The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate
field of study only late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories
that are both deeply personal and powerfully political, Telling
Histories compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black
women historians at various stages in their careers. Their essays
illuminate how--first as graduate students and then as professional
historians--they entered and navigated the realm of higher education,
a world concerned with and dominated by whites and men. In distinct
voices and from different vantage points, the personal histories
revealed here also tell the story of the struggle to establish a new
scholarly field.
Black women, alleged by affirmative-action supporters and opponents
to be "twofers," recount how they have confronted racism,
sexism, and homophobia on college campuses. They explore how the
personal and the political intersect in historical research and
writing and in the academy. Organized by the years the contributors
earned their Ph.D.'s, these essays follow the black women who entered
the field of history during and after the civil rights and black
power movements, endured the turbulent 1970s, and opened up the field
of black women's history in the 1980s. By comparing the experiences
of older and younger generations, this collection makes visible the
benefits and drawbacks of the institutionalization of African
American and African American women's history. Telling Histories
captures the voices of these pioneers, intimately and publicly.
Contributors:
Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Maryland
Mia Bay, Rutgers University
Leslie Brown, Washington University in St. Louis
Crystal N. Feimster, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sharon Harley, University of Maryland
Wanda A. Hendricks, University of South Carolina
Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University
Chana Kai Lee, University of Georgia
Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University
Nell Irvin Painter, Newark, New Jersey
Merline Pitre, Texas Southern University
Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago
Julie Saville, University of Chicago
Brenda Elaine Stevenson, University of California, Los Angeles
Ula Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Morgan State University
Deborah Gray White (Editor), Rutgers University
The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate
field of study only late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories
that are both deeply personal and powerfully political, Telling
Histories compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black
women historians at various stages in their careers, illuminating how
they entered and navigated higher education, a world concerned
with--and dominated by--whites and men. In distinct voices and from
different vantage points, the personal histories revealed here also
tell the story of the struggle to establish the fields of African
American and African American women's history.
