 2003 picture book by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by James Ransome. It is a retelling by Hamilton, in the Gullah dialect, of the classic story of Bruh Rabbit outwitting Bruh Wolf.


"Booklist", in a review of "Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl", wrote "In this version of the beloved Tar Baby trickster story, she drew on Gullah folklore from the Sea Islands of South Carolina. Her rhythmic, immediate version is well matched by Ransome's paintings, both cozy and exciting, which extend the fun with beautiful farmland scenes at dayclean (dawn) and daylean (evening) picturing the wily rabbit thief in human clothes repeatedly outwitting the wolf." and the "School Library Journal" described it as "meticulously paced, lyrical, hilarious, and a joy to read aloud." with "lush watercolors [that] suit the story perfectly".


"Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl" has also been reviewed by "The Horn Book Magazine", "Kirkus Reviews", and "Publishers Weekly", and the "Florida Media Quarterly".


It is a 2004 ALA Notable Book for children, and a 2004 CCBC Choices book.


Happiness Becomes You is a memoir published by singer Tina Turner in 2020. Described by the author as "a very personal book that focuses on the core themes of my life: hope, happiness, and faith," it explores details of Turner's life including how she overcame obstacles to achieve happiness and success, and offers Turner's advice on how readers can realize their own dreams. Turner co-authoerd the book with American writer Taro Gold.


Turner described "Happiness Becomes You" as a parallel behind-the-scenes story to the HBO documentary film "Tina" (2021). The book is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats. It was published in North America by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, by Droemer Knaur in Germany, and in the UK and Commonwealth nations by HarperCollins.


"Happiness Becomes You" contains eight chapters, plus an introduction and afterword, that span the entirety of Turner's life, beginning with stories about her hometown before her birth, then continues through the adversities she faced in her life and career as she worked her way up to eventually become a world-class performer, and concluding with stories about the author's daily life at the time of the book's completion when she was eighty years of age in 2020. The book's eight chapters roughly coincide with the eight decades of Turner's life.


Throughout the book, Turner provides inspirational advice and spiritual tools for the reader's self-empowerment and fulfillment, and she shares how her favorite Buddhist principles helped her overcome poverty, prejudice, illness, loss, and other personal and professional challenges. A glossy photo insert is also contained in the book, with sixteen rare and/or never-before-published images of Turner dating from the late 1970s through 2020.


"Happiness Becomes You" was selected as one of the best nonfiction books of the year by Amazon's editors, and chosen as a recommended gift book by the Amazon Book Review during the holiday season after its release on December 1, 2020.


The book became a global best seller upon its publication, including eight weeks on the Top 20 of the Spiegel best seller list for Germany, Austria, Holland, and Switzerland. It also reached the No. 1 best selling spot in the spiritual-themed book category.


The book received positive reviews from "Publishers Weekly", "USA Today", "Variety", "People", "Library Journal", "Vanity Fair", the "San Francisco Chronicle", and received a starred review from the American Library Association's "Booklist".


Turner curated a twenty-two-song playlist soundtrack for the launch of the book called "Come Up Smiling", that was published by Graydon Carter's "Air Mail" digital magazine and on Spotify. In the accompanying "Air Mail" article, she offered her thoughts on the power of music to lift one's spirits. The playlist consists of tracks from eighteen artists, including Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Andra Day, Jill Scott, Olivia Newton-John, Herbie Hancock, Taro Gold, Marvin Gaye, Janelle Monae and two songs by Turner herself.


Brown Girl Dreaming is a 2014 adolescent novel told in verse by author Jacqueline Woodson. It discusses the author's childhood as an African American growing up in the 1960s in South Carolina and New York. It was awarded the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Coretta Scott King Book Award, and an NAACP Image Award for outstanding literary work.


