CHAPTER – 1

African American Women Writers of the 20th Century

The twentieth century has been an epoch making era for the African American

literary tradition because of the significant contributions made by African American

women writers during this century. The10 works of these African American women

writers is invaluable.

African American women writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry,

Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor and many others have

rewritten the existing literary traditions by expressing themselves and creating a deep

impact on the African American, literary arena. The works of these women writers

reverberate with self-expression, thus achieving a canonical status and enriching not

only African American but also the American literary world. These writers write not

only about themselves, but also about African American women.

Commenting on African American women writers, Mary Helen Washington

writes:

When I think of how essentially alone black women have been—alone

because of our bodies, over which we have had so little control; alone

because the damage done to our men has prevented their closeness and

protection; and alone because we have had no one to tell us stories

about ourselves; I realize that black women writers are an important

and comforting presence in my life. Only they know my story. It is

absolutely necessary that they be permitted to discover and interpret

the entire range and spectrum of the experience of black women and

not be stymied by preconceived conclusions. Because of these writers,

 there are more models of how it is possible for us to live, there are

more choices for black women to make, and there is a larger space in

the universe for us. (ix-xxii)

The twentieth century has been a period of intense literary activity for African

American women writers. It was a time when for the first time these talented writers

started to write and express their creative genius. According to Traylor:

It explores first the interiority of an in- the- head, in the heart, in the

gut region of a discovery called the self. It tests the desires, the

longings, the aspirations of this discovered self with and against its

possibilities for respect, growth, fulfillment, and accomplishments.

(71)

These women writers started to express themselves truly and freely for the

first time. Their works became their manifesto. Their works undoubtedly portray their

growth, struggle and accomplishment. The twentieth century women writers have

explored every possible genre of literature: fiction, nonfiction, formal, informal,

poetry, stories, essays, autobiographies and others. They have chartered unknown

territories and set a new unprecedented trend.

African American women writers have given readers powerful insights into

grim issues such as race, gender and class, but before one makes a deep inquiry into

the works of these women writers, it is highly essential to know about their past. To

quote Margaret Walker:

It is necessary as always when approaching Afro-American literature

in any form—poetry, prose, fiction, or drama—to give a background of

the socioeconomics and political forces and the historical context

before proceeding to a literary analysis or synthesis. Then we will have

 the necessary tools with which to examine the strange phenomena

found in American and Afro-American literature. (Tate 202)

African American women writers have a unique but grim past. Their

ancestors were plucked out from the continent of Africa and brought in America as

slaves. African men and women were tortured, brutalized, oppressed and exploited

beyond imagination. Arriving in America, these African men, women and children

were systematically and legally robbed of their humanity (Baker 2). However the

system of slavery proved even more brutal for African women. They were robbed of

their respect, dignity and identity. They faced violence at the hands of their white

masters not only in the form of hard labour and whipping lashes but also became an

unwanted victim of sexual abuse. These women were often raped by their white

masters and their children sold away by them. Harihar Kulkarni writes in this context:

The brutal treatment that the black women received during slavery

invariably left profound scars on their psyche. Their physical bondage

ultimately turned into a psychological bondage causing mutation and

mutilations of their world. The external forces operating at the socio-

economic levels came to bear an unmistakable relationship to the

internal fears, worries, anxieties and feelings of inadequacy and

frustration. The poisonous fangs of slavery manifested themselves in

innumerable ways and finally determined the behavioral pattern of

black women. (59)

The American chattel slavery system had a devastating effect on a black

woman‘s body as well as her psyche. This system worked through socialization,

violence and objectification and in unified effect damaged black woman‘s self-
identity and consciousness (Kulkarni 62). Explaining this 'objectification' of African

American women, Harihar Kulkarni writes:

The peculiar institution that exploited black women for productive and

reproductive ends viewed them not as human beings but as mere

objects. The black woman was not a person but a thing—a thing whose

personality had no claim to basic human dignity. She was a house hold

drudge, a means of getting distasteful work done. She was an animated

agricultural implement to augment the services of mules and plows in

cultivating and harvesting cane and cotton crop. Then she was a

breeding machine, a producer of human livestock, and potential

laborers, who on being bred and brought up, would be lynched,

flogged, branded and even murdered at the will and pleasure of the

master. (57)

This objectification of African American people especially that of African

American women had a devastating effect on them. It affected them at various levels:

physical, mental, moral as well as intellectual. In this way the black people were

negated to mere human transferable capital, and dubbed as inferior and debased. In

these testing times, black women tried to keep themselves, their children and

whatever they could hold on to alive. While silently suffering the horrors of slavery,

African American women tried their best to maintain their self-respect and self-

identity.

Right from the days of slavery to the present, African American women have

been facing the triple oppression of racism, sexism and classicism. Maya Angelou

vehemently talks of the the position of African American woman, ―caught in the

tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of
power‖ (65). These African American women face racism from whites, both men and

women; gender discrimination, both by whites as well as their African American men;

and classicism in the form of being economically disabled and placed on the lowest

rung of society. Gloria Wade Gayles aptly describes the precarious position of

African American women:

American is an oppressive system that divides people into groups on

the basis of their race, sex and class, creating a society in which a few

have capital and therefore are able to influence the lives of many.

There are three major circles of reality in American society, which

reflect degrees of power and powerless. There is a large circle in which

white people, most of them men, experience influence and power. Far

away from it there is a smaller circle, a narrow space in which black

people regardless of sex, experience uncertainity exploitation and

powerlessness. Hidden in this second circle is a third, a small, dark

enclosure in which black women experience pain, isolation and

vulnerability. (3-4)

It is the black women who have always been at the brink of society and at the

receiving end of every kind of oppression. Investigating into the past, one can clearly

observe that African American women have been inscribed into a process of

oppression and exploitation resulting in a particular codification of these women.

According to Patricia Collins, women‘s existence is structured along three

interdependent dimensions which all operate through oppression—economy, polity

and ideology. Society has often used economy as a means to force black women into

all-consuming activity so that they have almost no or very few opportunities to do any

kind of intellectual work. Similarly through the dimension of polity, black women
have often been excluded of rights and privileges which are readily available to male

citizens. Finally, ideology represents the process by which black women have often

been associated with certain qualities and it is used to justify the ongoing oppression

(6-7).

