Women have always been historians. Whether in schoolrooms or kitchens, state houses or church pulpits, women functioned as teachers of history and historical interpreters, offering narrations of the past to criticize existent narratives and inspire new ones. Within African-American communities, women began to write histories in the years after the American Revolution. Distributed through churches, seminaries, public schools, and auxiliary societies, their stories of
the past translated ancient Africa, slavery, and ongoing American social reform to populist audiences North and South. In the United States, black women have labored to sustain the cogency of their race and their families through the promotion of education, Christian and historical, for themselves
and for their families. This book surveys the creative ways in which African American women harnessed the power of print to share their historical revisions with a broader public. These speeches, textbooks, poems, and polemics did more than just recount the past. They also protested their present status in the United States, using history to write a new story for the future of African America.
- ISBN10 0195331990
- ISBN13 9780195331998
- Publish Date 13 January 2011 (first published 1 January 2010)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Paperback
- Pages 240
- Language English