AASP 313/WMST 314

The Book Reviews

Description
Guide to Book Reviews
Bibliography:
    Monographs for First Review
    Autobiography and Biography for Second Review

Description

Three written reviews, due on the dates indicated in the course outline are required. Each review is worth 20 points, or 1/5 of your final grade.

It is highly unlikely you have written a paper similar to the papers expected in this course. However, since you will be expected to write this type of paper in graduate school (or even in preparation for a senior honors thesis) there is a reason for this madness.

The first paper will review a scholarly monograph in black women’s history. The second paper will review an autobiography by a woman of the African diaspora. The third paper will review a film (either a feature-length documentary or a feature film) in which black women play a central role. A bibliography/filmography is provided. If you have a work you wish to review that is not listed, you must clear it with me at least three weeks prior to the due date.

The review should, of course, contain describe the content, narrate the main story or stories, and comment on the writing (or presentation) of the material. (“Do you like the lyrics and can you dance to it?”) You may wish to relate some detail or fact you find particularly representative of the book. This stuff should be basic and familiar from other reviews you have done for other course.

However, this paper is more than a mere review. The primary objective of the paper is to place the reviewed material within the intellectual narratives in which it first appeared and, when necessary, within a current framework. For example, a review of Alfreda Duster’s edition of her mother’s autobiography, Crusade for Freedom: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) would consider the late 1960s and early 1970s during which Duster edited and published the original manuscript (under the supervision of John Hope Franklin) and the import of Wells-Barnett’s campaign against lynching (and other causes) in context of social justice movements today. A particularly nuanced review would perhaps note the book’s transition from an essential early text in “Black history” to an important “women’s history” book or even to “African American women’s history.” A spectacular review would step even further into the historiography to consider the context – the motivations – of Ida B. Wells-Barnett who penned the original manuscript in the mid-1920s.

Wait! Just like a Ginsu knife, there’s more!

I don’t expect you to simply know all this stuff, in part because I suspect that many students slept through American history in high school. To compensate for these earlier bouts of narcolepsy, the review you write must also include a discussion of at least three reviews written by scholars in academic journals. “Academic journals” are defined as peer-reviewed and controlled serial publications intended for experts and advanced laypersons in the field. The objective of this section of the paper is to familiarize you with how scholars view the work’s “place” in the academy and sometimes in popular culture. Many of these reviews will also discuss pertinent scholarly debates that are addressed by the work under consideration.

Obtaining these scholarly reviews will require further research. Many good (and appropriate) reviews can be located online through JSTOR which permits limiting searches to book reviews. Other online databases such as Academic Search, American History and Life, Arts and Humanities Search, etc., (see below) provide citations to reviews; you will need to physically obtain a copy of the journal in McKeldin. Thus, to continue with the Crusade example, the reviewer would read and discuss Richard Dalfiume’s review in the Journal of Southern History; William Tuttle’s review in the Journal of American History; and Benjamin Quarles’ review essay in The American Historical Review. Since these reviews all appeared in 1971, it may be enlightening to include a brief discussion of another, more recent, scholarly work that draws heavily on the Wells-Barnett autobiography: Joanne Braxton’s Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition Within Tradition or perhaps, Alice Deck’s mention of Wells-Barnett in her review of Elaine Brown’s autobiography in the African American Review. (All of these reviews mentioned here were found in JSTOR). Of course, some students may take this assignment to even greater lengths and look in microfilm of the Chicago Sun-Times for a 1970 review of the book. (Although the Sun-Times is not a scholarly journal, it could be useful for establishing the historical context.)

Scholarly reviews and film critiques in journals such as Film Quarterly, can be found in McKeldin Library; a guide to film reviews sources and journals can be found online at http://www.lib.umd.edu/MCK/GUIDES/film_reviews.html. Again, an appropriate review is not a “Thumbs Up” snippet from People Magazine; however an extended critique by cultural critics such as Frank Rich, Margo Jefferson, or Pauline Kael in the New York Times, may be appropriate.