Thus, one sees that American society has triply disempowered and

disenfranchised African American women. Among these three oppressions, racism is

the most powerful oppression, which African American women have been facing. It

started with them being brought as slaves and continues till now. African American

people have often been hated and degraded because of their black skin colour. Sidney

W. Mints writes in this context:

The word ―slave‖ still brings the visual image of blackness to North

American minds. This association of forced labor and degradation with

peoples of a particular physical type is a powerful symbol of the extent

to which social perceptions are historically conditioned. (34)

In historical records, slavery in the United States of America ended after the

Civil War with the commencement of the thirteenth Amendment. However, racism

still continues in American society in one form or the other. The enslavement of

African American people into chattel slavery, the next hundred years of raping of

African American women, lynching and mutilating of both black men and women,

has had a deep effect on African American people. They have been living the life of

―invisible‖.

African American women bore the brunt of racism to the extreme. They were

dubbed as ―niggers‖ and ―black bitches‖. In a racist white society, African American

women became the epitome of ugliness and abhorrence, while white women were

considered a symbol of purity. According to Thomas S. Szase, ―Americans have used

this blackness and madness as their standards and transcendent symbols of evil, and

whiteness and sanity as their standards and transcendent symbols of good‖(68). Being

African American in descent has put these women into a more subjugated position

and cast them in a more inferior position than the black men. On the basis of race and

their skin colour African American women have been systematically incarcerated

from every positive aspect of life.

African American women‘s plight does not end with the oppression of racism,

she faces yet another kind of brutal oppression based on gender that is, sexism. She

not only leads the life of black but also a woman, and thus, she is in a double

disadvantaged position of being black and a woman in a white American patriarchal

society. Lorraine Bethel writes explaining the subjugated position of the African

American woman owing to her colour and gender:

Black women embody by their sheer physical presence two of the most

hated identities in this racist/sexist country. Whiteness and maleness in

this culture have not only been seen as physical identities but codified

into states of being and world views. The codification of Blackness and

femaleness by whites and males is contained in the terms ―thinking

like a woman‖ and ―acting like a nigger‖, both based on the premise

that these are typically negative Black and female ways of acting and

thinking. Therefore the most pejorative concept in the white male

world view would be thinking and acting like a ―nigger woman‖. (178)

The sexism and its oppression started simultaneously with racism for black

women when they were enslaved. They were made to work along with black men in

plantations, but also were sexually abused by their white masters. Besides hard labour

in the day, they became sex objects for white slave masters in the night. They were
rampantly raped and forced to procreate a new breed of slaves which were to be sold

off. Even after gaining freedom, African American women have been often raped and

their modesty outraged by white men.

Equally disturbing is the sexist oppression by African American men. The

assumptions of phallic superiority of African American men had a debilitating effect

on African American women‘s psyche. These black men not only oppressed their

black women, but also hankered after white beauty ideals. It is apt to quote Eldridge

Cleaver, a black leader:

I love white women and hate black women. I‘d jump over ten nigger

bitches just to get one white woman.... A white woman is beautiful,

even if she is bald-headed and only has one tooth.... There is softness

about white woman, something delicate and soft inside. But a nigger

bitch seems to be full of steel granite hard and resisting, not soft and

submissive like a white women. Ain‘t nothing more beautiful than a

white woman‘s hair.... She is like a goddess, a symbol. (159)

Though black men have always been fighting against oppression, they

themselves have been tyrannical towards their own women folks. African American

women have been raped beaten, disparaged, hated, and mutilated by African

American men with the same intensity as white males. African American men have

always held their view that all the oppression by the whites has crippled them but not

the femininity of black women. Bell Hooks writes:

Although black women and men had struggled equally for liberation

during slavery and much of the Reconstruction era, black male

political leaders upheld patriarchal values. As black men advanced in

 all spheres of American life—they encouraged black women to assume

a more subservient role. (4)

Thus, an African American woman is caught between crossfires of racism and

sexism and bears the oppression from both white as well as black men. She finds

herself pushed to the brink. Just as she has been affected by racism, similarly she is

also crippled by sexism. Just as white men have exploited her, so have black men.

African American women also suffer from classicism. They are the least

privileged compared to white males, white women and African American males. They

are positioned on the lowest rung of the economic and social ladder. Right form the

days of slavery, though she has been working equally alongside black males, but she

is considered as the least deserving. Harihar Kulkarni aptly describes in the following

passage how African American women have been systematically economically

robbed and suppressed:

The American slavery that was basically embedded in capitalistic

ideals exploited black women as an essential part of labor force. The

economics of slavery forced black woman into a precarious situation.

As a black, she was exploited for her skills and physical strength in the

production of staple crops, as a woman she was also asked to perform a

reproductive role vital to the planter‘s financial interest and to the

interest of the expansive system of slavery in general. The slave owner

or the planter often took a more crudely opportunistic approach

towards the labor of slave women....He exploited his bondswomen not

only on the fields for cutting canes, and picking cotton but also for

washing, ironing, or working in the house. The slave owner‘s practice

of using black women as the active agents of a labor force and

 reserving certain tasks for women exclusively demonstrated how

patriarchal and capitalistic assumptions concerning black women‘s

work could reinforce each other. (57)

African American women have been taking care of their children, their family

and are an integral part of the African American social milieu, but she is the most

ignored class. She has less of everything that would make half for a decent life.

Thus, they are economically downtrodden and in the most vulnerable position, and

live the life of invisible citizens in America.

While triple oppression is clearly evident and has marred African American

women‘s lives, some critics are not satisfied with this ‗triple oppression‘ theory. They

often believe that African American women have faced even more severe oppressive

conditions. Deborah King in ―Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness‖ states that

African American women not only face triple oppression but also other forms of

disempowerments. All these many forms of disenfranchisement results in exponential

disempowerment. King explains, ―The modifier ‗multiple‘ refers not to several

simultaneous oppressions but to the multiplicative relationships among them as well.

