Sister Circle
Black Women and Work
Although black women’s labor was essential to the development of the United States, studies of these workers have lagged far behind those of working black men and white women. Adding insult to injury, a stream of images in film, television, magazines, and music continues to portray the work of black women in a negative light.
Sister Circle offers an innovative approach to representing work in the lives of black women. Contributors from many fields explore an array of lives and activities, allowing us to see for the first time the importance of black women’s labor in the aftermath of slavery. A brand new light is shed on black women’s roles in the tourism industry, as nineteenth-century social activists, as labor leaders, as working single mothers, as visual artists, as authors and media figures, as church workers, and in many other fields. A unique feature of the book is that each contributor provides an autobiographical statement, connecting her own life history to the subject she surveys.
The first group of essays, “Work It Sista!” identifies the sites of black women’s paid and unpaid work. In “Foremothers: The Shoulders on Which We Stand,” contributors look to the past for the different kinds of work that black women have performed over the last two centuries. Essays in “Women’s Work through the Artist’s Eyes” highlight black women’s work in literature, drama, and the visual arts. The collection concludes with “Detours on the Road to Work: Blessings in Disguise,” writings surveying connections between black women’s personal and professional lives.
Sister Circle offers a powerful evocation connecting the personal experiences of Black women scholars to the historical struggles of Black women workers.
Sister Circle offers a powerful evocation connecting the personal experiences of Black women scholars to the historical struggles of Black women workers.
Nellie McKay
Preface: Sisters in a Circle
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Historical Overview of Black Women and Work
Sharon Harley
Francille Rusan Wilson
Shirley Wilson Logan
Part 1 - Work It Sista!
The Black Side of the Mirror: The Black Body in the Workplace
Taunya Lovell Banks
Flying the Love Bird and Other Tourist Jobs in Jamaica: Women Workers in Negril
A. Lynn Bolles
"Working for Nothing but for a Living": Black Women in the Underground Economy
Sharon Harley
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Mothering, Work, and Welfare in the Rural South
Bonnie Thornton Dill
Tallese Johnson
Getting Paid: Black Women Economists Reflect on Women and Work
Rhonda M. Williams
Part 2 - Foremothers: The Shoulders on Which We Stand
"Don't Let Nobody Bother Yo' Principle": The Sexual Economy of American Slavery
Adrienne Davis
"And We Claim Our Rights": The Rights Rhetoric of Black and White Women Activists before the Civil War
Carla L. Peterson
"What Are We Worth": Anna Julia Cooper Defines Black Women's Work at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
Shirley Wilson Logan
"All of the Glory... Faded... Quickly": Sadie T.M. Alexander and Black Professional Women, 1920-1950
Francille Rusan Wilson
A Sister in the Brotherhood: Rosina Corrothers Tucker and the Sleeping Car Porters, 1930-1950
Melinda Chateauvert
Part 3 - Women's Work through the Artist's Eyes
Declaring (Ambiguous) Liberty: Paule Marshall's Middle-Class Women
Mary Helen Washington
Searching for Memories: Visualizing My Art and Our Work
Deborah Willis
Part 4 - Detours on the Road to Work: Blessings in Disguise
Labor above and beyond the Call: A Black Woman Scholar in the Academy
Marilyn Mobley McKenzie
When the Spirit Takes Hold, What the Work Becomes!
Judi Moore Latta
About the Contributors
Index