A Guide to Finding Reviews:

1) Review a scholarly monograph in black women's history:
Academic Search
America History and Life
Historical Abstracts
International Index to Black Periodicals
Social Sciences Citation Index
Arts and Humanities Search
Women's Resources International

2) Review an autobiography:
Academic Search
African American Biographical Database
International Index to Black Periodicals
Book Review Digest
MLA Bibliography
Contemporary Authors
Literature Resource Center

3) Review a film
Academic Search
International Index to the Performing Arts
Lexis-Nexis Academic
Arts and Humanities Search
Humanities Index


Bibliography for Reviews


Monographs on African/African American Women’s History (For First Book Review)

Alexander, Adele. Ambiguous Lives: Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia, 1789, 1879. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1991.

Allman, Jean Marie. "I will not eat stone": a women's history of colonial Asante Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Oxford: J. Currey; Cape Town, South Africa: D. Philip, 2000.

Andolsen, Barbara Hilkert. Daughters of Jefferson, daughters of bootblacks: racism and American feminism Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986. xiv, 130 p.; 24 cm.

Aptheker, Bettina Woman's Legacy: Essays on Race, Sex and Class in American History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982.

Banner-Haley, Charles T. The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990 Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.

Barnes, Terri. “We women worked so hard": gender, urbanization, and social reproduction in colonial Harare, Zimbabwe, 1930-1956 Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999.

Bay, Mia. The White Image in the Black Mind: African American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Beasley, Ina. Before the wind changed: people, places and education in the Sudan Oxford; New York: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1992.

Beckles, Hilary McD. Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989.

Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race and in the United States, 1880-1917 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995

Berger, Iris, Threads of solidarity: women in South African industry, 1900-1980 Bloomington: Indiana University Press; London: James Currey, 1992.

Berry, Sara Fathers Work for Their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985

Blackwelder, Julia Kirk, Styling Jim Crow: African American beauty training during segregation College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2003.

Blassingame, John. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. Rev. and enl. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Bolles, A. Lynn. We Paid Our Dues: Women Trade Union Leaders of the Caribbean Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1996

Bozzoli, Belinda. Women of Phokeng: consciousness, life strategy, and migrancy in South Africa, 1900-1983 Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.
 
Brand, Dionne No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario 1920s to 1950s Toronto: Women's Press, 1991

Braxton, Joanne M. Black Women Writing Autobiography: A tradition within a Tradition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.

Bristow, Peggy. We're rooted here and they can't pull us up: essays in African Canadian women's history Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

Brown, Mary Jane, Eradicating this evil: women in the American anti-lynching movement, 1892-1940 New York: Garland, 2000.

Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Bunch-Lyons, Beverly A. Contested terrain: African American women migrate from the South to Cincinnati, Ohio, 1900-1950 New York: Routledge, 2002.

Bush, Barbara Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838 Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990

Byfield, Judith A. The bluest hands: a social and economic history of women dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890-1940 Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
 
Callahan, Nancy The Freedom Quilting Bee Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987

Caraway, Nancie, Segregated sisterhood: racism and the politics of American feminism Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.

Carby, Hazel. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Cash, Floris Loretta Barnett. African American women and social action: the clubwomen and volunteerism from Jim Crow to the New Deal, 1896-1936 Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Clark-Lewis, Elizabeth Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics in Washington, D.C. 1910-1940 (Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994)

Collier-Thomas, Bettye. Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850-1979 San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998. xx, 345 p.: ill.; 24 cm.

Collier-Thomas, Bettye and V.P. Franklin, eds. Sisters in Struggle: African American Women and the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Cooper, Barbara MacGowan. Marriage in Maradi: gender and culture in a Hausa society in Niger, 1900-1989 Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Oxford: J. Currey, 1997.

Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine. African women: a modern history Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997

Crawford, Vicki L. Jacqueline Anne Rouse and Barbara Woods, eds. Women in the Civil Rights Movement, Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965 Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993

Davis, Michael D., Black American women in Olympic track and field: a complete illustrated reference Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992.
 
Diedrich, Maria. Love across color lines: Ottilie Assing and Frederick Douglass New York: Hill and Wang, 1999.

Dodson, Jualynne E. Engendering church: women, power, and the AME Church Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. vii, 147 p.; 24 cm.

Donoghue, Eddie. Black women/white men: the sexual exploitation of female slaves in the Danish West Indies Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2002.

Edwards, Laura F. Gendered strife & confusion: the political culture of reconstruction Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997

Elam, Yitzchak. The social and sexual roles of Hima women;a study of nomadic cattle breeders in Nyabushozi County, Ankole, Uganda. Manchester, Eng.:  Manchester University Press, 1973

Epprecht, Marc. 'This matter of women is getting very bad': gender, development and politics in colonial Lesotho Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2000.