In other words the equivalent formulation is racism multiplied by sexism, multiplied

by classicism‖ (297). Whether it is ―double jeopardy‖, ―triple oppression‖ or

―multiple jeopardy‖ it is clearly evident that it has profoundly affected every African

American woman‘s life. Harihar Kulkarni aptly writes in this regard:

To sum up the story of black woman in racist, sexist patriarchal

America is the story of vision blinded and perceptional faculties

blurred. It is also a saga of a black feminine self that was alienated,

surrendered and finally forfeited under stress and tension. Arrayed with

the centuries long lies, secrets and degrading myths, brainwashed, and
 mentally conditioned and with a self so pathetically fractured, the

black women could never free herself from the ideological snare and

could never acknowledge the innate traits of being both black and

female, could never attempt to interpret her realities form her own

point of view, could never establish her own priorities and define her

true objectives, could not challenge the interstructure of her multiple

oppression, could never really lay any claim to her true heritage and

cultural past, and finally, could not liberate herself in true sense. (84)

The twentieth century has been a ground breaking era for African American

women writers. It is in this era that they finally came out of the shadows of racism and

sexism and created works without any inhibitions. They engendered a tradition of

African American women‘s literature. Twentieth century African American women

writers did not start writing suddenly. They were enriching a tradition which existed

much earlier. Earlier writers had built a secure platform for these twentieth century

writers. Thus the roots of the twentieth century African American women writers goes

way back to the times when African American women were not free citizens. Foster

and Davis write:

It was something that should not have happened, but did. Almost from

the day they first set foot upon North American soil, women of African

descent were creating a literature. Before the United States came into

being, African American women were publishing in a variety of genres

and on many topics. (15)

Interestingly the first African American literary artist was not a man, but an

African American slave woman known as Lucy Terry. Her ballad ―Bars fight‖ the

first literary work produced started a long tradition of African American literature.
Phyllis Wheatley, a slave girl, was perhaps the first significant and notable African

American literary artist to be recognized and appreciated because of her works. She

wrote poetry imitating European literary artists. Unfortunately she died malnourished

and still a slave. Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs were yet other important slave

writers.

Francis Harper, was one of the most important nineteenth century African

American women writers who openly debated the ongoing oppression against black

women. Harper used literature as her tool, for championing the cause of African

American women. Alice Ruth Dunbar Nelson was an important post bellum writer

whose literary works often speak of black women‘s equal rights.

The contributions of these earlier writers can hardly be denied since they

connect antebellum and post bellum African American women‘s literature while

creating a bridge to contemporary writings in the tradition (Foster 26). They created a

sound background for future twentieth century African American women writers who

would later start a new chapter in African American literature. The themes and issues

of early African American women writers resonates in the literary works of the

twentieth century women writers.

The twentieth century heralded a new age, not only for African American

women‘s literature but for American literature as well. It was a period which saw

African American women writers being liberated from their past and writing with a

new self-awakening. They finally started writing and defining themselves rather than

being defined by others. They broke the boundaries of racism, sexism and class set by

white patriarchal society. While discussing the Twentieth Century African American

women literature, Barbara Christian writes:

 One of course, might say that any literature, at core, is concerned with

the definition and discovery of self in relation to the society in which

one lives. But for Afro-American women, this natural desire has been

powerfully opposed, repressed, distorted by this society‘s restriction.

For in defining ourselves, Afro-American women writers have

necessarily had to confront the interaction between restrictions of

racism, sexism, and class that characterize our existence..... Yet the

struggle is not won. Our vision is still seen, even by many progressive,

as secondary, our words trivialized as minority issues or women‘s

complaints, our stance sometimes characterized by others as divisive.

But there is a deep philosophical reordering that is occurring in this

literature that is already having its effect on so many of us whose lives

and expressions are an increasing revelation of the intimate face of

universal struggle. (159-163)

The time-period of twentieth century African American women‘s literature

can be broadly divided. These broad divisions have their own unique themes and

approaches. The literature in the early few decades of the twentieth century was

characterized by cultural phenomena called Harlem Renaissance. Explaining the

phenomena of Harlem Renaissance, Sharon L. Jones writes:

The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement,

began in the early 1900, and ended around 1940. Coinciding with

modernist trends, the Harlem Renaissance was an interdisciplinary

cultural movement that reflected literary, musical, dance, artistic, and

dramatic developments in African American expression. Additionally,

the civil rights movement and the rise of organizations for social
 justice also brought much to bear upon the Harlem Renaissance. This

movement would have a wide-ranging impact on American literature,

changing the growth and direction of what was valued and what was

not. (227)

While the nineteenth century literary artist incorporated the themes of

revolution, freedom and equal right, the Harlem Renaissance writers started

investigating issues such as what is being a black and an American and its implication

on literary artists. African American women writers started specifically as women and

it was primarily to idealize the black women whose image had been distorted in the

general American society (Christian 122).

Major women writers of the Harlem period were Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen,

Zora Neale Hurston, Marita Bonner, Angelina Weld Grimke, Ann Spencer and

Georgia Douglas Johnson. Notably major women writers were novelists. These

novelists such as Nella Larsen, Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston tried to break

stereotype images of black women prevailing in mainstream white American society.

Jessie Fauset is one of the most important writers of the Harlem Renaissance

and also partly its creator. She is often known as the ―mid-wife‖ of Harlem

Renaissance as she played such an important role in its creation. She was an

accomplished writer herself, but she also shaped the careers of many other important

Harlem writers like Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee

Cullen, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Anne Spencer and Nella Larsen. Fauset published

four novels entitled There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry

Tree (1931) and Comedy American Style (1933) in which she explores the issues of

identity of African American women. Through her works Fauset fathomed the

themes of race and gender which effected African American women‘s lives.
 Nella Larsen was another important novelist of the Harlem Renaissance.

Larsen wrote two influential novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) in which

she tried to break negative stereotype images of African American women. Larsen

particularly focused on the problems of middle class African American women and

their impending problems. Larsen discusses in detail the predicament of mulatto

women and their entrapment in the constraints of racism, sexism as well as classicism

in American society. Larsen herself was a mulatto. ―For Larsen‘s character‘s beauty is

defined but whiteness and the accouterments of bourgeois life. They chafe against the

limitations these impose, but lack courage and means to challenge them. As the

central metaphors of ―quicksand‖ and ―passing‖ indicate, these characters cannot

overcome the constraints of race, gender, and class‖ (Wall 43). Unfortunately Larsen

died in complete obscurity and was forgotten even before her death.

However, the most remarkable and influential artist of the Harlem

Renaissance period was Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston through her phenomenal works

defined the black folk aesthetic. All her works are imbued in Southern black culture

and Hurston‘s classic work Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) revolutionized

African American women‘s literature. She depicted the true worth of African

American women in relationship with not only her community, but in society as a

whole. She beautifully showed how a black woman‘s life can enrich her community.

