Going Against the Grain: Maria W. Stewart, a Case in Point

The struggle for African American women's literacy is best illustrated in Maria W. Stewart's work, which advocates initiation and action for the sustainment of "the race." Personal experience has enabled her to speak out against injustice in an era that did not grant women, in general, this priviledge. Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1803, she grew up as a servant both indentured and domestic, however, moving to Boston and marrying James W. Stewart gave her some liberty. Now that Maria was apart of the African American "middle class," she used her respected status within the racial group to gain political favor. However, especially after the Civil War, "...African American women in the natural order [were] not only as intellectually and socially inferior to others but also amoral, licentious, and lascivious." Based on this frivilous idea, Maria is the exception.

Maria W. Stewart literally goes against the grain. Meanwhile she questions her purpose and asks "if not now, when? If not me, who" Aware, yet careless of the social practices, as it is a woman's place to be in the home, Maria is determined to make her voice heard. This kind of persistence, in favor of the African American society, has been the strength of many activits and civil rights leaders alike by bringing change and injustice to the forefront. Furthermore, Maria published works such as "Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build" in the Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper in which she focuses on equality and obtaining liberty, but particularly about the importance of education. By publishing articles, speaking in public and gaining recognition, the tactic of being "rebellious" has proven to be an inspiration for others to join in on the cause. Going a step further, Maria calls out to the "daughters of Africa" and lets them know, "It is not the color of the skin that makes the man, but it is the principles formed within the soul."

In Going Against the Grain there was a story of a woman named Charlotte Forten. She came from a respected Black abolitionist family. Forten made history when she went to Port Royal to teach freed African-American slaves. This place is of significance because of Port Royal’s history. In 1862 the Union and the Confederate was at war with each other. They fought one their battles on Port Royal, which drove slave owners out of the island. When people first heard that the island was “abandoned” (144) people like Edward L. Pierce, a Boston attorney, wanted to take over the lands because it was full of two things: a “valuable variety of cotton” (144) and “contraband” (144), otherwise known as African-Americans. This was stopped by Abraham Lincoln’s letter to the Board of Tax Commissioners for the District of South Carolina, saying that the land will be used for school purposes. This letter “marked the very first federal funding for educational opportunities for African-Americans”(145). Moving ahead in time, Charlotte Forten moved to Port Royal. She came to Port Royal with great knowledge of writing and of class distinction. She was able to teach African-Americans so well because she did not “view freed slaves as either contraband or unequals” (146). I believe this is what made her so great in people’s eyes. It is hard to try to fit into peoples’ lives when the lives are so very different than your own, and instead of just getting the people to conform she was able to conform a little of herself so that African-Americans can learn properly.

Going Against the Grain (Part 2)

          In this section of the reading, the main idea is that people, especially African Americans, must use literacy as a mandate for action. I support that statement because I also allow literacy to encourage and empower me. Slaveholders purposely kept the slaves illiterate in order to maintain the levels of obedience. There were even laws passed prohibiting an African Americans from learning to read and write. The illiterate slaves do not know any better. Literacy would empower them and enlighten them about slavery. This was a main theme in the fight for human rights.
          "In Soldiers of Light and Love: Northern Teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873, Jacqueline Jones reports that African Americans recognized the symbolic and practical significance of literacy. After emancipation, going to school became a political act as well as a means of personal edification. Black people joined together to establish schools and hire teachers for young and old alike, and their collective efforts represented both defiance to white authority and an expression of community self-interest." This statement proves that Black people took full advantage of an education once they were given the opportunity. They mostly wanted to become literate for themselves. Literacy gave them the chance to disobey white leaders and become a black leader.
           In "The Legacies of Literacy" (1988), Harvey Graff makes two points that are central in the history of literacy for African American women. His first point is that primary users of literacy have been the state, the church, and commerce, institutions that by his reckoning have held political and cultural hegemony over the functions of literacy. Whatever women wanted to do involving literacy would be perceived by these hegemonic structures as going against the grain. Literacy did not come easy at all for black women. His second point is that reading was spread to many "illiterates" and "semi literates" through oral activities, which indicates that reading was then a collective process, as opposed to the private, silent reading process we now think it to be. The oral dimensions of literacy development deserve much more attention, especially in the black community, in which oral traditions are richly constructed.

