With all of the commentary -- both positive and negative -- concerning the new movie Precious, I think it's important to remember where the original novel came from.

When Sapphire's Push (which Precious is based on) -- a frightening, deeply moving, but ultimately triumphant novel -- arrived on the literary scene in 1996, the author's exact sentiment was (via interviewer William Powers) "...she noticed Push for sale in one of the Penn Station bookstores, and that moment it struck her she’s no longer a creature of the tiny world of art magazines and homeless-shelters from which she came”. Push (and the film based on it) was based on Sapphire's heart-felt emotions, and like all great works of fiction, holds grains of rich truth within.

However, despite the fact that the book was written by a black author, and the film was made mostly by black cast and crew, some critics and audience members can't help but pick at the work. When a NYTimes columnist stated that "The blacks who are enraged by 'Precious' have probably figured out that this film wasn’t meant for them."

Excuse me? The only reason I heard about Push was because a black lesbian I knew as a teenager in Houston, TX recommended the book to me! She'd read an early copy of Push and she related to it as a black person and as a woman who had been abused by her father, not because she thought white people might like it! On the contrary, she'd been looking for forthright commentary on the world she grew up in, and as it was mostly lacking, Push was at the top of her favorites list.

If you'd like to learn more about Sapphire -- and why she wrote Push and how she feels about the film adaption -- read this wonderful interview with her @ Speakeasy. Here's another interview. This one includes a page from the book.

One thing people seem to miss out on is that Precious -- and Push -- go beyond race to address gender as well. Both are intertwined in aspects of oppression, and Sapphire handles the subjects beautifully.

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly -- businesswoman, seamstress, and confidant to the rich and powerful -- both made her own history and witnessed that of other famous figures, including Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, for whom she made some of her best clothing. Though Keckly started her life as a slave in Dinwiddie, VA, the state could not hold her -- nor break her -- and she won the freedom of herself and her son in 1855.

Upon winning her freedom, Keckly went to St. Louis, and then onto Baltimore, MD, where she had hoped to open a school for young black women to teach them to make clothing and become seamstresses themselves. However, the school idea did not take, and Keckly left for Washington, DC in 1861, choosing to take on wealthy patrons of her fine craftsmanship.

Making clothing for the wealthy and powerful (General Robert E. Lee's wife was a client of Keckly's) brought her to the attention of Margaret McLean, a Scottish Australian women's rights advocate. Though Keckly was already swamped with other clients, she decided -- in part because McLean wouldn't take no for an answer -- to make the requested garment. 

After McLean received the garment, she made a request of Keckly -- to meet Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln -- on the day of the new president's inaguration.  She left with a load of Mary's clothing, and a new friend. For the next several years, Keckly served as The First Lady's designer and seamstress. 

When President Lincoln was shot, it was Elizabeth Keckly who provided much of the emotional support Mary Lincoln sought, and Mary never forgot Keckly's friendship. At one point after her husband's death, Mary hired Keckly to work for her as a personal assistant, and even though much of the work was long distance, the two remained close and kept in touch with letters until 1868. In 1867, Mary Lincoln sold a great deal of her personal effects to pay off creditors and stay above financial water, and Keckly was instrumental in helping her do this.

However (ironically enough), when Keckly sold some of her Lincoln memorabilia in order to help her son's university recover from a terrible fire, Mary Lincoln was not nearly as helpful or supportive. Mary Lincoln did not understand why Elizabeth wanted to part with the gifted former President's effects, and their friendship essentially ended until just around the turn of the century, when an undocumented reconciliation was said to have taken place.

Elizabeth Keckly died in 1907 at the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children in Washington, DC.

The dress that Elizabeth Keckly made for Mary Lincoln (her first for the First Lady) just before Abraham Lincoln's inaguration is currently hanging in The Smithsonian.

Patriarchal cultures have often painted the father as the head of household -- and the one whose familial ties are recognized over that of the mother -- but in the case of black slaves in the United States, the opposite held true after 1662 in an effort to keep the slave population growing and to keep white male slave owners from having to be responsible for their mixed-race children.