Hurston was a multi-talented person, her interests varying from literature to

anthropology. While studying anthropology, she became an expert in the field of

African American folklores. Hurston applied this knowledge to her literary works

creating astounding works never witnessed in African American literature. Hurston

bases her works against the back drop of rich Southern black culture. Hurston wrote

many short stories and many influential essays. She also wrote four novels, Jonah’s
Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes were Watching God (1937), Moses, Man of the

Mountain (1942), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948). Unfortunately Hurston died in

utter poverty and complete obscurity. Today she is considered the literary foremother

of contemporary African American women writers. Katie Geneva Cannon writes

about Hurston:

Of all the women in the Black women‘s literary tradition who have

contributed to the concrete depiction of Black life, Zora Neale Hurston

(1901-1960) is ―par exemplar.‖ As an outstanding novelist, journalist,

folklorist, anthropologist, and critic, Hurston possessed a sharp

accuracy in reporting the positive sense of self that exists among poor,

marginal Blacks, ―the Negro farthest down.‖ The primary impetus for

all her writings was to capture the density of simple values inherent in

the provincialism of Blacks who worked on railroads, lived in sawmill

camps, toiled in phosphate mines, earning their keep as common

laborers….Hurston‘s extreme closeness to the sensibilities of her

unlettered characters along with her meticulous collection of folklore,

legends, superstitions, music, and dance of the common people,

enabled her work to serve as a rich repository of resources helpful in

delineating the moral counsel cultivated throughout the various periods

of Black history in the United States. (37)

After the end of Harlem Renaissance era, the decade of 1940s and 1950s, was

dominated by African American writers such as Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. It

was also called the age of protest novels where portrayal of battered black man

became a recurrent theme. During these times, there were few African American

women writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Paule Marshall and Ann Petry and
Margaret Walker who created some significant works. Literature in this period

becomes more sharp and hard hitting than ever before. The subtle and indirect veiled

protest changed into more clear manifestation of resentment and dejection. Barbara

Christian writes in Black Women Novelists:

One cannot help but note the similarities between Larsen and

Hurston‘s disappearances from the world. Although very different

writers, they were both assaulted by the prejudices of the other society.

Larsen‘s writing ability was challenged and Hurston‘s sex life was

used, consciously or unconsciously, as a means of diminishing her

effectiveness as a writer and as an anthropologist. Both charges are

indicative of the vulnerable position of black women writers. Their

sexual morality and intellectual capacity are seen as tentative, not only

by their fellow countrymen but by members of their own race as well.

Both writers fell prey to the racial and sexual stereotypes inflicted

upon the black woman. If these stellar personalities could be so

wounded, one can imagine the many unknown and less protected who

suffered a similar fate. No wonder the New Negro Philosophy with its

optimistic and genteel spirit gave way to the angry cries of the 1940s.

(61)

Ann Petry creates complex black characters who are subjugated by the hostile

external conditions and ultimately annihilate their own oppressors. She wrote The

Country Place (1945) and The Street (1945). The Street is a story about a black

woman‘s existence in ghetto like conditions in Harlem. She is lost in herself. Petry

questions the slave like conditions for an urban woman who is still not free. Petry‘s

works marked a new beginning in the twentieth century literature which depicted the
shallowness of urban life and growing despondency in African American people.

Emphasizing the importance of Petry‘s works Barbara Christian writes:

Petry‘s novel belonged to the new black literary approach of the day,

pioneered and symbolized by Richard Wright. In many ways The

Street is akin to Native Son (1941) and its relentless presentation of the

dreary despair of the inner cities and the illumination of the casual

relationship between social and personal crime . As Bigger Thomas

typified an alienated black male created partially by the concrete

plantations of the North, so Lutie Johnson in The Street is the lost

black female, alone and struggling. Both characters become literary

types used so often by writers in later years that they have become

stereotypes….The Street marks a change in setting and tone in the

literary of the black woman. It brings the literature into the twentieth

century, for the concrete plantation became the dwelling place of more

and more blacks in this century. After the publication of this novel, the

black city woman could not be forgotten. The particular brand of

slavery under which she exists meant that new changes in the literature

would have to occur. (11-12)

Paule Marshall is one of the most important writers of this period. She wrote

her influential novel Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959). Her works are like her own

manifesto. She portrays characters having different facets yet they are always rooted

in their culture and society. In her works, readers see characters yearning for freedom

from gender oppression as well as racial oppression. The characters she creates are

phenomenal and have complex psyche. She fathoms a wide array of themes like

motherhood, sisterhood, marriage, mother daughter relationship and deeply inspects

how they affect women. In Marshall‘s works, one can also find the theme of bonding

of black sisterhood which was used by writers such as Toni Morrison and Alice

Walker in their works. Enumerating the importance of Marshall‘s works, Harihar

Kulkarni writes:

Marshall is a woman writer and therefore thinks that inherent in the

process of recovery of self is also creation of feminine aesthetic which

involves twofold responsibility: to break the patriarchal imperialism of

representation and to celebrate womanhood. She, therefore, challenges

woman‘s text and hegemonize or totalize ―female culture‖….While

she affirms liberation from racial and gender oppression, she treats

both of them as equally liberating points from which to create a

literature that is political in form as well as in subject matter. (220)

Margaret Walker is another important writer of this period. She is an

influential poet, as well as novelist. The most acclaimed poem of Margaret Walker is

―For My People‖. At a time when the majority of writers were writing about urban

life, Margaret Walker chose to write about African American folk life. Later she

wrote a massive historical novel Jubilee (1966). Through her works, Margaret

Walker gives a message to her readers to change their life for good.

Gwendolyn Brooks is an important poet and writer and a contemporary of

Margaret Walker. She wrote her only novel Maud Martha in 1953. Her themes are

common place and are dealt in detail. She does not deal with racism in a direct

manner but shows its ramifications for African Americans. Her works have a feel of

urbaneness yet are well placed in their cultural paradigms. Commenting on her works,

Barbara Christian writes:

 One feels both the lyricism, a soul-singing that is found in Zora Neale

Hurston‘s work, and the harsh cutting edges of Petry‘s The Street. The

major characters in her work, whether verse or fiction, are in the

process, flowing in and out of themselves and the world around them.

