Lost Voices
RACE
When the supreme court in 1896 upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine of the unwritten black codes followed in the south, the era of "Jim Crowism" became the organizing principle of race relations in the United States. For African Americans, one generation out of slavery, this practice meant second class citizenship, for though things were separate, they were rarely equal. The only criterion for the practice of Jim Crow was membership in the black race. For African Americans, it united their lives by its oppressive practice and forged a brotherhood of shared experience that bonded race to every facet of their lives. Thus it was that for African American women, the feminist movement in which they participated, separated out from the gender protest of women against male chauvinism to a dual protest against both racial and male chauvinism .
In spite of this dual-headed oppression, black women rose to challenge and overcome the obstacles in their paths and live personally and socially meaningful lives. For example, Memphis T. Garrison could say these words about her mother, who had been a slave, She conquered her environment and she conquered her personal lack of training and she lived a very satisfactory, happy life. It is echoed in the statement of Ancella Bickley when she says,
as a black female I never had a question about whether I was going to work or not. . .The social milieu in which I existed was always very supportive of personal development on the part of the women. . . So I just didn't feel that there were things that I shouldn't do. . .If I'd been white and if I had been male, I might have done other things with my life.
It is interesting to speculate today what a Memphis T. Garrison might have become had she been born white, or what constraints an Ancella Bickley has experienced that causes her to say emphatically, Oh absolutely, absolutely. I am black first - yes, no question about it, no question about it.
Maya Angelou captures,however, the
steady progress of black women and men in her poem,
"And Still I Rise" in which she details the
movement of the race from slavery, through the years of
Jim Crowism, into the present. Because of their unique
positions in society African American women have not had
the sense of a separation between race, social, and
gender issues that functions to unify the white feminist
movement. Instead, race has been seen as an overriding
issue which has colored the oppressive history of
societal and gender concerns. Black feminism or the
womanist movement has been aware that progress against
racism lifts both the black male and female. This
realization of the dominance of race in effecting their
lives has resulted in black men and women moving boldly
to change the racial climate in the United States in all
its many explicit and subtle forms. In West Virginia,
from the 1890's to the present, Jan Smith, Maudella
Taylor, Memphis Garrison, and
Ancella Bickley have contributed their diverse talents to
this effort.