Elizabeth Key Grinstead, born in Warwick County, VA in 1630, challenged her slavery before such laws were in place. Born to a black slave mother (whose name appears to be lost to history, unfortunately) and Thomas Key, a planter and wealthy, married politician, Elizabeth seemingly had a tough uphill battle at every turn. 

At first, her father tried to "blame" an unidentified man as her father, but eventually Thomas admitted to having fathered Elizabeth, whom he had baptized in a Church of England chapel in VA, in 1636. He decided to return to England shortly thereafter, and awarded custody of his daughter to his father, Humphrey Higginson before he left. Elizabeth was to be treated as a member of the family and to be set free from indenture when she turned 15, approximately 9 years later. If Higginson chose to return to England, he was supposed to have taken her with him.

Instead, when Higginson left for England, he sent Elizabeth to work for John Mottram, another settler who held property 90 miles away from the only home Elizabeth had known her entire life. As she had no contract of indentured servitude (which many Africans and white servants had at the time in the area in order to work off their passage into the New World), it was likely she could have remained a slave for life if it were not for the help of an indentured servant by the name of William Grinstead.

Grinstead came to work for Mottram at the age of 16 in 1650. The son of attorneys in England, Grinstead was soon asked by Mottram's family to represent them in a variety of matters. He eventually took an interest in Elizabeth -- both personally and professionally -- and decided to take her case after Mottram died in 1655.

A lawsuit was filed on Elizabeth's behalf in 1655, and neighbors and old family friends were called in to testify on a number of issues, namely whether or not Thomas Key was a free man at the time of Elizabeth's birth, and whether he was her father. 

Elizabeth won her freedom, but a higher court appealed to by Mottram's family reversed the decision, naming her a slave. Grinstead, seeing a challenge, took the case back to court at The Virginia General Assembly, which retried the case. Elizabeth eventually won her freedom in 1656, and she was granted corn and clothing for her lost years of enslavement to the Mottram family.

William Grinstead and Elizabeth Key married upon Grinstead's completion of his indentured servitude, and the couple had two children. Grinstead died in 1661.

Elizabeth remarried a year later -- to a widower named John Parse -- and was left 500 acres of land upon her husband's death in 1662. She died in 1665, leaving the property to her children.

E. Frances White served as Vice Provost at NYU's Gallatin School from 2005-2008, and is now a part-time professor and employee in the Provost's office. White writes beautifully, and she is genuinely concerned with the human condition as evidenced in her books, articles and her blog, Dark Continent.

Quotes:

This is not an oppression you wipe away in 15 years or 20. The 90% at the bottom still live in crushing poverty and limited opportunities. Alcoholism makes perfect sense to me. I've looked at people sitting in the shebeens or stumbling down the street who were f**ed up. They remind me of my relatives from my parents' generation--thwarted at every turn, liquor was a blessing and a refuge. - From her blog in Cape Town, 5/2009

I have to comment about the troubling connection between Obama, Rev. Wright and Rick Warren. [See Richard Cohen from Washingtonpost.com.    Also, my dear Elle, of ellenfoto.blogspot.com, says that we should add to the list of mysteries about Obama—such as how can this clean cut guy smoke—his bad taste in men of the cloth.] I’m far from giving up on Obama for choosing to have an open homophobe speak at his inauguration. That’s only because I never drank the Kool Aid. My support of Obama was cold eyed—I think that’s a saying. There will be many things [particularly around foreign policy] about which I will disagree with him deeply; some of those things have preceded his choice to replace his connection to Rev. Wright with Rick Warren.  