We feel this process because Gwendolyn Brooks is so much in the

present, sensing, perceiving, and translating those perceptions into

precise words. The words become the perceptions. (13)

The decades of 1960s and 1970s are another important phase in twentieth

century African American women‘s writing. It was characterized by the rhetoric that

―Black is beautiful,‖ but most importantly black women writers started to write with a

new fervour exploring issues like family violence, poverty, abuse, racism, sexism and

coercion. To quote Eleanor W. Traylor:

The founding mothers, with other vanguard women writers, strengthen

the revolutionary ferment of the movement to resonate its themes: a

renegotiation of power relations between black and white America, a

disturbance of ideological imperatives of identity, and a re-direction of

the sources for literary production. They also interject another theme:

a renegotiation of the power, itself a revolutionary advent. (50)

This phase witnessed the emergence of writers such as Nikki Giovanni, Sonia

Sanchez, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Margaret Walker, Sherley Ann Williams,

Mari Evans and a host of other talented writers. All these literary artists had their own

unique focus, and literary style producing works so rich and diverse in the treatment

of themes and also style. The twentieth century African American women‘s literature

saw the advent of a new phase. Barbara Christian writes emphasizing the trends of

women writers of this period:

 Certain trends do characterize the writings of black women writers

during this period. The image of the tragic mulatta no longer dominates

the literature and is replaced by a diversity of physical and

psychological types. The role of mammy is carefully and continually

moved from the level of stereotypes to that of a living human with her

own desires and needs. The relationship between black and women is

also scrutinized, often in less generic and more particular terms, with

special emphasis placed on the societal forces that strain marriage. And

most importantly, black women themselves are projected as thinkers,

feelers, human beings, not only used by others, but as conscious

beings. There are as many black women, these voices say. They have

culture, race, sex, sometimes situations in common, but they are not

just push button automatons who scream when given this cue, cuddle

up when given that smile. They are not just stereotypes, for

stereotypes is the very opposite of humanness; stereotype, whether

positive or negative, is a byproduct of racism, is one of the vehicles

through which racism tries to reduce the human being to a nonhuman

level. (16)

The decade of 1970s was chiefly dominated by Black Arts Movement (BAM).

Black Arts Movement was an artistic branch of the Black Power Movement started by

African American writer and activist Amiri Baraka. African American women writers

were deeply influenced by this movement and doubled both as writer and activist.

Their works were social investigation as well as literary experimentation. To quote

Eleanor W. Traylor:
 Women writers of the BAM entered every literary genre and

constructed a language that took poetry to the taverns, streets, bars,

housing projects, libraries, prisons, parks, newly founded theatres, and

time honored churches, language that redirected the conventional

expectations of the stage, that interrupted the familiar story told in

autobiography, that introduced new discourses, reconstructed the

generic expectations of fictions, and that set the premises of

theoretically invested essays. (51-52)

With these phenomenal works a new tradition was engendered in African

American literature, that of unprecedented subjectivity. ―This turning had already

initiated the discourse that would soon emerge as visible black feminist/woman

centered reclamation‖ (Traylor 46). Writers such as Tony Morrison, Alice Walker

encompassed the struggles of African American women and their search for respect

and self-affirmation, while poets such as Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez

experimented with forms and techniques of poetry. Nikki Giovanni wrote in hard

hitting urbane style while Sonia Sanchez explored haiku and tanka forms. ―With so

much intense literary activity, this decade is, often rightly termed as Black Women‘s

Renaissance‖ (Patterson 92).

The decade of 1970s saw the advent of magnificent writers. Alice Walker is

one of them. Alice Walker is a prolific writer and multi-faceted literary artist with

her works ranging from poems, essays, prose and short stories to novels. Alice Walker

is a phenomenal writer who writes with the affirmation that woman is the creator of

everything, and direct or indirect, everything relates to woman. Women are the most

essential part of any community, without whom destruction is inevitable. She

beautifully portrays the struggle of African American women and how they are able
to overcome adversities. Walker creates her own cosmology which transcends time,

space and physical realms. Her works arouse a wide range of emotions in the readers

because of their intensity. Walker has written the following novels: The Third Life of

Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982), The Temple of

My Familiar (1989), Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) and By the Light of My

father’s Smile (1998). Alice Walker is also credited for bringing Zora Neale Hurston

and her works back from obscurity starting ―The Hurston Revival‖. Today she is

considered as the torch bearer of the legacy of the great writer, Zora Neale Hurston.

Toni Morrison is another important and highly acclaimed writer who started

her writing career in the decades of 1970s. She has written many novels starting from

The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1974), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981),

Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1999), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008). Toni

Morrison is considered a literary writer of intense intellect which reflects in her

works. Her characters are complex and so are the settings. She is often called a ―gifted

story teller‖ since her stories immediately connect to her readers. Today she has

acquired a canonical status in the world of American Literature. To quote Barbara

Christian:

Toni Morrison‘s work is earthly fantastic realism. Deeply rooted in

history and mythology, her work resonates with mixtures of pleasure

and pain, wonder and horror. There is something primal about her

characters, they come at you with the force and beauty of gushing

water, seemingly fantastic but basic as the earth they stand on. (24-25)

Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni are two major African American women

writers of this period exploring the realm of poetry to express their subjectivity.

Sanchez is a great experimenter. She has delved deeply into the Japanese form of
Haiku and Tanka and created her own ―Sonku‖ which depicts African American

conditions and ―African style, in spoken-word performance poetry; and in inscapes of

the heart‖ (Traylor 58). Her major works are Home Coming (1969), We a BaddDDD

People (1970), It’s a New Day: Poems for Young Brothers and Sistuhs (1971), Under

a Soprano Sky (1987). Nikki Giovanni is an urban poet. She has a hard hitting style

and a punch line which brings home the theme of the poem to the readers. Her poems

also are her means of protest against the ongoing onslaught against African

Americans and have a rapping style to it. She is often called ―a superstar poet as any

black woman poet has been in this century‖ (Christian 19).

While 1960s literature resonated with themes of self-discovery and celebrating

black ness, the 1970s literature was permeated with the notion of black woman

asserting her strength and culture. The decade of 1980s once again marked another

phase in African American women‘s writing. The theme of self-healing became a

central trope in African American women‘s literature during this period. After

rebelling against patriarchy and racism, the main emphasis of these writers was to

discover self-love. These writers try to investigate their newly acquired independence

and their place in society.

