Flat-Footed Truths

by Patricia Bell-Scott; Juanita Johnson-Bailey

• ISBN13: 9780805046281
• ISBN10: 0805046283
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2013-11-19
• Publisher: Macmillan Trade

Summary

A new and exciting collection from the editor of the enormously successful Life Notes and the award-winning Double Stitch. With a foreword by Marcia Ann Gillespie. To tell the flat-footed truth is a southern saying that means to tell the naked truth. This revealing and inspiring anthology brings together twenty-seven creative spirits who through essays, interviews, poetry, and photographic images tell black women's lives. In the opening section that discusses the risks involved in sharing your life with others, Sapphire tells us about the challenges in recording her experiences when there has never been any validation that her life was important. The next section chronicles the adventure in claiming the lives of those who have been lost or neglected, such as Alice Walker's search for the real story of Zora Neale Hurston. The third part, which affirms lives of resistance, includes Audre Lorde's acclaimed essay "Poetry Is Not a Luxury." The final chapter, focusing on transformed lives, presents an insightful interview with Sonia Sanchez. This wonderful collection, featuring such writers as bell hooks, Barbara Smith, Marcia Ann Gillespie, and Pearl Cleage, is testimony to a flourishing literary tradition, filled with daring women, that will inspire others to tell their own stories.

Author Biography

Patricia Bell-Scott is a contributing editor at Ms. magazine, editor of Life Notes, and the co-editor of Double Stitch, which won the Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Prize. She lives in Athens, Georgia, and is a professor at the University of Georgia. Juanita Johnson-Bailey also teaches at the University of Georgia and lives in Macon.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi	(2)
Foreword	xiii	(4)
Marcia Ann Gillespie
Telling Flat-Footed Truths: An Introduction	xvii	(1)
Patricia Bell-Scott
In Her Chair [photo]	xviii
Dorothy Graves
PART I: TELLING ONE'S OWN LIFE	3	(36)
Self-Portraits [photo]	3	(2)
Gilda Snowden
If You Lose Your Pen	5	(2)
Ruth Forman
Writing Autobiography	7	(8)
bell hooks
Sapphire: The Artist as Witness	15	(9)
Patricia Bell-Scott
Harriet Ann Buckley: An Artist Storyteller	24	(10)
Juanita Johnson-Bailey
Autobiography	34	(5)
Marita Golden
PART II: CLAIMING LIVES LOST	39	(104)
I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance [photo]	39	(2)
Sojourner Truth
Through the Storm, through the Night	41	(2)
Brenda Faye Bell
Looking for Zora	43	(24)
Alice Walker
The Brass Bed	67	(5)
Pearl Cleage
To Miss Ida Bee with Love	72	(25)
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Representing Truth: Sojourner Truth's Knowing and Becoming Known	97	(40)
Nell Irvin Painter
Legacy/Repeat after Me	137	(6)
Akasha (Gloria) Hull
PART III: TELLING LIVES AS RESISTANCE	143	(46)
Indian Blood [photo]	143	(2)
Robbie McCauley
I am writing this	145	(2)
Elaine Shelly
Poetry Is Not a Luxury	147	(5)
Audre Lorde
My American Herstory	152	(13)
Pearl Cleage
"I Had to Tell the Truth": Testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Confirmation Hearings for Judge Clarence Thomas	165	(8)
Anita F. Hill
Barbara Smith: A Home Girl with a Mission	173	(11)
Patricia Bell-Scott
In Answer to the Question: Have You Ever Considered Suicide?	184	(5)
Kate Rushin
PART IV: TELLING LIVES AS TRANSFORMATION	189	(36)
She [photo]	189	(2)
Wini McQueen
Movin' and Steppin'	191	(2)
Akasha (Gloria) Hull
The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action	193	(5)
Audre Lorde
Writing Survival	198	(11)
Valerie Jean
Poet Sonia Sanchez: Telling What We Must Hear	209	(14)
Juanita Johnson-Bailey
A Poem for Flight	223	(2)
Becky Birtha
Contributors	225