In honor of Black History Month, stories written by Black women take center stage in this week’s Read-In. They can be therapeutic, mind-opening and even powerful narrative learning materials. The stories which have been recorded-thankfully, there are more and more every year-are treasures.
“Great-grandmama told my grandmama the part she lived through that my grandmama didn’t live through and my grandmama told my mama what they both lived through and my mama told me what they all lived through and we were suppose to pass it down like that from generation to generation so we’d never forget,” wrote Gayl Jones in her 1975 novel, "Corregidora." In my experience, this is how it has been.
The importance of women’s history, in general, is a contemporary idea, and Black women’s history is even more so. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to search for a throughline between myself, a Black woman, my family history and the history of this country. I found the films riveting, and they made me feel proud, even if I didn’t completely understand why. (Courtesy of the publishers)ĭuring the summer vacations of my childhood, my mom would sit my brother and me down in front of the TV and pop in VHS tapes of the 1987 documentary series “Eyes on the Prize.” It was a special kind of education she provided for us that she knew we wouldn’t get in the classroom (in small-town Arkansas in the early 2000s). Arts Reporting Fellow Lauren Williams recommends three books from Black women authors about the lives of Black women.
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