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65
[W]hile the stated theme of a given speech may be white
racism, Black pride, freedom, crime, poverty, desegregation,
poor housing conditions and voting rights, the underlying
issue is always the slavery experience.27
If Karenga is correct then the arguments advanced by both men and
women in the Black Power and Black Arts movements should be read
within the context of the slave experience.
A short poem by Michael Harper illustrates the resonance of the
slave experience in the consciousness of many blacks involved in the
Black Arts Movement:
Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred
middle passage blacks,
in a net, under water,
so redcoats wouldn’t find them.
Can’t find what you can’t see
can you?28
For Harper, a contemporary event – “Those four black girls blown up / in
that Alabama church” – is part of a longer history of murder at the hands
of whites.29 The image of slaves being put in nets under Charleston
Harbor to escape detection by the British is horrific.30 Further, the image
turns our normal idea of the American Revolution on end. We are
accustomed to viewing the colonists as heroic figures, refusing to bow to
Object Description
| Title | "As shelters against the cold": women writers of the Black Arts and Chicano movements, 1965-1978 |
| Author | Ryder, Ulli Kira |
| Author email | uryder@usc.edu; uryder@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | American Studies & Ethnicity |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-27 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Restricted until 27 October 2010. |
| Date published | 2010-10-27 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | McKenna, Teresa |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Sanchez, George J. Johnson, Dana |
| Abstract | This dissertation examines the work of women writers in the Black Arts and Chicano movements during the years 1965-1978. I argue that understanding the intersectional nature of the women's experiences is crucial for understanding their literary output. Further, I argue that Chicanas and African American women of this era challenged homogenous notions of community and racial identity and that we can trace the development of the Third World feminism and multiculturalism that came to the fore in the 1980s to this earlier period. Thus, this study also impacts the way we conceptualize identity formation and the creation of the literary canon. Investigating the ways in which these women integrated nationalist and feminist rhetoric and activism in their work is crucial for a full understanding of this critical period in U.S. history. At stake is an understanding of how Chicana and African American women in the United States have formed identities and communities; struggled for liberation and equality; and become part of the U.S. literary canon. |
| Keyword | Black Power; Black Arts movement; Chicano movement; civil rights; racial identity formation; womanism; borderlands theory; feminism; Third World feminism; nationalism; intersectionality |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA |
| Coverage date | 1965/1978 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1698 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Ryder, Ulli Kira |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Ryder-2415 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume40/etd-Ryder-2415.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 70 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 65 [W]hile the stated theme of a given speech may be white racism, Black pride, freedom, crime, poverty, desegregation, poor housing conditions and voting rights, the underlying issue is always the slavery experience.27 If Karenga is correct then the arguments advanced by both men and women in the Black Power and Black Arts movements should be read within the context of the slave experience. A short poem by Michael Harper illustrates the resonance of the slave experience in the consciousness of many blacks involved in the Black Arts Movement: Those four black girls blown up in that Alabama church remind me of five hundred middle passage blacks, in a net, under water, so redcoats wouldn’t find them. Can’t find what you can’t see can you?28 For Harper, a contemporary event – “Those four black girls blown up / in that Alabama church” – is part of a longer history of murder at the hands of whites.29 The image of slaves being put in nets under Charleston Harbor to escape detection by the British is horrific.30 Further, the image turns our normal idea of the American Revolution on end. We are accustomed to viewing the colonists as heroic figures, refusing to bow to |
