Black Women in America

Kim Marie Vaz

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1994
• Print ISBN: 9780803954557, 9780803954540
• eBook ISBN: 9781452255064
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Nominated for the 1995 Distinguished Publication Award of the Association for Women in Psychology A provocative, insightful volume, Black Women in America offers an interdisciplinary study of black women?s historic activism, representation in literature and popular media, self-constructed images, and current psychosocial challenges. This new work by outstanding scholars in the field of race and gender studies explores the ways in which black women have constantly reconstructed and transformed alien definitions of black womanhood. Black women have an image of themselves that differs from those others impose. Collectively, the contributors to this anthology demonstrate that such socially constructed images hide the complexities and ambiguities, the challenges, and the joys experienced in the real lives of black women. Multifaceted in its approach, Black Women in America is certain to stimulate debate, stretch minds, and spark future research. Black Women in America is a welcome resource for scholars and students in African American or Ethnic Studies, Women?s Studies, Sociology, and Psychology. "The volume can be helpful in stimulating questions and discussion for students in African American studies." --Choice "Black Women in America combines social history with contemporary analysis in one of the most thoughtful of scholarly compendia I have ever seen. It will be useful to scholars who teach history, sociology, African American studies, and women?s studies, but also to any American interested in a deeper and broader understanding of America?s past, present, and future." --Sarah Susannah Willie, Colby College, Maine "At a time when several anthologies of essays by and about black women are hitting the shelves, Kim Marie Vaz?s volume boasts an unusual and inventive mix of topics. It treats a range of historical eras and geographical locations. . . . The apt emphasis on resistance rather than victimization is apparent throughout the essays I read; it provides an excellent focal point. . . . In all, Vaz?s editorial contribution is admirable. She has collected an impressively wide-ranging group of essays on the history, sociology, and culture of black women. Interdisciplinary in its approach and sound in its scholarship, the volume will be welcomed by scholars and students in African American studies and women?s studies in particular, but also history, sociology, and political science." --Cheryl Ann Wall, Rutgers University

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Organization of the Anthology
• Introduction: Black Women's Lives and Cultural Contexts
• Part I - Black Women's Social History Through the Lens of Their Activism
• Chapter 1 - African Women's Legacy: Ambiguity, Autonomy, and Empowerment
• Chapter 2 - Organizing for Racial Justice: Black Women and the Dynamics of Race and Sex in Female Antislavery Societies, 1832–1860
• Chapter 3 - Black Women and the NAACP, 1909–1922: An Encounter With Race, Class, and Gender
• Chapter 4 - Racial Justice in Minnesota: The Activism of Mary Toliver Jones and Josie Robinson Johnson
• Chapter 5 - The Impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the Unionization of African-American Women: Local 282-Furniture Division-IUE, 1960–1988
• Chapter 6 - Poor Black Sisters Decided for Themselves: A Case Study of 1960s Women's Liberation Activism
• Chapter 7 - Searching for a Tradition: African-American Women Writers, Activists, and Interracial Rape Cases
• Part II - Image Wars: Literary and Popular Constructions of Black Women
• Chapter 8 - The Condition of Black Women in Spain During the Renaissance
• Chapter 9 - The Rape Complex in the Postbellum South
• Chapter 10 - On the Use of Medical Diagnosis as Name-Calling: Anita F. Hill and the Rediscovery of "Erotomania"
• Chapter 11 - Sapphires, Spitfires, Sluts, and Superbitches: Aframericans and Latinas in Contemporary American Film
• Chapter 12 - African-American Single Mothers: Public Perceptions and Public Policies
• Part III - Performing Their Visions
• Chapter 13 - "Oh, What I Think I Must Tell This World!": Oratory and Public Address of African-American Women
• Chapter 14 - Before Althea and Wilma: African-American Women in Sports, 1924–1948
• Chapter 15 - Black Women in Concert Dance: The Philadelphia Divas
• Chapter 16 - Sisters in the Name of Rap: Rapping for Women's Lives
• Part IV - Contemporary Psychosocial Challenges
• Chapter 17 - Life Satisfaction and the Older African-American Women
• Chapter 18 - Sisterhood Among African-American Mothers of Daughters Addicted to Crack Cocaine
• Appendix: A Brief Guide to Resources By and About African-American Women
• Index
• About the Contributors
• Back Cover