I believe that, by far, Obama is the best we can do. I don’t mean this as he’s the best of the bad. More, I mean that his positives far outweigh his negatives for me so far. I am deeply excited about Barack’s election and even wish I could be transported to the inauguration by some kind of transponder. But I am angry about his coziness with Rick Warren and the apparent decision to ignore the protests of gay and gay-friendly supporters. This is one of the most important civil rights issues of today, and, Obama has sorely disappointed me. - Blog On Barack Obama, 12/2008

In From the Darkness Cometh the Light, Lucy Berry Delaney tells the story of her dream to be free from slavery. Lucy was born into slavery in 1830, and grew up in Missouri. Not much is known about her outside of her published work, but what she told in her narrative is determined, lush with detail, and full of literary surprise. Lucy Berry Delaney won her freedom in 1844. What follows are Lucy's own words, which do her far more justice than I can:

Regarding her and her mother's desire for escape:

"I was beginning to plan for freedom, and was forever on the alert for a chance to escape and join my sister. I was then twelve years old, and often talked the matter over with mother and canvassed the probabilities of both of us getting away. No schemes were too wild for us to consider! Mother was especially restless, because she was a free woman up to the time of her being kidnapped, so the injustice and weight of slavery bore more heavily upon her than upon me. She did not dare to talk it over with anyone for fear that they would sell her further down the river, so I was her only confidant. Mother was always planning and getting ready to go, and while the fire was burning brightly, it but needed a little more provocation to add to the flames."

Regarding her sense of injustice at the hands of some captors, and the  distaste for slavery of others:

My mother had so often told me that she was a free woman and that I should not die a slave, I always had a feeling of independence, which would invariably crop out in these encounters with my mistress; and when I thus spoke, saucily, I must confess, she opened her eyes in angry amazement and cried:

"You do belong to me, for my papa left you to me in his will, when you were a baby, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk so to one that you have been raised with; now, you take that wrapper, and if you don't do it up properly, I will bring you up with a round turn."

Without further comment, I took the wrapper, which was too handsome to trust to an inexperienced hand, like Mrs. Mitchell very well knew I was, and washed it, with the same direful results as chronicled before. But I could not help it, as heaven is my witness. I was entirely and hopelessly ignorant! But of course my mistress would not believe it, and declared over and over again, that I did it on purpose to provoke her and show my defiance of her wishes. In vain did I disclaim any such intentions. She was bound to carry out her threat of whipping me.

I rebelled against such government, and would not permit her to strike me; she used shovel, tongs and broomstick in vain, as I disarmed her as fast as she picked up each weapon. Infuriated at her failure, my opposition and determination not to be whipped, Mrs. Mitchell declared she would report me to Mr. Mitchell and have him punish me.

When her husband returned home, she immediately entered a list of complaints against me as long as the moral law, including my failure to wash her clothes properly, and her inability to break my head for it; the last indictment seemed to be the heaviest she could bring against me. I was in the shadow of the doorway as the woman raved, while Mr. Mitchell listened patiently until the end of his wife's grievances reached an appeal to him to whip me with the strength that a man alone could possess.

Then he declared, "Martha, this thing of cutting up and slashing servants is something I know nothing about, and positively will not do. I don't believe in slavery, anyhow; it is a curse on this land, and I wish we were well rid of it."

It's easy for 21st Century westerners to look at a picture of Nancy Green, the first representative for Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, and either feel embarrased or guilty. Pressured into vaudvillian or the "mammy" roles of maids and slapstick performers (if actual black persons were used at all) of the time did not add much to the national discourse in a positive way. There is still a lot of resentment toward such figures as Aunt Jemima, and understandably so. The creators of these figures often glossed over the horrible effects of slavery by adding a comedic element to lives transformed by forced labor, and made the people portrayed out to be less than themselve out of ignorance and a misguided desire to lighten up the terrible circumstances slaves and former slaves lived under.

However, what people often forget about Nancy Green, a former slave born in 1834 in Montgomery County, Kentucky, is that by 1900 (at the age of 66), she was a proud businesswoman, philanthopist, and one of the first faces ever featured in advertising in America. She earned an independent living and had a travel schedule (which included thousands of stops over a period of over 3 decades) many of her peers would liked to have had. She cooked for probably millions of people who loved and respected her, and she was awarded medals and accolades for her talent with people and as a chef until her death in 1923, when she was struck by a car in Chicago, where she had moved after slavery ended.

