Foreword

Summary

African American women are one of the oppressed groups of humanity who suffer from triple jeopardy. They suffer because of their race, gender, and class. As they are black, they suffer because of their race and have been forced to believe that if you are white, you are right, if you are black, stay back and have been discarded from the mainstream life in the United States even today. Moreover, they have been forced to believe that this is the man's world and the woman's place is in home.

In her book, The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir has written about humanity. She has written, “humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as a relative to him, she is not regarded as an autonomous being …. He is the absolute, she is the other …. Man sets himself up as the essential as opposed to the other, the inessential, the object” (16–17). This kind of objectification or commodification of women is being created by men so that they can enjoy the upper hand over women.

African American women are the victims of racism, sexism, and poverty. Moreover, they were also denied to have access to knowledge and knowledge-generating enterprises because of their race, gender, and poverty. The African people were brought to America as slaves and were sold on auction blocks to the highest white bidder. As they were sold as slaves, their humanity was taken away from them. The position of enslaved African women was worse than that of men as every kind of liberty was taken with them by the white masters.

However, after the abolition of slavery and the passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments made to the constitution of the United States, they started gaining their humanity and access to knowledge and knowledge-generating enterprises. As a result, they started to read and write whatever they wanted to read and write in their own limited capacity. In due course of time, they also started to write autobiographies, poems, short stories, novels, and plays too. The autobiography was one of the basic literary forms which was handled by both African American men and women. Though late, plays were also written by them in due course of time.