A Black Women's History of the United States (ReVisioning History)

by Daina Ramey Berry

Other authorsKali Nicole Gross (Author)

Paperback, 2021

Status

Available

Call number

E > Social Justice

Description

"A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are--and have always been--instrumental in shaping our country. In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today. A Black Women's History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women's lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women's history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation."--Publisher's website.… (more)

Publication

Beacon Press (2021), Edition: Reprint, 296 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member bangerlm

This book highlights the lives of individual black woman throughout American history with short vignettes. The book is written in a text book style and is fairly dry, especially in the first half where the source research is scant (due to the fact that not much is written by or about black women

because of slavery and patriarchy), but there were lots of interesting tidbits. It is good to unearth and call attention to this history and remind us that the fight for equality, fairness, and morality is ongoing and to gain inspiration from those who came before us.

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LibraryThing member goosecap

Although I’m of course not an expert here, this being my first book on Black-women-as-such, or any kind of intersectionality, the most obvious theme, the overwhelming pain of Black women and men in American history, is plain enough.

As far as gender goes, I think—in no particular order—that

it’s of course not my business to mediate between between Black women and men; that despite sometimes having an irritated perception that not everybody cares if whitey treats his girl the right way, it is clearly the case that the overwhelming racial pain in America’s past and present separates white women from Black women, as white men from Black men; that Black women have also suffered racial and sexual violence from white men, Black men not being the only targets; and that Black lesbians and other African gender nonconformists are part of the queer community.

As far as the nature of race and history, it’s obviously been true, as hard as it is to correct, that the aim of historians has been to make history books as white as possible, even completely white if possible, and that the resulting art or science has been correspondingly European in complexion. Although we have some information now about Black people even during the period of American slavery, and Black history does not begin with the obviously pivotal civil rights movement, and despite that Black history does, in fact, exist, it is even now much less documented and studied than what I call general history, and therefore even now it is easy for the student of this art or science to consciously or unconsciously discount the Black element, and/or for the Black individual to assume either that history is nothing, and/or that it has nothing for himself or herself. This book is one small part in the beginning of reversing this long-standing and still very entrenched trend.

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LibraryThing member KallieGrace

This covers so much ground and gives speculative musings for the oldest periods where Black women surely existed but were not counted, let alone included in the narrative. The more recent histories where we have more details were fantastic. While the thin details of the past aren't always engaging,

it's a stark reminder of why this book is so important. Black women's voices are so important and they've always been here.

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