Jacqueline is born on February 12, 1963, in the city of Columbus, Ohio, and named after her father, Jack. While Jackie’s first year is spent in the North, several trips are made to the South for Mary Ann (her mother) to visit her parents, Grandpa Gunnar and Grandma Georgiana, who live in the Nicholtown area of Greenville, South Carolina. The region is segregated and Jackie doesn't understand why she always goes. Her parents' very different feelings about the South cause arguments between them. Eventually, Jack and Mary Ann split up, and Mary Ann and her three children, Hope, Odella, and Jackie, move south to live with Grandpa Gunnar and Grandma Georgiana.


Jackie comes to love Greenville. While racism and segregation exist there, the place is still home to her and her grandparents. They believe in peaceful marches for civil rights. They know that God will bless them for doing the right thing.


Despite the widespread animosity, there are white people in Greenville who are respectful and treat Jackie and her family like actual human beings, rather than dirt. One such woman is the owner of the local laundromat store, who has known Grandma Georgiana for years. Mary Ann, however, wants to move back North. So, she travels to New York City to get settled. Jackie and her siblings stay on with their grandparents, relishing the time they have with them until Mary Ann comes to retrieve her children, with a brand new baby boy named Roman in tow. They move in with Mary Ann's sister Caroline Irby (Aunt Kay), but Aunt Kay dies and the family of five is left alone.


Blanche on the Lam is a mystery novel by author Barbara Neely. "Blanche on the Lam" is the first in a series by Barbara Neely. This novel brings to light the intelligence and power of an African-American domestic female worker in the midst of a racist and sexist society. The book won the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery. The series continues with "Blanche among the Talented Tenth" (1994), "Blanche Cleans Up" (1998), and "Blanche Passes Go" (2000).


"Blanche on the Lam" opens in a court room with Blanche being accused of writing bad checks and being sentenced to thirty days in jail to teach her a lesson. She has a small panic attack at the thought of having to spend thirty days in a small jail cell and asks to use the rest room where she ends up fuming over what has become of her life in Farleigh, North Carolina since moving there from New York city. She gave up better pay for the safety of her children and ended being unable to cover the checks she wrote, being accused of writing more bad checks than she had, and being sentenced to time in jail because of it.


There is a disturbance out in the hall and she takes her chance to escape by slipping out of the restroom and making her way to the exit and out into the underground parking lot. She walks quickly out of the area and finds herself in the neighborhood to a job she had got from the Ty-Dee Girls agency she cancelled for that week. Luckily for her the agency has yet to send her replacement and the woman who comes out of the house does not question her about her apparent lateness. She is then brought into the house, instructed to serve lunch, and then be ready to depart the house so they can head to the country.


After lunch Blanche and the family of four drive out to the country house by the sea. That day she learns that one of the family members, Aunt Emmeline, is a drunk or at least that is what she assumes, and is a witness to her Will signing that hands over the control of her nephew, Mumsfield‘s, money to his cousins, Grace and Everett. After the signing she learns from Nate, who has worked for the family for many years, that something was not right with the Will signing situation. He does not explain his reasoning but she intends to find out, all the while planning her move to New York, later Boston, to escape the Sheriff and the jail sentence she is running from.


Later, after returning from running errands with Mumsfield, she finds the Sheriff at the country house and thinks she has been caught, but it turns out that Sheriff is there to see Everett. After she has calmed herself she wonders why the Sheriff was there if not for her, and is even more curious when she realizes how much time he is spending at the property. Nate refuses to tell her but Blanche is determined to find out. Aside from that mystery she is sure that Grace and Everett are trying to get hold or at least control of Mumsfield’s money because they have gone through all of Grace’s money.


However, Blanche cannot assume that she is living with a murderer based on what she overheard and witnessed. The same day Nate comes and tells her that he saw someone wearing a pink jacket walking the short-cut route to the place where the Sheriff died. It is obvious he thinks it was Everett. Later that day Everett confronts Blanche about the whereabouts of Nate, and the next day he ends being dead. Killed in a house fire during the night.