Another important aspect of the decade of 1980s was the issue of lesbianism.

Audre Lorde spearheaded this movement in African American women‘s literature.

Lorde brought a new openness and a revolution in African American literature by

portrayal of lesbian relations. Dana A. Williams writes in this context:

From Walker‘s Color Purple to Naylor‘s Women of Brewster Place to

Shange‘s Sassafrass to Lorde‘s Zami, lesbian relationships depicted,

first, more openly and then differently, reflecting the complexity of

these relationships and the varying ways to which communities

 respond to them. And while sometimes homophobic African

American community is far from a perfect place for African American

women to explore their sexuality aggressively, the candor of lesbian

writers and the insistent of black feminist literary criticism and queer

theory that writers deal uncompromisingly with female sexuality

generally and with lesbianism specifically have begun to create a space

where lesbianism can fit more comfortably, in the African American

literary tradition. (80)

Throughout the decade of 1980s, African American women writers have

inquired into love relationships, including lesbian relationships. This decade was

marked by ―focus on love relationship, coupled with a focus on African American

upward mobility‖ (Williams 80). Audre Lorde is one of the major writers of 1980s

decade who brought yet another change in African American women‘s writing. Her

‗no inhibition‘ attitude about her sexuality opened a new space for the lesbian

literature in African American literature bringing a host of other writers following her

trail such as Chery Clarke, Sharon Bridgeforth, Jewelle Gomez, Cherry Muhanji, Pat

Parker, Sapphire, and April Sinclair. Audre boldly called herself as a ―black lesbian

feminist warrior poet‖ (Williams 79). Before dying of cancer in 1992, Lorde had

published ten books of poetry and four of prose. Her most acclaimed work is Zami: a

New Spelling of My Name (1982).

Toni Cade Bambara is one of the best African American short story writers.

Her works are an interfusion of radical politics, feminism and African American

culture. Her very first book, Gorilla, My Love (1972) established her as an

outstanding writer. Her most important work came in 1980, The Salt Eaters. Later
her book Those Bones Are Not My Child was published posthumously in 1999 and

edited by Toni Morrison.

Sherley Ann Williams is a multi-talented writer. She is a critic, writer, poet,

author of literary as well as popular fiction. She not only writes for the adult but also

for children. Williams‘ works are a representation of her own struggles and

aspirations as an artist. In all her works she gives an emphatic message to her readers

to unite for their own survival. Her major works, are The Peacock Poems (1975),

Someone Sweet Angel Chile (1982) and Dessa Rose (1986). Her novel Dessa Rose is

a brilliant neo slave narrative about a black slave woman and her incredible journey to

find her love.

Ntozake Shange is another influential author and playwright. Shange has

traversed multiple genres and experimented with varied forms. Her works are deeply

intense and reflect the author‘s own psychological dilemma. Shange‘s own life was

marred by alienation, despair, and dejection which resulted in a number of suicide

attempts, but finally she triumphs all these adversities and resurfaced. Shange pours

out all her emotions in her works giving them a new edge and instantly connecting

with her readers. Her major works are, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered

Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf (1976), Sassafrass, Cypress, Indigo (1982),

Liliane (1984).

Gloria Naylor is another important writer of this decade. She created stories

depicting African American women‘s struggles and resilience. She beautifully

delineates heroism in a common man and woman‘s life. The talent of Naylor lies in

the fact that she gives her readers vivid and realistic experience of what she has been

thinking in her mind. Her very first novel The Women of Brewster Place: a Novel in

Seven Stories (1982) proved her extraordinary talent which won her critical acclaim
and also American Book Award in 1983. Her other novels are Linden Hills (1985),

Mama Day (1988) and Bailey’s Cafe (1992).

The last decade of the twentieth century, 1990s proved to be the coming of

age for African American women‘s literature. Now the themes and stories were more

diverse and characters more integrated than ever. These works crystallized African

American Women‘s writer‘s experiences. By 1990s, African American women

writers had created, recreated and revised conventional tropes and structures. They

had explored every possible genre, expanded their rubric and revolted against all type

of ‗isms‘. The last decades of the twentieth century also saw the rise of popular

fiction. Popular fiction is also an essential element of African American literature for

they also are part of a literary trend. They also are to achieve a status of canonical

form in the near future. Robert Scholes emphasizing this aspect of popular fiction

writes:

The arrival of new media often generates a gap between accepted or

―high‖ texts and those new texts regarded with suspicion or simply

labeled ―low‖. The popular drama in Shakespeare‘s time was regarded

as low and gradually achieved high status. Following a similar

trajectory, the novel began as a low form and was gradually elevated to

the level of literary art….But the rise of so many new media, recently,

has threatened to leave us with a deep gap between what is thought of

as ―high‖ art or literature on the one hand, and ―mass‖ or ―popular‖

culture on the other.‖ (xv)

There are varied genres of popular culture. Urban romance, Girlfriend Fiction,

Speculative Fiction, Black Erotica Fiction, Detective Fiction to name a few. Octavia

Butler, Sister Souljah, Sheneska Jackson, Belinde Little, Zane, Barbara Neely, Terry
McMillan are some of the few respected names in popular fiction. African American

Popular writing has different types of narratives and involves different type of reading

strategies. Popular Fiction is often ignored on the grounds that it is written for a

particular class segment and does not aim to cut through demographic boundaries.

―To demand that these writers tailor their work to fit the critical tastes is to treat them

in an ahistorical fashion‖ (Beavers 265). At one time Zora Neale Hurston‘s Their

Eyes Were Watching God was also dismissed by her male critics for being frivolous

which today is considered as the greatest literary work of the Twentieth Century.

