A Seat at the Table: Black Women Public Intellectuals in US History and Culture - REVIEW

Edited by Hettie V. Williams and Melissa Ziobro

While Black women’s intellectual history continues to grow as an important subfield in historical studies, there remains a gap in scholarship devoted to the topic. To date, major volumes on American intellectual history tend to exclude the words, ideas, and contributions of these influential individuals. A Seat at the Table: Black Women Public Intellectuals in US History and Culture seeks to fill this void, presenting essays on African American women within the larger context of American intellectual history. Divided into four parts, the volume considers women in politics, art, government, journalism, media, education, and the military. Essays feature prominent figures such as Shirley Chisholm, Oprah Winfrey, journalist Charlotta Bass, and anti-abortion activist Mildred Fay Jefferson, as well as lesser-known individuals.

The anthology begins with a discussion of the founders in Black women’s public intellectualism, providing a framework for understanding the elements, structure, and concerns central to their lives and work in the nineteenth century. The second section focuses on leaders in the Black Christian intellectual tradition, the civil rights era, and modern politics. Part three examines Black women in society and culture in the twentieth century, with essays on such topics as artists in the New Negro era; Joycelyn Elders, a public servant and former surgeon general; and America’s foremost Black woman influencer, Oprah. Lastly, part four concerns Black women and their ideas about public service—particularly military service—with essays on service members during World War II and the post-WWII military. Taken as a whole, A Seat at the Table is an important anthology that helps to establish the validity and existence of heretofore neglected intellectual traditions in the public square.

Contributions by Omar H. Ali, Simone R. Barrett, Tejai Beulah, Sandra Bolzenius, Carol Fowler, Lacey P. Hunter, Tiera C. Moore, Tedi A. Pascarella, John Portlock, Lauren T. Rorie, Tanya L. Roth, Marissa Jackson Sow, Virginia L. Summey, Hettie V. Williams, and Melissa Ziobro.

Hettie V. Williams is associate professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Williams is the current president of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) and author or editor of five books including Race and the Obama Phenomenon: The Vision of a More Perfect Multiracial Union, published by University Press of Mississippi.

Melissa Ziobro is specialist professor of public history. She serves as editor for New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, a joint venture of the New Jersey Historical Commission, Rutgers University Libraries, and Monmouth University.

University Press of Mississippi
ISBN-13 978-1496847522

The Color Purple - REVIEW

by Alice Walker

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Alice Walker’s iconic modern classic.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early-twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning nearly thirty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into a rich and memorable portrayal of Black women—their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery.

Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, The Color Purple breaks the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, and carries readers on an epic and spirit-affirming journey toward transformation, redemption, and love.

“Reading The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.” —Tayari Jones

“The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.” —Kiese Laymon

Penguin Books-Reprint edition
ISBN-13 978-0143135692

Dust Tracks on a Road: A Memoir

by Zora Neale Hurston

Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature’s most compelling and influential authors. Hurston’s powerful novels of the South—including Jonah’s Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God—continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality. First published in 1942, Dust Tracks on a Road is Hurston’s personal story, told in her own words. The Perennial Modern Classics Deluxe edition includes an all-new forward by Maya Angelou, an extended biography by Valerie Boyd, and a special P.S. section featuring the contemporary reviews that greeted the book’s original publication.

Amistad
ISBN-13: 978-0060854089

Their Eyes Were Watching God

by Zora Neale Hurston

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

Amistad
ISBN-13: 978-0060835200

God Help the Child: Race, Culture, and History – REVIEW

New Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s ‘God Help the Child’: Race, Culture, and History, a collection of eight essays by both seasoned Morrison scholars as well as new and rising scholars, takes on the novel in a nuanced and insightful analysis, interpreting it in relation to Morrison’s earlier work as well as locating it within ongoing debates in literary and other academic disciplines engaged with African American literature.

“New Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s ‘God Help the Child’: Race, Culture, and History is very well and quite deliberately situated within Morrison scholarship. The collection offers a wide-ranging, diverse, and fresh ray of concepts (from trauma theory, queer theory, intersectional feminism, deconstruction, postcolonial theory, etc.) in dialogue with God Help the Child. Students-both undergraduates and postgraduates-and scholars would be most interested in this book.”
- Pelagia Goulimari, author of Women’s Writing Across Cultures: Present, Past, Future

Alice Knox Eaton is professor of English and has served as chair of the Humanities Department at Springfield College. She contributed to Contested Boundaries: New Critical Essays on the Fiction of Toni Morrison, and her work has appeared in Chronicle of Higher Education and A Review of International English Literature.

Maxine Lavon Montgomery is professor of English at Florida State University. She is editor of Contested Boundaries: New Critical Essays on the Fiction of Toni Morrison; Conversations with Edwidge Danticat; and Conversations with Gloria Naylor, the later two published by University Press of Mississippi.

Shirley A. Stave is professor of English and assistant director of the Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University. She is editor of Toni Morrison and the Bible: Contested Intertextualities and coeditor of Toni Morrison’s “A Mercy”: Critical Approaches.

University Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 978-1-4968-2888-0  165 pages