Blanche finds clues here and there and eventually learns that the Aunt Emmeline she saw sign the will was an impostor and that the real woman had been killed. After going over the clues she had and looking at what evidence she had already uncovered and seeing Grace again, she realized that she had been suspecting the wrong person of murder all along. Who would have thought sweet, believable, weary, frightened Grace would have been a serial killer?


She is the central character on "Blanche on the Lam". She is a black woman, who is a housekeeper and cook, on the run from a jail term for a minor offense. She hides out as a domestic worker for a dysfunctional white family. According to Mildred Mickle, Blanche is "a domestic heroine, a very human, compassionate, and honest yet tricky figure.". Blanche recognizes as an adult that as a black women domestic, she is "invisible", however recalling her aunt's wisdom when she was a child, she recognizes the potential power of that invisibility. This power allows her to hide from the law and conduct and cover up her investigations on the Carter family.


He is the white and mentally retarded cousin of Grace. He holds a good amount of power in the novel because he is the designated heir to the family fortune and for that his family plots to cheat him out of the money. Although he is white, he cannot be understood or accepted by his family, "He exits in a liminal space, somewhere in between black and white."


He relates more to Blanche than his own white family because they share a common reality of being misunderstood and denigrated. Additionally, they both see beyond the superficial and discover hidden truths.


She plays the stereotypical white mistress role. She pays little attention to the people she trusts to run her home but hypocritically, it is because she does not see them as individuals. Blanche, however, takes advantage of Grace's ignorance by pretending to be a former employee so that she can get hired even though she has a warrant out for her arrest. She also uses her stereotype as a white gentle woman to deceive and manipulate everyone in the novel.


He serves as a gardener for the Carter family, whom Blanche is working for while in hiding. He acts submissive and quiet in front of Grace, however he drops this stereotypical "Uncle Tom" act and reveals himself to be a sharp witted, humorous man. He owes his life to Grace, because he was about to be lynched (before the novel takes place) and twelve-year-old Grace intervenes and saves him. However, he reveals to Grace that this burden of servitude to the Carter family has angered him more than made him grateful. Additionally, Grace, merely sees him as an object to be worked. When Nate is mysteriously murdered, Blanche begins her detective work and works to avenge his death and bring his killer to justice.


He is Grace's husband. He presents himself in the eyes of Blanche as the central villain and is conspicuous from the start of the novel. His former wife mysteriously died, leading him to an inheritance. Blanche suspects the Sheriff to be blackmailing (or as she calls it "white male") Everett so that he does not tell Grace he cheated on her.


He is Mumsfield's cousin and the family lawyer. Blanche catches Symington calling in favors to keep Nate's murder committed by one of his family members out of court to avoid a scandal. He tries to bribe Blanche from revealing this scandal by telling her he will get her sentence repealed.


She holds the inheritance in which she planned to pass to Mumsfield. Blanche notes in the novel about Aunt Emmeline that she "looked like a drunken Little Orphan Annie at eighty, with her frizzy yellow hair and blank, watery eyes." Blanche is asked to witness Aunt Emmeline sign over her will to Grace and Everett, striking suspicion in Blanche. It is revealed later in the novel that this woman is an imposter and the real Aunt Emmeline was murdered by Grace.


Following the tradition of many black artist in the 20th century, Barbara Neely uses the mystery/crime genre to incorporate themes of deception and perception. With the use of Blanche's character as the detective, Neely asks who is the real criminal: master or slave, upper class or the working class, black or white?


The issues of trust, deception, and perception have long flourished in racial and gender conflicts. Barbara Neely, exposes these issues through the web of mystery surrounding the murders and cheating that surrounds the characters in "Blanche on the Lam". Additionally, there is an overall theme of fear of the characters in the novel that is rooted in the distrust between employer and servant. Blanche grows to trust Mumsfield but ridicules this trust for a white employer by calling it "Darkies Disease" — "where blacks internalize the role of the servant and take on the personal problems of their employers to the detriment of themselves.".