Emphasizing the importance of popular fiction, Herman Beavers comments:

In other words, whether black women are reading popular authors like

McMillan or more canonical figures like Alice Walker or Toni

Morrison, they are involved in a set of practices whose overall result is

to counteract the effect of negative images. This is not to say that they

read popular fictions uncritically, with no sense of what makes a

fiction successful or unsuccessful, but rather it is to insist: (a) that

black popular writing indicates the manner in which reality is contested

by the interpretative communities of women at the local level, and (b)

the act of reading for pleasure, within the context of wish-fulfillment,

can be understood as a transgressive act that makes it possible to

imagine - and reimagine- utopian circumstance. (267)

Sheneska Jackson‘s Li’l Mama Rules and Belinda Little‘s Good Hair are

famous examples of popular fiction which depict middle class African American

women. Similarly Terry McMillan‘s Waiting to Exhale is another very famous book

in which the protagonist Robin is often mocked and taken advantage of her

vulnerability by several lovers who laugh at her singlehanded devotion to her elderly
parents. Later a film was also made on this book. Sister Souljah‘s The Coldest

Winter Ever is a story about ―gangsta life style‖ and yet is also a cautionary story.

The protagonist is Winter who lives a filthy rich life owing to her father‘s illegal drug

business. Her life revolves around drug, violence and unsafe sex but in the end

Souljah shows the reality of fast life and illegal money. Winter‘s father is sentenced

to jail for two consecutive life times, her mother becomes a drug addict, Winter‘s

sister‘s ends up in a foster house and Winter herself has to live the life of a destitute.

Zane is another successful writer of popular culture who writes in the subgenre

of Black Erotica. She creates novels spinning female fantasies and desires. In her

famous novel Heat Seekers, Tempest the protagonist affirms both her sexuality and

freedom, both. She talks about her past lovers as ―Sorry mofos.‖ She talks about one

of her lovers as a ―brotha was born with a platinum tongue…Whatever it was the

brotha had mad skillz. Not skills, skillz. He used to make me scream out his name in

forty-two different languages‖ (Zane 3). Some may find Zane‘s work as a mere

representation of sex hungry African American women but this analogy is incorrect.

On the contrary, ―it is much more accurate to draw links to Janie Woods, the hero of

Zora Neale Hurston‘s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who holds the distinction of

being the first protagonist in African American literature to develop her own ideas

about female sexual pleasure and pursue them‖ (Beavers 270).

Then there are Detective fictions of Barbara Neely, who explores the subgenre

of mystery. Blanche on the Lam is her famous mystery novel. Her protagonist

Blanche White works as a maid in day time and detective in night time. Blanche is

told ―They jealous cause you got the night in you. Some people got night in ‘em,

some got morning, others, like me and your mama, got dusk. But only them that‘s got

the night can become invisible‖ (Neely 59). The readers are reminded of Ellison‘s
Invisible Man, but here Neely makes it clear that Blanche‘s invisibility does not arise

because of her dark skin but her affinity with night which brings out her alter-ego.

Neely‘s decision to make her protagonist a maid servant also seems to be an effort on

her part to break the stereotype of Mammy.

Speculative Fiction or the novel of suspense is another subgenre of popular

fiction. Writers such as Octavia Butler have written important novels in this field.

She has written Parable of the Sower, a novel where America in 2025 is marred by

rampant violence, crimes and wide gulf between rich and poor. The protagonist is

Olamania Lauren who writes journals filled with parables. The protagonist develops

her own theory of Earthseed, as the greatest force which is changing the face of earth.

In the end Butler gives an emphatic message to her readers to beware of their future

lest they mend their ways.

Writers such as Tananarive Due explore the realm of the supernatural theme

based novels. Due‘s first novel is The Between, where protagonist Hilton James lives

a life in between the world of the dead and the living, with each having their own

hazards. In her novel Due makes use of African American folklores and African

myths creating a surrealistic as well as realistic piece of work. There are also other

writers like A. J. Verdelle, Tina McElroy, J. California Cooper, Pearl Cleage, and

Ansa who fall in between the tradition of ‗literary‘ and ‗popular.‘ These writers are as

important as literary writers since these works are classic in making in the near future.

These novels often tell readers about characters who live in urban environment with

all basic comforts but these conditions also give rise to several struggles that these

characters face. The works of these writers are like mirrors which reflect the situations

and conditions of the contemporary society. To quote Herman Beaver:

 We do, I think, have to acknowledge that the readers of popular fiction

written by African American women writers are adept at holding the

world, the text, and their sense of self in a critical tension that allows

them to engage what they read in ways that may serve a didactic

function in their lives as it also complicates what it means for them to

experience pleasure…..if we consider writers like Hammet and

Chandler whose works are now considered ―literary,‖ what becomes

clear is that critics are not prognosticators; we cannot, with any

certainty, estimate what sorts of conditions will arise to make a text

that we now deem to be popular into a classic. What we do know is

that reading for pleasure can be understood as an act of rehearsal in the

ongoing drama of self-invention. (276)

Coming of Age of African American women‘s literature in the twentieth

century has not been an easy process. The journey has been an arduous and tortuous

one. Emerging out of enslavement, cutting across vectors of racism, sexism and

classicism, and also facing discrimination and prejudice by their own male

counterparts, the route has never been easy for African American women writers.

These writers have created literature not for success, fortune or financial rewards but

to tell their own story and personal experiences. To quote Claudia Tate:

Whether the subject of a book originates in personal experience, in

observation, empathy, or imaginative projection it is not nearly so

important as the degree of truthfulness and sincerity with which a book

is rendered. If a writer honestly depicts what he or she really feels, sees

and believes, rather than merely to portray what might please a specific

audience or what might be financially rewarding, then a work breathes

 with its own self-sustaining vitality. It then possesses a truth that

exceeds the limited experience that is depicted and is, therefore,

applicable to life in general. The work, despite of or perhaps precisely

because of its unique and particular details of race and gender,

achieves universality. (xviii)

African American women writers are acting like a mouthpiece for the existing

black women in America. They have tried to declare the true reality and also created

the truth in their own way, which defies existing perceptions. Instead of writing for a

larger audience, they have written for themselves and all other African American

women. ―They write for themselves as a means of maintaining emotional and

intellectual clarity, of sustaining self-development and instruction. Each writes

because she is driven to do so, regardless of whether there is a publisher, an audience

or neither‖ (Tate xviii).

One of the major endeavors of twentieth century African American women

writers has been to break negative stereotypes about black women. There are several

false myths and wrong stereotypes about African American women existing in

American society which degenerates them into a perverted image. Explaining the

stereotypes existing in the main stream American society, Mary Helen Washington

writes:

Stereotypes about black women abound like weeds in this society. It is

common practice to make slick, easy generalizations about them.