When you think of Nancy Green and Aunt Jemima, remember the era Nancy Green came from. At a time when so many of her peers were beaten, lynched and otherwise humiliated, she turned the "mammy" image on its head and became a popular and beloved businesswoman.

Mary Church Terrell, the daughter of two former slaves, was born on September 23rd, 1863. She was one of the first African-American women to attend and graduate from college (Oberlin in 1884), and she spent much of her life (until her death on July 24th, 1954) working for civil rights and suffrage.

Quotes:

It is impossible for any white person in the United States, no matter how sympathetic and broad, to realize what life would mean to him if his incentive to effort were suddenly snatched away. To the lack of incentive to effort, which is the awful shadow under which we live, may be traced the wreck and ruin of score of colored youth. 

And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance. 

Ellen Craft, born in Macon, GA, was the daughter of a slave woman and her white slavemaster. She was born in 1826. Because of her light skin, she was able to "pass" as white.

In 1848, two years after marrying husband William Craft, the two decided they were done for good with the life of a slave, and plotted a daring escape. Ellen posed as a white man, and William posed as her slave. The two eventually made it by train and boat from Macon to Philadelphia, where they told their story.

Two years later, fearing they'd be captured and returned to Macon as a part of the Fugitive Slave Bill, they decided to go to England, where they stayed for nearly 18 years. They raised a family and made a living from writing and personal appearances. Their most famous project -- a book they co-wrote called Running A Thousand Miles For Freedom -- earned them accolades and an income.

"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." - Florynce Kennedy

Despite the anti-choice movement's latest tactic -- that abortion is racism -- women (and indeed their families who often benefit as well) know better. Florynce Kennedy, an early advocate for race relations and for women's rights, was at the forefront of the Second Wave, and she rode it all the way to the beach.

Kennedy graduated from Columbia University in 1947, and went on graduate from their law program despite the early protestations of the male department heads. Eventually, they recognized her determination -- and their own internalized racism -- and she was admitted. By 1954, she had opened her own office, but the partnership dissolved after two years. 

She represented the estates of Billie Holliday (who her partner had represented before her untimely death) and Charlie Parker, and worked hard to restore lost royalty payments. She made a name for herself there, but later found herself distraught by the legal system, of which she said was "...there began to be a serious question in my mind whether practicing law could ever be an effective means of changing society or even of simple resistance to oppression." 

In 1966, she became one of the founders of The National Organization for Women (NOW) with Gloria Steinem, and the two women traveled together extensively as lecturers. She went on to become further active politcally as the 1960s wore on, and eventually she would be remembered for being (as put by People Magazine) "...the biggest, loudest and, indisputably, the rudest mouth on the battleground."

Flo (as she was called by family, friends and fans everywhere) lived out loud, and she didn't apologize for or rebut the People statement or ones like it. "I’m just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I’m crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I’m not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren’t like me."

*photo

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born a free woman in Baltimore, MD in 1825, and in the nearly 85 years she was alive on the planet, she was a poet, a crusader for the rights of blacks and of women, and a novelist.

Educated from a young age at The Academy for Negro Youth, Frances grew up well-educated and versed in politics, sociology, literature and other studies. She was the first woman to teach at the prestigious Union Seminary in Ohio, and by the mid-1850s, she was a lecturer on the traveling speaking circuit of The American Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1860, she married Fenton Harper, a widower with three children, and the two had one daughter together. Her husband died 4 years later, and eventually Frances went back to writing and to the lecture circuit to support her family.

She is the author of several books of poetry, and wrote one of the very first books by an African-American woman, known as Iola Leroy (or) Shadows Uplifted.

Here are some of her most memorable quotes, which are as eloquently spoken as those who came after her, such as Martin Luther King Jr.

**We want more soul, a higher cultivation of all spiritual faculties. We need more unselfishness, earnestness, and integrity. We need men and women whose hearts are the homes of high and lofty enthusiasm and a noble devotion to the cause of emancipation, who are ready and willing to lay time, talent, and money on the altar of universal freedom.

**I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters.

**I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him ages of education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read.

Quotes