Blanche utilizes all three aspects that provide her with invisibility (being black, female, and a domestic servant) and relies on her identity as a "Night Girl"- a name a wise aunt gave her when she found Blanche crying because some kids teased her about having a dark, black complexion. Her aunt consoled her by saying:


"They jealous 'cause you got the night in you. Some people got night in 'im, some got morning, others, like me and your mama, god dusk. But it's only them that's got night can become invisible. People what got night in 'em can step into the dark and poof...Go any old where they want. Do anything. Ride them stars up there, like as not. Shoot, girl, no wonder them kids teasing you. I'm a grown woman and I'm jealous, too!"


Blanche's aunt gives her a positive conception of dark skin and instead of being ashamed, Blanche utilizes this concept of being invisible in to a powerful liberation. It allows her to move unseen, to discover the Carter family secrets, and ultimately turns her in to a crafty detective who solves all the crime in the novel. Her disguise is a socially constructed one based on her race, gender, and social class, however by turning these into positive tools, she proves to her oppressors that she is not confined or constructed by how others see (or do not see) her.


In "I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers", Rebecca Carroll interviews Barbara Neely, and she discusses how she formed Blanche White:


"The character of Blanche initially came from a woman I knew in North Carolina who had a look that inspired me to create a heroine in her memory...I knew I wanted her to be representative of who black women are, presently and historically. Both my grandmothers did domestic work..." "A cleansing construction: Blanche White as domestic heroine in Barbara Neely's "Blanche on the Lam".".


According to Elsie Washington in a review for "Essence", the novel is considered "the first mystery by a black woman with a Black woman as the heroine".


Neely scored major accolades with her first novel, winning the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for "Blanche on the Lam". She also received an award from the Black Women’s Reading Club for the book.


Starting Over is a 2011 autobiography by American musician and recording artist La Toya Jackson. The book was published by Gallery Books and was released on June 21, 2011. It made "The New York Times" Best Seller list for the week ending July 2, 2011.


The book picks up from where her previous autobiography, "", left off. It details her abusive relationship with, and escape from, her manager Jack Gordon.


The latter part of the book describes how her brother Michael Jackson confided in La Toya that he feared being killed for his music and publishing estate. In the book La Toya reveals that she feared for Michael's life in the months leading up to his death.


The hardcover version was released on June 21, 2011. The mass market paperback was released on May 29, 2012.


Jackson made "The New York Times" Best Seller list for the week ending July 2, 2011. This was her second book to make the list, the first being "", which peaked at number 2.


For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf


For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf is Ntozake Shange's first work and most acclaimed theater piece, which premiered in 1976. It consists of a series of poetic monologues to be accompanied by dance movements and music, a form Shange coined as the choreopoem. "for colored girls..." tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society.


In December 1974, Shange performed the first incarnation of her choreopoem with four other artists at a women's bar outside Berkeley, California. After moving to New York City, she continued work on "for colored girls...", which went on to open at the Booth Theatre in 1976, becoming the second play by a black woman to reach Broadway, preceded by Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" in 1959. Shange updated the original choreopoem in 2010, by adding the poem "positive" and referencing the Iraq War and PTSD.


"for colored girls..." has been performed Off-Broadway as well as on Broadway, and was adapted as a book (first published in 1976 by Shameless Hussy Press), a 1982 television film, and a 2010 theatrical film. The 1976 Broadway production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play.


"for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" is a piece of work inspired by events of Shange's own life. Shange admitted publicly to having attempted suicide on four occasions. In a phone interview conducted with CNN, she explained how she came to the title of her choreopoem: "I was driving the No. 1 Highway in northern California and I was overcome by the appearance of two parallel rainbows. I had a feeling of near death or near catastrophe. Then I drove through the rainbow and I went away. Then I put that together to form the title." The colors of the rainbow then became the essence of the women in the choreopoem.