Fairbanks, Evelyn, The Days of Rondo: A Warm Reminiscence of St. Paul's Thriving Black Community in the 1930s and 1940s St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990

Fleischner, Jennifer. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: the remarkable story of the friendship between a first lady and a former slave New York: Broadway Books, 2003.

Fleming, Cynthia Griggs, Soon we will not cry: the liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.

Forbes, Ella, African American women during the Civil War New York: Garland, 1998.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Frankel, Noralee, Freedom's women: Black women and families in Civil War era Mississippi Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Geiger, Susan. TANU women: gender and culture in the making of Tanganyikan nationalism, 1955-1965 Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Oxford: James Currey; Nairobi: E.A.E.P.; Dar es Salaam: Mkuki Na Nyota, 1997.

Giddings, Paula. In search of sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the challenge of the Black sorority movement New York: Morrow, 1988.

Giddings, Paula. When and where I enter: The Impact of Black women on race and sex in America. New York: Morrow Publishers, 1984.

Gordon, Ann D. with Bettye Collier Thomas, eds. African American Women and the Vote, 1837-1965  Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997

Gray, Brenda Clegg. Black female domestics during the Depression in New York City, 1930-1940 New York: Garland, 1993.

Green, Venus. Race on the line: gender, labor, and technology in the Bell System, 1880-1980 Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press, 2001.

Gutman, Herbert. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. New York: Vintage, 1976.

Hall, Wade H. Passing for Black: the life and careers of Mae Street Kidd Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997.

Hammond, Jenny. Sweeter than honey: Ethiopian women and revolution: testimonies of Tigrayan women Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1990

Haywood, Chanta M., Prophesying daughters: Black women preachers and the Word, 1823-1913 Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003.
 
Hendricks, Wanda A. Gender, race, and politics in the Midwest: Black club women in Illinois Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Hine, Darlene Clark Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Hine, Darlene Clark. Hine sight: Black women and the re-construction of American history Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Pub., 1994. xxxv, 290 p.; 24 cm.

Hine, Darlene Clark. Speak truth to power: Black professional class in United States history Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Pub., 1996.

Hodes, Martha Elizabeth. White women, black men: illicit sex in the nineteenth-century South New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Hoehler-Fatton, Cynthia Heyden. Women of fire and spirit: history, faith, and gender in Roho religion in western Kenya New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Hudson, Lynn M. The making of "Mammy Pleasant": a Black entrepreneur in nineteenth-century San Francisco Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Hunter, Tera. To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Jewell, K. Sue. From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of U.S. Social Policy New York: Routledge, 1993.

Johnson, Nellie Stone, Nellie Stone Johnson: the life of an activist Saint Paul, Minn.: Ruminator Books, 1999.

Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to Present. New York: Basic Books, 1985.

Jones, Adrienne Lash. Jane Edna Hunter: a case study of Black leadership, 1910-1950 Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Pub., 1990

King, Wilma. Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth Century America Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995

Kingsolver, Barbara. Holding the Line: Women an the Grat Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1989

Landry, Bart. Black working wives: pioneers of the American family revolution Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000

Lebsock, Suzanne The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860 New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1984

Lee, Chana Kai, For freedom's sake: the life of Fannie Lou Hamer Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Lemke-Santangelo, Gretchen. Abiding courage: African American migrant women and the East Bay community Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Lowry, Beverly. Her dream of dreams: the rise and triumph of Madam C.J. Walker New York: Alfred A. Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 2003

Mack, Kibibi Voloria C. Parlor ladies and ebony drudges: African American women, class, and work in a South Carolina community Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999.

Martinez-Alier, Verena Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society London: Cambridge University Press, 1974

Mayer, Jane and Jill Abramson, Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1994.

Minkoff, Debra C., Organizing for equality: the evolution of women's and racial-ethnic organizations in America, 1955-1985 New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

Morrisey, Marietta Slave Women in the New World: Gender Stratification in the Caribbean Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989

Morton, Patricia. Disfigured Images: The Historical Assault on Afro-American Women New York: Praeger, 1991

Neverdon-Morton, Cynthia, Afro-American women of the South and the Advancement of the Race, 1895-1925 Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989.

