RE-INVENTING THEMSELVES

Sunday, September 24, 2006

“. . .she had nothing to fall back on; not maleness; not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may well have invented herself.

Toni Morrison

Black women in America are among its most unique citizens. They have survived the horrors and degradations of slavery, the failure of Reconstruction and the dehumanization of Jim Crow/segregation. But through all that they have survived, black women are still waging their war to live in this world and as the only group of women who have had a tremendous impact upon race, and sex, in America, they all have voices that should , and must be heard.

So beautiful to the eyes of W.E.B. Dubois was black women’s survival of the ravages of slavery, and of the white society all around them that sought to tear black women apart, that he said in his marvel of the black women of his time:

“I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.”

Yes, black women are the phoenixs who time and time again, rise and triumph over the most greatest of odds. Reinventing themselves. Creating so much out of so many travails.

Black women have made tremendous impacts on America, both in the past, and in the present.
And black women are still making their voices be heard. They have shown America that what does not destroy us, most certainly will make us stronger. Therefore, I sing in praise of black women:

I sing the body electric of black women;
I celebrate the women here now, and yet to come;
I toast to their own reunion;
When they become one with the Sun.

And as they look back on their Mothers;
And as they look back on the Grandmothers,
And they burn with the fire, of ten million stars;
And in time, and in time, they will all be stars.

I sing the body electric of black women;
I glory in the glow of their rebirth;
Creating their own tomorrow,
When they shall embody the Earth.

And I will serenade their Mothers;
And serenade their Grandmothers,
And I will burn with the fire of ten million stars,
And in time, and in time, we will ALL be stars!

Yes. Black women. Beautiful. Resilient. Indominatable.

And as a last note, I will return to the words of W.E.B. Dubois. No more beautiful words have ever been spoken of black women then…and now:

“I have always felt like bowing myself in all abasement, searching to bring some tribute to these long-suffering. . ., these burdened sisters of mine. . .I have known the women of many lands and nations,—I have known and seen and lived beside them, but none have I known more sweetly feminine, more unswervingly loyal, more desparately earnest, and more instinctively pure in body and in soul than the daughters of my black mothers.

“This, then,–a little thing—to their memory and inspiration.”

posted by Ann at 5:27 PM