Statements such as, black women have always been strong, they have

always been liberated, they‘re treated better than black men, they‘re

evil, they‘re loud are made so frequently that they are accepted as

known fact. The white media have been in on the act for a long time,
 of course, creating such perverted fantasies as Beulah, Sapphire, Pinky,

and Aunt Jemima, which are adequate evidence of the abuse of the

black woman‘s image. And the habit still persists. People other than

the black woman herself try to define who she is, what she is supposed

to look like, act like and sound like. And most of these creations bear

very little resemblance to real live black women. (ix)

African American women writers and their literature have constantly tried to

debunk these existing myths about black women. Whether it is the greasy, dirty

image of a ―Mammy‖, or sex-hungry, lewd image of ―Jezebel‖ or a tragic mulatto or

the caricature of the dominating black woman as ―Sapphire‖, all have negatively

rendered a falsified image of black women. African American women writers by

offering the real truthful definition of black womanhood, have installed a new pride,

self-love and identification among African American women writers. Zora Neale

Hurston while creating the character of Janie in her classic novel Their Eyes Were

Watching God, started a new literary tradition which truly reflected that black women

were—bold, confident and self-sustaining. Similarly, Nella Larsen‘s protagonist

Helga Crane, in Quicksand is sophisticated and refined with an aesthetic sense. The

protagonists of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker are an embodiment of the true spirit

of American women. African American women writers have a unique heritage, that of

being black but female having African roots, but also Western culture making their

works visionary, yet with a universal appeal. Their works are contemporary yet they

have often used African folkways in their work. They write about the present

difficulties a black woman is going through, yet they have not forgotten the torrid past

of slavery. Claudia Tate comments on this unique cultural heritage of African

American writers:
 By virtue of their race and gender, black women writers find

themselves at two points of intersection one where Western culture

cuts across vestiges of African heritage, and one where male female

attitudes are either harmoniously parallel, subtly divergent, or in

violent collision. Their work addresses what it means to be human, a

condition not entirely determined by genetic makeup but is also a

comprised of conscious volition. (xvi)

These writers have explored various themes and delved deep into many issues

pertaining to African American women. There are certain generic themes and tropes

which reoccur in their works giving an insight into a black woman‘s life. Commenting

on the themes and works of African American women writers, Mary Helen

Washington writes, ―What is most important about the black woman writer is her

special and unique vision of the black woman. Since Iola Leroy, the first novel written

by a black woman writer, has been the black woman herself –her aspirations, her

conflicts, her relationship to her men and her children, her creativity‖ (x).

One of the most important themes in the twentieth century African American

women‘s literature is that of growing up black and female. Major women writers have

delved deep into this issue. For example, Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eyes, Maya

Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Louise Meri Whether in Daddy Was a

Number Runner, Paule Marshall in Brown Girl, Brownstones and many other works

all deal with the experiences of a black girl growing up in a hostile environment.

These writers show how African American girls develop a self-resilient spirit in order

to cope with adverse external environment.

Color theme is another important theme which can be found in the works of

the twentieth century African American women writers. Wishful thinking about white
beauty can be found in many major works of these writers. Mary Helen Washington

comments:

If the stories of these writers are to be believed then the color/hair

problem has cut deep into the psyche of the black woman. It is that

particular aspect of oppression that has affected, for the most part, only

women. I could not find a single piece of fiction written by a black

male in which he feels ugly or rejected because of the shade of his skin

or the texture of his hair. In contrast, the color almost always plays at

least a peripheral role more often a significant one—in the lives of the

women characters created by women writers. (xvii)

By delving deep into the psyche of a black woman as well as out of their own

personal experience, these writers have created one of the most poignant characters

and stories in American literature. For example, Pecola in Toni Morrison‘s The

Bluest Eye wishes for blue eyes as a way to redeem herself. Similarly the character

Maryginia Washington in Gwen Brook‘s Maud Martha, emphasizes that black

women seem to be offensive with their black color. Maya Angelou in her

autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, divulges her childhood fantasy of

being a blonde and a white. Thus, the parameters of beauty as defined by white

American society have scarred the psyche and souls of black women, which is often

reflected in their works.

Antagonistic relationship between African American men and women and

failed relationship is another frequently occurring theme in the works of these writers.

African American women have often been abandoned by African American males

and have raised their family all by themselves. Economic and social disability has

marred the relationship between black men and women. This has been investigated by
these writers in their works and they have often shown that African Americans have

an independent and resilient spirit and can survive all on their own. They are

undeterred by abuse and violence by black men. For example, the characters of Sula

and Nel in Toni Morrison‘s Sula, Celie in Alice Walker's Color Purple, Janie in Zora

Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God all triumph against odds and live

life on their own terms.

The twentieth century African American women writers have achieved a rare

literary feat. They have debunked the falsified myths about a black woman, shattered

the racist and sexist iconoclasts and reconstructed and revisioned new canons in not

only African American literature but also their own weaknesses. To quote Claudia

Tate:

Being both black and female these writers write from a unique vantage

point. They project their vision of the world, society and community,

family, their lovers even themselves most often through the eyes of

black female characters and poetic persona. Their angle of vision

allows them to see what white people, especially males, seldom see.

With one penetrating glance they cut through layers of institutionalized

racism and sexism and uncover the core of social contradictions and

intimate dilemmas which plague all of us regardless of our race gender.

Through their art they share their vision. (xvi)

The twentieth century African American women writers are very much

integral to African American women literature and have enriched American literary

tradition with their own unique perspective. These writers have caused a paradigm

shift in African American literature. Fighting against white supremacy and their own

black men's abuse, they have carved their own niche. Their impact can be felt not only
in the field of literature but in every aspect of African American life. They have

brought a new change in the way of thinking and feeling in the lives of African

American people, especially that of African American women.

Most importantly, twentieth century African American women writers have

broken new grounds, created new literary canons and paved the way for twenty first

century writers. Today young and dynamic writers, who are creating a new upsurge in

the literary world, are in one way or the other indebted to these twentieth century

African American women writers. To end, it would be apt to quote Dana E. Williams

who writes about these phenomenal African American women writers:

Clearly, even as contemporary African American women authors write

to distinguish themselves, they also inevitably enhance the grand

tradition of American letters. And they do so by telling their

multifaceted stories….What we find in contemporary African

American women writers are many ―black girls‖ singing their own

songs, and they sing them bravely, boldly, and remarkably. (85)
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