A Moment In Afro Herstory: Author Ntozake Shange

Critically acclaimed poet Ntozake Shange, author of the 1975 award-winning play for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem.

Ntozake means "she who comes with her own things, and Shange means "who walks like a lion." For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf (Scribner Classics)Ntozake Shange, born Paulette Williams in 1948, attended Barnard College (B.A., 1970) and the University of Southern California (M.A., 1973). She taught humanities, women's studies, and Afro-American studies at California colleges from 1972 to 1975. Shange's most recent work written along with her sister, Ifa Bayeza is titled, Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel.

Those of you located in the Brooklyn and NYC area are in for a treat because Miss Shange and Michaela Angela Davis will present an event at the Brooklyn Museum Thursday, February 10, 2011. More information here

Inspiration: Joyce Walker-Joseph and Barbara Summers

Actress/Model Joyce Walker-Joseph

Author/Model Barbara Summers

Anyone who was a teenager in 1976 should remember these advertisements of Joyce Walker-Joseph and
Barbara Summers from the late '70s. As a teenager I remember them quite vividly because these two ladies were some of my favorite models and anything which featured Joyce on the cover was in my possession and still is. I was digging through my archives until two in the morning having no idea how late it was looking for certain magazines and came across these two photos. I read all the time about women looking for inspiration in women who resembles them in the media, well I had these two women and a host of other's that I was elated to see featured in mainstream publications. It's different today because the imagery that their now selling is that of the unattainable...basically the look of someone else.

The Seventeen magazines featuring Joyce and Whitney Houston were some of their #1 Bestsellers.

I went out and bought that carved rose necklace and earrings that Barbara was wearing because I wanted to look like her. My friend and I copied the whole look from the makeup to the Afro.Today Joyce works as an theater actress and is an activist. Barbara Summers is a highly noted author and historian, especially of the fashion industry with several well known books in publication. Skin Deep:Inside the World of Black Fashion Models is a large coffee table-book that has it's place alongside my other fashion books and is deffinitely worth a read.

"A Moment In Afro Her-story: Alice Walker"

Author and activist Alice Walker

Alice Walker, critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning author of the "Color Purple" and  has written several other novels, including "The Temple of My Familiar" and "Possessing the Secret of Joy" (which featured several characters and descendants of characters from The Color Purple) and has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other published works. Alice Walker's high level of commitment to activism begins with maintaining women's rights to ending wars. 

"A Moment In Afro Herstory: Angela Davis and Toni Morrison"

Angela Davis and Toni Morrison

Most of us know Angela Y. Davis as the most iconic Afro wearing women in "American His-story," but others know her as an activist, educator, intellectual, socialist and was a vocal activist during the Civil Rights Movement and a former Black Panther. Her research interests were in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, popular music culture and social consciousness, and philosophy of punishment and prisons. Since moving in the early 1990s from communism to reformist she has identified herself as a democratic socialist. Davis is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish what it calls the prison-industrial complex.

If you are an avid reader like I am, I'm sure you've read one of many Toni Morrison's excellent works of Literature. Toni Morrison  is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed black characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. As an editor at Random House, Morrison played an important role in bringing black literature into the mainstream. No one can tell our Her-story like we can and these women had the courage to tell the truth even when it made others uncomfortable.

(Photo:Jill Krementz)