Black Women For Beginners

S. Pearl Sharp, Beverly Hawkins Hall

• Publisher: For Beginners
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9781934389201
• eBook ISBN:
  9781939994004
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

There are over 519 million Black Women on the planet Earth, give or take a dozen. There's a Black Woman on each of the seven continents, in almost every country and in almost every context. There are even Black Women in the space program. So no matter where you go, she's already been there. She travels with forces greater than herself. Her presence is everywhere.Black Women For Beginners is a documentary comic book that chronicles the trials and triumphs of Black Women from antiquity to the present, reflecting with wit and humor the challenges they have faced and the fortitude and strength that have sustained Black Women and patterned history with a diversity of excellence. As warriors, healers, teachers, mothers, queens, and liberators Black Women have had tremendous impact on issues from food to fashion, from politics to poetry. Replete with a glossary of reference terms, Black Women For Beginners whimsically details the influence of stereotypes on the portrayal of Black Women in various venues and punctuates the absurd.

WITCHES, WIVES & WARRIORS

“I will… And all that is or ever shall be is but reverberations and repercussions of that first almighty thunderclap. I will. It is both a declaration and a command. It affirms dominion Take a moment and whisper it to yourself. ‘I will.’ feel the power.”

Susan L. Taylor (USA)

Power. Since the beginning of time Black Women have wielded power, through Marriage, Matriarchal systems, the Military, and Magic.

“MAGIC: (the Ancestors’ definition): A management of forces, causing change to occur in conformity with will.“

MAGIC: (Others’ definition): “To compel the cooperation of other people, deity or nature, in enterprises of self…known as white magic when ethical and as black magic when amoral.“

(Marc Edmund Jones, Occult Philosophy)

BWn receive, as a birthday present from their ancestors, the gift of extraordinary powers. Some call it magic. Some call it “sight.” Many choose to ignore the power, others have no choice.

A Sudanese sistuh, ZAHRA, was taken to Yugoslavia in the late 1870’s, where she told the future from the muscles of her right arm. She lived to be 126. Her descendants still sing of her glory today.

In what is now Zimbabwe, the incarnated medium NEHANDA used her spiritual powers to guide the Shona people in resisting British invaders.

For more than 70 years a sensuous New Orleans hairdresser, MARIE LEVEAUX, was damned for working evil (would you like to have your husband’s mistress disappear?) and praised for working miracles. One writer described her as “our last great witch.”

It’s said that the great HARRIET TUBMAN had the gift, and used it to guide herself and other slaves to freedom.

Writer and folklorist ZORA NEALE HURSTON was one of those with the gift, but she didn’t want it. As a young girl she had a vision of her entire life. It was not a pretty picture.

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“I was weighted down with a power I did not want. I had knowledge before its time…I knew that I would be an orphan and homeless.. that a shotgun-built house held torture for me, but I must go. I saw a deep love betrayed but I must feel and know it. Oh, how I cried to be just as everybody else..! Time was to prove the truth of my visions, for one by one they came to pass…. It is one of the blessings of this world that few people see visions and dream dreams.“

Zora Neale Hurston
Dust Tracks On A Rood (USA)

ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1903-1960) Most prolific Black woman author of the Harlem Renaissance

Mythology’s CIRCE, “Mistress of Magic” who turns humans into hogs, on a pottery piece, 5th Cent. B.C. Of African origin, she’s described by Herodotus as having black skin and woolly hair.

Since prehistoric time women and the moon—that powerful feminine entity—have had a thang.

“During the Lunar Cult period, the moon was considered the lord of women, of witches and magicians. Woman was directly connected to the moon because it regulated her menses. And because the [concept of] fatherhood was not known, the moon was seen to be the cause of her impregnation so it was through the moon that she acquired her magic.”

Elaine Armour, “Woman As Goddess, Priestess, Whore” (USA)

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In ancient times “magic” was not entertainment. Black communities understood the power of physical and metaphysical “protection.” Magic was used to attract good and repel (or cause) evil, so a good “witch” was an asset to the community.

In the Transvaal, the RAIN QUEEN OF LOVEDU holds the secret power (and terrible responsibility) to regulate rainfall, which includes withholding it from enemies.

In some West African tribes the dead are buried only by the female elders, as it’s believed they have the secret power to assist th...

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Copyright
• Titlepage
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Dedication
• WHERE DID SHE COME FROM? (AND THEN WHERE DID SHE GO?)
• NAMES BY WHICH SHE IS KNOWN
• THE BEAUTY BANK
• MADONNAS OR MADAMS?
• WITCHES, WIVES, & WARRIORS
• MOVERS & SHAKERS
• TAKIN' CARE OF BIZNESS
• DIVAS DON'T DIE
• Bibliography
• Credits