Shange also explains that she chose to use the word "colored" in the title of her choreopoem so that her grandmother would be able to understand it.


The prologue of the choreopoem "dark phrases" begins with the lady in brown describing the "dark phrases of womanhood". All she hears are screams and promises. Each woman states where she is from, by stating they are outside their respective cities. The lady in brown proclaims that this piece is all for "colored girls who have considered suicide / but moved to the ends of their own rainbows". The women then begin to sing children's nursery rhymes, "mama's little baby likes shortnin, shortnin". Then all the ladies start to dance to the song "Dancing in the Streets".


The lady in yellow says it was graduation night and she was the only virgin. She was out driving around with her male friends who she has known since the seventh grade in a black Buick, laughing about graduation. After a fight breaks out, the lady in yellow and Bobby leave and end up having sex in the back of the Buick. The other ladies start talking about their sexual preferences.


The lady in blue talks about how she used to participate in dance marathons frequently. One night she refused to dance with anyone that only spoke English. Throughout the monologue she intertwines English and Spanish. During this time she discovered blues clubs. She says she became possessed by the music. She ends her monologue by calling it her poem "thank-you for music," to which she states: "I love you more than poem". She repeats "te amo mas que," and the other women join her, softly chanting.


The lady in red addresses an ambiguous "you" throughout the monologue. She has loved this "you" strongly and passionately "for 8 months, 2 wks, & a day" without any encouragement. She decides to end this affair and leaves a note attached to a plant that she has watered every day since she met this person.


The lady in orange begins by saying she does not want to write in neither English nor Spanish, but she only wants to dance. She forgets all about words when she starts to dance. She says "we gotta dance to keep form cryin and dyin" and the other ladies repeat her words. The lady in orange then claims that she is a poet "who writes in english / come to share the worlds witchu".


The lady in blue sets the scene with tubes, tables, white washed windows, and her legs spread open. She couldn't bear to have people looking at her while she got an abortion so she is all alone.


The lady in purple describes Sechita's life in the bayou, while lady in green dances out Sechita's life. She is dressed up for the Creole carnival celebration. She embodies the spirit of her namesake, Sechita, the Egyptian goddess of creativity, love, beauty and filth from the 2nd millennium.


The lady in blue begins her monologue by explaining that she used to live in the world but now only lives in Harlem, and her universe is only six blocks. She used to walk all over the world and now her world is small and dirty. The lady in blue says that when she used to live in the world where she was nice and sweet but now, now she cannot bring herself to be nice to anyone in this "six blocks of cruelty / piled up on itself".


The lady in orange discusses a relationship that left her heartbroken. She says that ever since she realized that someone would call a "colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag" (56) she has tried not to be that person. She tries to not only give joy, but to receive it as well. She finds herself in what she believes to be a real and honest relationship. Yet, the guy keeps going back to his ex-lover. The lady in orange tried to move on by finding another lover, but she wasn't satisfied. She tried to avoid sadness, but she found herself heartbroken by this man. She could not stand being "sorry & colored at the same time / it’s so redundant in the modern world".


The lady in purple speaks about her relationship to dance and men. She deliberately chooses to dance with men who don't speak English, pops pills, and uses dance as an escape from reality. Then she meets a man who she gave everything: dance, fear, hope and scars. She admits she was ready to die, but now is ready to be herself and accept love. She pleads, "lemme love you just like i am / a colored girl/ i'm finally bein real".


The lady in blue proclaims that they all deal with too much emotion and that it might be easier to be white. That way they could make everything "dry & abstract wit no rhythm & no / reelin for sheer sensual pleasure". The lady in blue states that they should try to control their feelings and she is going to take the first step by masturbating. However, she finds that this makes her feel lonely and doesn't know where to look to feel whole.


The lady in yellow claims to have lost touch with reality because she used to think she was immune to emotional pain, but she realized she is not. She gave her dance, but her dance was not enough. She says "bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical / dilemma / i haven't conquered yet".