Going Against the Grain: The Acquisition and Use of Literacy [pgs.108-123]

"Knowledge would begin to flow, and the chains of slavery and ignorance would melt like wax before the flames. (Stewart)"

African American women searching and aspiring to gain literacy was the start of a powerful movement. Literacy was used as motivation for black women to secure their rights and protest against the opportunities that weren't given to them that should have been. Although they were constantly being put down with not only racial slurs, but also condemning statements based on their gender, as long as the women could imagine themselves in a world where they were considered equal to everyone else, then they could use their imagination to further motivate themselves into using their literacy to break the chains of slavery and ignorance.

I love how for once African American women are portrayed positively. They are considered nurturers not only to their offspring or spouse but also to the entire community. Even before black women became interested in literacy as we know it today, they were performing literate acts by understanding the world and expressing their view to others through storytelling. It is actually very hard for me to understand why not many people look at the ways that African American women are literate. Instead they only seem to compare their literacy to the literacy of the European population. In the nineteenth century, black women were doing things that weren't accepted for women to do in society, such as becoming literate and also healers.

Belinda and Lucy Terry are other advocates and activists that are not as well known as Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth. However, they were able to make a place in history by using their literacy to stand up for their rights in court. Without literacy would it really have been possible for Lucy Terry to argue her own case? Of course not, because what exactly would she have said? Literacy is needed in order to effectively protest against something that you do not necessarily believe in and that is proven from the cases of Belinda and Lucy Terry Prince.

The Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

The word that stands out in this title is "right". How exactly can you make a law stating that people have the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, yet suppress African Americans in slavery? The problem with this is that many African Americans were not aware of their rights. White people created this law knowing that it would not be protested against because blacks didn't know the law and were not literate and able to read the law. Jefferson stated during the period of the Enlightenment, that African Americans were not able to reach their full potential due to the circumstances of slavery. So does that mean that without slavery, all African Americans would be literate? Does that statement alone by Thomas Jefferson give blacks an excuse to their illiteracy? Yes, because blacks were not aware how important literacy is needed to survive. Their masters forbade them to learn how to read and write and since the subject was not brought up in their presence, they did not think that it was mandatory.

Now that African Americans, particularly women, understand the importance of literacy, they are able to defend themselves in justice and equality.   

To Be Black, Female, and Literate: A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation

Leonie C.R. Smith gives a personal account of life growing up as the youngest of eleven siblings. Her story captures the essence of courage, determination and destiny in the face of social injustice and identity crisis. She reveals the struggles of being a foreign African American female in pursuit of a first-class education, expecting to get “a leg up in the world.”


It was often the perception that if African Americans had equal education as the Caucasian people then they would be treated equal as well. However, this mindset proved to be false in “To Be Black, Female, and Literate” especially when Smith, an Antiguan native, moves to America to complete her education. She too, along with other highly educated African American females today has had to continuously prove their intelligence in order to be acknowledged. This goes to show the underlying importance and significance of being literate. Otherwise, many like Smith’s grandmother who could not read or write and thus loss her estate to an obeah woman, would fall prey to the deception of more literate people.


Joanne Dowdy uses Smith’s narrative to illustrate the challenges of what it takes and means to know. To know is to understand and to understand is to apply. However, this is not the case when Smith has to fight to sustain her academic and social education. She was judged by the fact that she was foreign, dark-skinned, and ignorant of American history and was not familiar with multiple choice questions; hence, she was labeled as illiterate. Soon her idea of attaining an education, which was supposedly “accessible to anyone regardless of race, creed, religion, sex, ethnicity and all other divisions that society names” (195), did not compare to reality. Even today a promise as such, in a place where racism still exists, is to be taken very lightly. With any hope at all for the future, one must continuously ask, at what price?


On a personal note, I understand how difficult it can be sometimes transitioning from a place such as the Caribbean or anywhere as a matter of fact to adjust to a new culture and lifestyle as such as the one here in the United States. It is true that immigrants are often persecuted for having a foreign accent and being unfamiliar and are demoted illiterate in the American perspective. For example in school, children such Smith are labeled as geeks or nerds for exerting their brilliance in a “GEEKWAY” (191). Better yet, the African American students in the classroom who are demonstrating academic excellence or who do not act as the stereotype are sometime redefined as being “white.” By redefining what it means to be black, female, and literate, the African American community will be “more than equipped for battle” (199).

