| Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology | Barbara Smith | Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press | 1983 |
The pioneering anthology Home Girls, edited by Barbara Smith, features writings by Black feminists and lesbian activists on topics both provocative and profound. Since its initial publication in 1983, it has become an essential text on Black women’s lives and writings.
From Wikipedia: This collection of writings is intended to join black women together and encourage them to celebrate similarities that have often gone unnoticed. In the introduction, Smith states her belief that “Black feminism is, on every level, organic to Black experience”. Writings within Home Girls support this belief through a series writings that exemplify black women’s struggles within their race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and home life. Topics and stories discussed in the writings often touch on subjects that in the past have been deemed as taboo, provocative, and profound.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Poem: Akasha (Gloria) Hull
The Blood – Yes, The Blood
… For a Godchild, Regina, On the Occasion of Her First Love / Toi Derricotte
… The Damned / Toi Derricotte
… Hester’s Song / Toi Derricotte
… The Sisters / Alexis De Veaux
… Debra / Michelle T. Clinton
… If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write This in Fire / Michelle Cliff
… The Blood – Yes, The Blood: A Conversation / Cenen and Barbara Smith
… Something Latino Was Up With Us / Spring Redd
… “I Used to Think” / Chirlane McCray
… The Black Back-Ups / Kate Rushin
… Home / Barbara Smith
Artists Without Art Form
…”Under the Days”: The Buried Life and Poetry of Angelina Weld Grimké / Akasha (Gloria) Hull
… The Black Lesbian in American Literature: An Overview / Ann Allen Shockley
… Artists Without Art Form / Renita Weems
… I’ve Been Thinking of Diana Sands / Patricia Jones
… A Cultural Legacy Denied and Discovered: Black Lesbians in Fiction by Women / Jewelle L. Gomez
… What It Is I Think She’s Doing Anyhow; A Reading of Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters / Akasha (Gloria) Hull
Black Lesbians–Who Will Fight For Our Lives But Us?
… Tar Beach / Audre Lorde
… Before I Dress and Soar Again / Donna Allegra
… LeRoy’s Birthday / Raymina Y. Mays
… The Wedding / Beverly Smith
… Maria de las Rosas / Becky Birtha
… Miss Esther’s Land / Barbara A. Banks
… The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community / Cheryl Clarke
… Where Will You Be? / Pat Parker
A Home Girls’ Album
… Selected Photographs
A Hell of a Place to Ferment a Revolution
… Among the Things That Use to Be / Willie M. Coleman
… From Sea to Shining Sea / June Jordan
… Women of Summer / Cheryl Clarke
… The Tired Poem: Last Letter from a Typical Unemployed Black Professional Woman / Kate Rushin
… Shoes Are Made for Walking / Shirley O. Steele
… Billy de Lye / Deidre McCalla
… The Combahee River Collective Statement / Combahee River Collective
… Black Macho and Black Feminism / Linda C. Powell
… Black Lesbian/Feminist Organizing: A Conversation / Tania Abdulahad, Gwendolyn Rogers, Barbara Smith, Jameelah Waheed
… For Strong Women / Michelle T. Clinton
… The Black Goddess / Kate Rushin
… Women’s Spirituality: A Household Act / Luisah Teish
… Only Justice Can Stop a Curse / Alice Walker
… Coalition Politics: Turning the Century / Bernice Johnson Reagon