A history of the black female experience fighting injustice and discrimination through poems.

Read by Ghizela Rowe & Trei House (Unabridged: 2hrs 3mins)

Featuring poems by Alice Dunbar Nelson, Frances E W Harper, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Mary E Tucker, Phyllis Wheatley, Clara Ann Thompson & others.

Race and gender have denied many their rightful place in the canon of humanity’s arts.

In today’s world, in the blink of an electronic pulse, words can be transported across continents and peoples and all too easily lost in the ever-growing mass of disposable culture of ‘me-me-me’ and ‘more- more-more’.  We can all be ‘woke’ be ‘politically correct’ be outraged at a transgression or even a slight.  Everything means something to someone.

But, once again, more modern times miss the reality of what others in previous generations suffered in the battle for equality and recognition.  In America, to be black and a woman over the years this volume covers, was to be chattel, to be bartered, sold, trafficked and used for no more than the whims of others.

It was a harsh reality, and yet…., and yet, these women produced verse that sears our souls with the ambition to tell others, to share with us all, what life was like, what was endured and the heartbreak of what their reality was.  They could not be overcome; their voice sought to endure and not be smothered. 

Words are powerful weapons, they form ideas, they create movements and manifestos that can change the world.  Many of the women in this volume added to those words, to that desire that the words of their Constitution would someday include themselves.   The fight is not yet wholly won, prejudice and inequality still single them out but the flame of hope, of destiny continues to burn fiercely with their names. 

Their poetry is not solely of protest but rich in a range of subjects embracing tenderness, love, family and includes works by Alice Dunbar Nelson, Frances W Harper, Phyllis Wheatley, Zora Neale Hurston, Esther Popel, Clarissa Scott Delany and many others whose voice voices call to us through the years.

 

In this compilation - 

01 - African American Women Poets from 1746 to the Harlem Renaissance - An Introduction

02 - Bars Fight by Lucy Terry

03 - On Virtue by Phyllis Wheatley

04 - To a Lady and Her Children on the Death of Her Son and Their Brother by Phyllis Wheatley

05 - An Hymn to the Morning by Phyllis Wheatley

06 - An Hymn to the Evening by Phyllis Wheatley

07 - Bury Me in a Free Land by Frances E W Harper

08 - My Mother's Kiss by Frances E W Harper

09 - The Slave Trade Girl's Address to Her Mother by Sarah Louisa Forten

10 - Burial of Sarah by Frances E W Harper

11 - Reflections, Written On Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend by Ann Plato

12 - The Natives of America by Ann Plato

13 - The Angel's Visit by Charlotte L Forten Grimke

14 - Disappointment by May E Tucker

15 - Light In Darkness by Mary E Tucker

16 - Hope by Mary E Tucker

17 - Drifts That Bar My Door by Adah Isaacs Menken

18 - Infelix by Adah Isaacs Menken

19 - Aspiration by Adah Isaacs Menken

20 - The Coming Woman by Mary Weston Fordham

21 - In Memorium. Alphonse Campbell Fordham by Mary Weston Fordham

22 - Aspiration by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

23 - Life by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

24 - Scraps of Time by Charlotte E Linden

25 - Brave Man and Brave Woman by Charlotte E Linden

26 - What Constitutes A Negro by Eva Carter Buckner

27 - Thine Own by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard

28 - The Black Sampson by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard

29 - The Singer and the Song (To Paul Laurence Dunbar) by Carrie Williams Clifford

30 - The Widening Light by Carrie Williams Clifford

31 - The Door of Hope by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer

32 - Negro Heroines by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer

33 - The Voice of the Negro by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer

34 - The Angel's Message by Clara Ann Thompson

35 - Not Dead, But Sleeping by Clara Ann Thompson

36 - Treasured Mome'nts by Olivia Ward Bush Banks

37 - When Mandy Combs Her Head by Katherine Chapman Tillman

38 - Emancipation by Priscilla Jane Thompson

39 - To A Deceased Friend by Priscilla Jane Thompson

40 - Ain't That Hard. Transcribed by Christine Rutledge of the Carolina Singers 1873

41 - The Gospel Train. Transcribed by Christine Rutledge of the Carolina Singers 1873

42 - The Prettiest Thing That I Ever Did. Transcribed by Christine Rutledge of the Carolina Singers 1873

43 - I Sit and Sew by Alice Dunbar Nelson

44 - Sonnet by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

45 - In Memoriam by Alice Dunbar Nelson

46 - Impressions by Alice Dunbar Nelson

47 - At the Grave of the Forgotten by Effie Waller Smith

48 - Preparation by Effie Waller Smith

49 - Tenebris by Angelina Weld Grimké

50 - The Black Finger by Angelina Weld Grimké

51 - The Eyes of My Regret by Angelina Weld Grimké

52 - The Heart of A Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson

53 - Transpositions by Georgia Douglas Johnson

54 - When I Rise Up by Georgia Douglas Johnson

55 - Translation by Anne Spencer

56 - White Things by Anne Spencer

57 - La Vie C'est la Vie by Jessie Fauset

58 - Dead Fires by Jessie Fauset

59 - Sometimes by Maggie Pogue Johnson

60 - The Negro Has A Chance by Maggie Pogue Johnson

61 - Journey's End by Zora Neale Hurston

62 - That Hill by Blanche Taylor Dickinson

63 - To an Icicle by Blanche Taylor Dickinson

64 - Flag Salute by Esther Popel

65 - The Mask by Clarissa Scott Delany

66 - Joy by Clarissa Scott Delany

67 - To Usward by Gwendolyn B Bennett

68 - Epitaph by Gwendolyn B Bennett

69 - Heritage by Gwendolyn B Bennett

70 - My Africa by Gladys May Casely Hayford

71 - The Serving Girl by Gladys May Casely Hayford