Noble, Jeanne L. Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of my Black Sisters: A History of Black Women in America. Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978

Olson, Lynne. Freedom's daughters: the unsung heroines of the civil rights movement from 1830 to 1970 New York: Scribner, 2001.

Oyewmí, Oyrónke. The invention of women: making an African sense of Western gender discourses Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Painter, Nell, Sojourner Truth: A life, A Symbol New York: Norton, 1996.

Palmer, Phyllis. Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic Servants in the United States, 1920-1945. Women in the Political Economy Series. Temple University Press, 1989.

Putney, Martha S., When the nation was in need: Blacks in the Women's Army Corps during World War II Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992.

Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement: a radical democratic vision Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Rhodes, Jane, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: the Black press and protest in the nineteenth century Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Richards, Yevette. Maida Springer: Pan-Africanist and international labor leader Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.

Roberts, Dorothy. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty New York: Pantheon, 1997.

Robertson, Claire Sharing the Same Bowl: A Socioeconomic History of Women and Class in Accra, Ghana Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984

Robnett, Belinda, How long? How long?: African-American women in the struggle for Civil rights New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Rollins, Judith Between Women: Domestics and their Employers, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985

Rooks, Noliwe. Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture and African American Women New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996.

Sacks, Karen Brodkin. Caring By the Hour: Women, Work and Organizing at Duke Medical Center. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Salem, Dorothy C. To better our world: Black women in organized reform, 1890-1920 Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Pub., 1990.

Schechter, Patricia Ann, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American reform, 1880-1930 Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Schmidt, Elizabeth. Peasants, traders, and wives: Shona women in the history of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939 Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Harare: Baobab; London: J. Currey, 1992.

Schwalm, Leslie A. A hard fight for we: women's transition from slavery to freedom in South Carolina Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Shaw, Stephanie J. What a woman ought to be and to do: Black professional women workers during the Jim Crow era Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Sheldon, Kathleen E., Pounders of grain: a history of women, work, and politics in Mozambique Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.

Smith, J. Clay. Rebels in law: voices in history of Black women lawyers Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.

Smith, Susan Lynn, Sick and tired of being sick and tired: Black women's health activism in America, 1890-1950 Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.

Snyder, Margaret C., African women and development: a history Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press; London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books, 1995.

Socolow, Susan Migden, The women of colonial Latin America Cambridge, U.K.: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000

Sokoloff, Natalie J. Black Women and White Women in the Professions: Occupational Segregation by Race and Gender, 1960-1980 New York: Routledge, 1992

Solinger, Ricki, ed. Wake Up, Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade New York: Routledge, 1992.

Springer, Kimberly, ed. Still Lifting, Still Climbing: Contemporary African American Women’s Activism New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Sterling, Dorothy. We are your sisters: black women in the nineteenth century New York: W.W. Norton, 1997, 1984.

Stevenson, Brenda E. Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Strane, Susan. A whole-souled woman: Prudence Crandall and the education of Black women New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.

Streitmatter, Rodger. Raising her voice: African-American women journalists who changed history Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.

Tanner, Jo A. Dusky maidens /the odyssey of the early black dramatic actress Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Tate, Gayle T. Unknown tongues: Black women's political activism in the Antebellum era, 1830-1860 East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003.

Taylor, Ula Y. The veiled Garvey: the life & times of Amy Jacques Garvey Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American women in the struggle for the vote, 1850-1920 Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Wallace, Phyllis A. Black Women in the Labor Force  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980.

Weiner, Marli F. Mistresses and Slaves: Plantation Women in South Carolina, 1830-1880. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

Weisenfeld, Judith. African American women and Christian activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905-1945 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.

White, E. Frances. Sierra Leone's settler women traders: women on the Afro-European frontier Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987.

White, Deborah Gray. Ar’n’t I A Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South New York: Norton, 1985.

White, Deborah Gray. Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994 New York: Norton, 1999.

Winegarten, Ruthe. Black Texas women: 150 years of trial and triumph Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

Witt, Doris. Black hunger: food and the politics of U.S. identity New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Wolcott, Victoria W. Remaking respectability: African American women in interwar Detroit Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Wood, Betty. Women’s Work, Men’s Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995

Yee, Shirley J., Black women abolitionists: a study in activism, 1828-1860 Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992

 

Autobiography and Historical Fiction (Second Review)

Albert, Octavia V. Rogers, The House of Bondage, or Charlotte Brooks and Other Slaves 1890; reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Anderson, Ruth Bluford.  From Mother’s Aid Child to University Professor The Autobiography of an American Black Woman.  The University of Iowa School of Social Work Social Development Issues, June 1985.