Work Cited

Dowdy, Joanne Kilgour., and Leonie C. R. Smith. Readers of the Quilt: Essays on Being Black, Female, and Literate. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2005. Print.

Black Women/ Black Literature

        
"Literature has made me a different person from who I was 20 years ago." - Christina McVay
      
         This reading is actually an interview conducted by Joanne Dowdy in order to get into the mind of Christina McVay and understand why she, among the many white instructors, chose to teach Pan-African Studies. "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans," are the words she uses to describe how she got into teaching a Pan-African Studies class. McVay begins by telling her family background and how her outlook towards African American studies developed over time. She explains how she grew up in a White, disciplined environment in which she believed there were rules you had to follow, even when language was concerned.
          In order to make the lessons easier for her students to comprehend, she uses an abstract term on one hand while having fun using a metaphor on the other hand. She believes "the Black community has the greatest oral dexterity. I believe that comes from that long oral tradition from Africa right through slavery and Jim Crow in this country." Experiences over the years, this tradition and this background, have played a part in shaping and forming this language Black Americans use today. This is one major reason why Blacks should celebrate their language and embrace it, rather than being ashamed of it. Using this method, her students are making connections between what they read and their own life experiences. She states that "it's very important that they see that what they thought was an isolated thing is actually something that has made them and members of their family part of a community." This is a part of why her class has often been referred to as the "black voice."
         Towards the end of the interview, she proudly states that literature is not just an academic thing, but more like a life thing. "I have learned more about right and wrong and how you treat people and how to be a good person from reading literature. She has rejected many of the values she was taught growing up due to Black literature. Black literature has changed her values, helped her see clearer many of the values that she lives by, and changed her as a person overall. Teaching Pan-African Studies is something she considers valuable, important, and rewarding. Black literature is not only beneficial for educational purposes, but also for life experiences for people of all ethnicities and races.

Actions

Elaine Richardson’s “To Protect and Serve”: African American Female Literacies brought light to a subject that has been in my mind for a couple of months now. This subject is the actions of our Black females and how those actions portray the Black female community as a whole. The reason that it is on my mind is because whenever I turn on the television, search the internet, or even walk outside I observe “twisted images of Black womanhood” (676). I see women walking around with barely any clothes on, I hear women greet each other with “hey hoe”, and I even watch women fight each other on national television for fun. These actions of our sisters cast Black women in a negative light, which helps the view of White supremacists who already think of us as “unladylike, unfit, and immoral” (682).

Something needs to be done to stop these “ghettoized images” (676) of the Black female. I believe that we need to begin teaching the younger generations the truths about becoming a woman. So, I agree with Richardson when she states “woman is the child’s first teacher”, because it is from the mother or motherly figure that little girls learn to become women. It is the “mother’s tongue” (677) that influences the child first. This concept of the “mother’s tongue” (677) is also brought on by Richardson. It is the idea that we learn all that we know from the mother tongue. Therefore, if the older mothers talk to the younger generations and alert them to change their actions then, maybe we will be able to remove the negative light that we are in today. Maybe we will be able to stop being stereotyped as “heartless Nigger bitches” and “wenches” (676). 

                                                   Work Cited

Richardson, Elaine. "To Protect and Serve": African American Female Literacies. College Compositions and Communication, Vol. 53, No. 4. June 2002. pp. 675-704 . Print. Sept. 2010

Literacy and the Black Woman

Harriet Tubman was mentioned in this piece by Sharon M. Darling, and I agree with the statement made about her being literate because she led people to freedom through the Underground Railroad.

Literacy means more than just reading and writing. Literacy is being able to communicate with your peers and people in your society and environment. With Black women, it was difficult to become literate due to their masters not allowing them to learn how to read and write. To this day, I believe that the reason that black women are ignorant to literacy is because they are aware of what their ancestors had to go through with their slave masters and they have not been formally told that all it takes is faith and determination to end that cycle.

Black women are illiterate due to problems that society has mainly caused, with sterotypes. We, as women, need to look beyond that, or use the negativity in a positive way in order to take literacy in our hands and use it to better ourselves. We need to stop allowing the media to determine what our roles in the world will be. Decisions should be made on our own and the motivation is not available for black women, then religion can and should be used. A spiritual edge will help women with motivation and also give them faith in their success.
So instead of wasting time asking what is to be done, I think that that valuable time should be spent figuring out ways to make literacy a priority for black women.