Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower / Edition 1

by Deborah Gray White

Overview

The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate field of study only late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories that are both deeply personal and powerfully political, Telling Histories compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black women historians at various stages in their careers. Their essays illuminate how—first as graduate students and then as professional historians—they entered and navigated the realm of higher education, a world concerned with and dominated by whites and men. In distinct voices and from different vantage points, the personal histories revealed here also tell the story of the struggle to establish a new scholarly field.

Black women, alleged by affirmative-action supporters and opponents to be "twofers," recount how they have confronted racism, sexism, and homophobia on college campuses. They explore how the personal and the political intersect in historical research and writing and in the academy. Organized by the years the contributors earned their Ph.D.'s, these essays follow the black women who entered the field of history during and after the civil rights and black power movements, endured the turbulent 1970s, and opened up the field of black women's history in the 1980s. By comparing the experiences of older and younger generations, this collection makes visible the benefits and drawbacks of the institutionalization of African American and African American women's history. Telling Histories captures the voices of these pioneers, intimately and publicly.

Contributors:
Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Maryland
Mia Bay, Rutgers University
Leslie Brown, Washington University in St. Louis
Crystal N. Feimster, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sharon Harley, University of Maryland
Wanda A. Hendricks, University of South Carolina
Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University
Chana Kai Lee, University of Georgia
Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University
Nell Irvin Painter, Newark, New Jersey
Merline Pitre, Texas Southern University
Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago
Julie Saville, University of Chicago
Brenda Elaine Stevenson, University of California, Los Angeles
Ula Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Morgan State University
Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807858813
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	05/02/2008
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Deborah Gray White is Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University. Her previous books include Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994 and Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: A Telling History   Deborah Gray White     1
Un Essai d'Ego-Histoire   Nell Irvin Painter     28
Becoming a Black Woman's Historian   Darlene Clark Hine     42
A Journey through History   Merline Pitre     58
Being and Thinking outside of the Box: A Black Woman's Experience in Academia   Rosalyn Terborg-Penn     72
My History in History   Deborah Gray White     85
The Politics of Memory and Place: Reflections of an African American Female Scholar   Sharon Harley     101
History without Illusion   Julie Saville     135
On the Margins: Creating a Space and Place in the Academy   Wanda A. Hendricks     146
History Lessons   Brenda Elaine Stevenson     158
The Death of Dry Tears   Ula Taylor     172
Looking Backward in Order to Go Forward: Black Women Historians and Black Women's History   Mia Bay     182
Journey toward a Different Self: The Defining Power of Illness, Race, and Gender   Chana Kai Lee     200
Bodies of History   Elsa Barkley Brown     215
Experiencing Black Feminism   Jennifer L. Morgan     228
Dancing on the Edges of History, but Never Dancing Alone   Barbara Ransby     240
How a Hundred Years of History Tracked Me Down   Leslie Brown     252
Not So Ivory: African American Women Historians Creating Academic Communities   Crystal N. Feimster     270
Contributors     285

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The silence is shattered. Telling Histories reveals the story of the birth, institutionalization, and professionalization of the field of African American women's history. In retrospect, who could have been against it? But the history told here makes clear that far too many were. African American women historians, bearing 'unpleasant and unpopular news' and doing 'unmentionable history,' found 'begrudging tolerance,' 'benevolent disinterest,' and indeed, outright racism and sexism. Allowed to enter the history profession but asked to do so in silence and awe, they said no. And we are all the richer for it. Telling Histories should be required reading for all historians and administrators and for all graduate students—who will one day become chairs, deans, referees, professional organization officers, grant officers, and colleagues.—Thavolia Glymph, Duke University



The arresting individual voices of these women blend together into a choir of unusual diversity, range, and depth. Individually and collectively, these autobiographical essays offer penetrating insight into the personal, social, and cultural worlds that have shaped black women's experiences in the historical profession. What these stories tell us about the intransigence of racism, sexism, and classism in society generally—and the academy and history departments more specifically—is both disturbing and sobering, ultimately reminding us that a concerted struggle against these inequities must be redoubled.—Waldo E. Martin Jr., University of California, Berkeley



This is a compelling collection of essays by a distinguished group of women who have made history in a double sense—through both their lives and their writings. More than merely autobiography, this volume illuminates the manifold ways that legacies of slavery and Jim Crow have shaped knowledge production as well as the producers of knowledge. Together, these essays document the emergence of black women's voices in powerful ways that inform, instruct, and inspire. This book will change lives—and even the writing of history.—Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara



I couldn't put Telling Histories down, although I did sometimes have to put it aside, so powerful are the emotions it evokes. Deborah Gray White has done something quite wonderful here, first by analyzing so brilliantly the forces that kept black women from practicing history for so long, then by telling her own eloquent story, and finally by creating this priceless collection of first-person testimonies. These 'telling histories' will indeed serve as valuable primary sources and teaching tools. They will also stand as a significant contribution to a most necessary project: the toppling of the barriers, both internal and external, that constrict the professoriate, silence voices, and prevent diverse scholars from writing and teaching freely and well.—Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Editorial Reviews

Telling Histories details the dialectic between the obstacles [African American women] faced and their accomplishments, showing how demanding the academy has been of black women academics and how equally demanding they have been of themselves.— Women's Review of Books



In Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower, 17 professors prove by their collective experiences that they have built their own community of support.—A Nota Bene selection of The Chronicle of Higher Education



The essayists offer readers much to think about as each tells her story of becoming a historian and of survival and success in the academy. . . . Recommended.—Choice



Many of the contributors offer very poignant and personal accounts of their struggles. . . . These essays do a masterful job of conveying the complexities of these struggles, while at the same time they offer the reader a clear view of the ways many of these women have been able to cope with these difficulties even as they continue to function as scholars and teachers. . . . A very timely book.—The Journal of Southern History



Engagingly written . . . should appeal to multiple audiences. . . . The book is not only valuable for graduate students but is also a significant contribution to the field and should facilitate bringing down barriers, both within and outside the academy, that constrain the professorial ranks, stifle voices, and preclude diverse academicians and scholars from writing and teaching without restraint.—H-Net Reviews



These narratives offer personal perspectives on the world of black women in the ebony and ivory towers. . . . One can appreciate the honest and forthrightness of many of the narratives.—Journal of African American History

From the Publisher