Andrews, William L. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings New York: Bantam, 1975

Angelou, Maya. Singin’ and Swingin’ and getting’ merry like Christmas New York: Random House, 1976

Angelou, Maya. Gather Together in My Name New York: Bantam, 1975

Bates, Daisy. The Long Shadow of Little Rock. 1962; reprint: Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 1987

Bell-Scott, Patricia and Juanita Johnson-Bailey (eds).  Flat-Footed Truths Telling Black Women’s Lives.  New York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1998.

Bickley, Ancella R. and Lynda Ann Ewen, eds. Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001.

Billington, Ray Allen, ed. The Journal of Charlotte L. Forten: A young black woman’s reactions to the white world of the Civil War era 1953; reprint: New York: Norton, 1981

Brown, Cynthia Stokes, ed.  Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement; Ready From Within: A First Person Narrative Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1990

Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story New York: Pantheon, 1992

Buckley, Gail Lumet. The Hornes: An American Family New York: Plume, 1986.

Bundles, A’Lelia Perry. Madam C.J. Walker, Entrepreneur New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991

Chase-Riboud, Barbara. Sally Hemings: A Novel New York: Viking, 1979

Childress, Alice. Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life 1956; reprint: Boston: Beacon, 1986

Chishoim, Shirley.  Unbought and Unbossed. New York: Avon Books, 1970.

Collected Black Women’s Narratives: N. Prince, L. Picquet, B. Veney, S.K. Taylor reprint: New York: Oxford and the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, 1988

Comer, James P.  Maggie’s American Dream The Life and Times of A Black Family.  New York: Nal Books, 1988.

Davis, Angela. Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1974.

Delany, Sarah Louise, Having our say: the Delany sisters' first 100 years; with Amy Hill Hearth. New York : Kodansha International, 1993.

Dunham, Katherine. A Touch of Innocence New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1959.

Dunnigan, Alice Allison A Black Woman Experience: From Schoolhouse to White House Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1974.

Duster, Alfreda, ed. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970

Emecheta, Buchi. Slave Girl New York: Brazillier, 1977

Etter- Lewis, Gwendolyn.  My Soul is My Own Oral Narratives of African American Women in the Professions.  New York: Routeledge, 1993.

Fields, Mamie Garvin and Karen Fields.  Lemon Swamp and Other Places A Carolina Memoir.  London:  The Free Press, 1983.

Fleming, Cynthia Griggs Soon We Will Not Cry: The Liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1998

Gabel, Leona C. From Slavery to the Sorbonne and Beyond: The Life and Writings of Anna J. Cooper Northampton, MA: Department of History Smith College, 1982

Garrow, David. J. The Montgomery Bus Boycott tand the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987

Griffin, Farah Jasmine, ed. Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland and Addie Brown of Hartford, Connecticut, 1854-1868 New York: Knopf, 1999

Guffy, Ossie.  Ossie The Autobiography of a Black Woman.  Told to Caryl Ledner.  New York:  Bantam Books, 1971.

Height, Dorothy I., Open wide the freedom gates: a memoir New York: Public ffairs, 2003.

Hill, Pauline Anderson Simmons with Sherrilyn Johnson Jordan. Too Young to Be Old: Bertha Pitts-Campbell; a founder of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated Seattle: WA: Peanut Butter Publishing, 1981.

Holiday, Billie with William Dufty, Lady Sings the Blues: The searing autobiography of an American Musical Legend 1956; reprint: New York: Penguin, 1984

Holland, Endesha Ida Mae, From the Mississippi Delta: a memoir New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Hudson, Winson, Mississippi Harmony: memoirs of a freedom fighter New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Hull, Gloria T.  (ed.) Gives Us Each Day The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson.  New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1984.

Humez, Jean McMahon.  (ed.) Gifts of Power The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress.  Massachusetts:  The University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.

Humez, Jean McMahon, Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981

Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself. 1861; republished Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987

Johnson, Buzz.  “I Think of My Mother” Notes on the Life and Times of Claudia Jones.  London: Karia Press, 1985.

Johnson, Nellie Stone, Nellie Stone Johnson: the life of an activist Saint Paul, Minn.: Ruminator Books, 1999.

Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years of Slave and Four Years in the White House New York: Oxford University Press, 1988

Keiller, Allan. Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey New York: Scribner, 2000.

Kelley-Hawkins, Emma D. Four Girls at Cottage City reprint: New York: Oxford and the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, 1988

Kuzwayo, Ellen. Call me Woman. San Francisco: Spinsters Ink, 1985

Kytle, Elizabeth.  Willie Mae.  Virginia: EPM Publications, Inc., 1958.

Larison, C.W., MD Silvia Dubois, a Biografy of the Slav who Whipt her Mistress and Gand her Fredom reprint: New York: Oxford and the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, 1988

Lester, Joan Steinau, Eleanor Holmes Norton: fire in my soul New York: Atria Books, 2003.

Lightfoot, Sarah Lawrence. Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1988.

Likimani, M. Passbook Number F.47927: Women and Mau Mau in Kenya London: Macmillan, 1985
 
Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000

Logan, Onnie Lee. Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife’s Story New York: Plume, 1989.

Lourde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1982.

Mack, Beverly B. and Jean Boyd, eds. One Woman’s Jihad: Nana Asma’u, Scholar and Scribe Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000

Marshall, Paule, Brown Girl, Brownstones: A Novel 1959; reprint: Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1981  

McDowell, Deborah E., Leaving Pipeshop: Memories of Kin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997

McLaurin, Melton. Celia, A Slave: A True Story of Violence and Retribution in Antebellum Missouri Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991

Mills, Kay This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, New York: Dutton/Plume, 1994

Moody, Anne, Coming of Age in Mississippi: An Autobiography New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1968

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987.

Motley, Constance Baker, Equal Justice Under Law: The Autobiography of Constance Baker Motley New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998

Murray, Pauli. Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family 1954; reprint: Boston: Beacon Press, 1999

Murray, Pauli. Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage. New York: Harper & Row, 1987

Nelson, Jill. Volunteer slavery: my authentic Negro experience. Chicago: Noble Press, c1993.

Nemiroff, Robert, To be Young Gifted and Black: The Life of Lorraine Hansberry New York: S. French, 1971

Pantoja, Antonia. Memoir of a Visionary. Houston: Arte Publico, 2002

Potter, Eliza. A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. The Schomburg library of nineteenth-century black women writers

Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself 1831; Moira Ferguson, ed. London: Pandora, 1987
                    
Rudolph, Wilma. Wilma: The Story of Wilma Rudolph New York: Signet, 1977

Simone, Nina. I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone. With Stephen Cleary. New York: Da Capo Press, 1993.

Simonsen, Thordis ed. You May Plow Here: The Narrative of Sara Brooks New York: Touchstone Books, 1986

Richardosn, Marylin.  (ed.)  Maria W. Stewart, America’s First Black Woman Political Writer.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Romero, Patricia W.  (ed.)  Life Histories of African American Women.  London: The Ashfield Pres, 1988.

Rouse, Jacqueline Anne.  Lugenia Burns Hope Black Southern Reformer.  Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1989.

Seacole, Mary, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Mary Seacole in Many Lands. 1857; reprint: New York: Oxford and the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, 1988

Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1987.

Siegal, Beatrice Marian Wright Edelman: The Making of a Crusader New York: Simon & Schuster, (Books for Young Children) 1995

Smith, Margaret Charles and Linda Janet Holmes. Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996.

Smith, Amanda. An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, the Colored Evangelist reprint: New York: Oxford and the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, 1988

Spritzer, Lorraine Nelson and Jean B. Bergmark, Grace Towns Hamilton and the Politics of Southern Change: An African American Woman’s Struggle for Racial Equality Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997

Thompson, Era Bell. American Daughter Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946

Walker, Alice. (ed.)  I Love Myself When I am Laughing and Then Again when I’m Looking Mean and Fierce: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader.  New York: The Feminist Press, 1979.

Walker, Alice. Meridian 1976; reprint: New York: Pocket Books, 1986

Walker, Margaret, Jubilee. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1966

Washington, Margaret. (ed.) Narrative of Sojourner Truth.  New York: Random House, 1993.

Westling, Louise. (tran and ed)  He Included Me The Autobiography off Sarah Rice.  Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1989.

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Wilson, Harriet E. Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black 1959; Henry Louis Gates, ed. New York, Vintage, 1983.