Carved in Ebony: Lessons from the Black Women Who Shape Us

by Jasmine L. Holmes

Overview

A look at the inspirational lives of ten Black women of faith

Do the names Elizabeth Freeman, Nannie Helen Burroughs, or Charlotte Forten Grimké ring any bells? Have you ever heard of Sarah Mapps Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, or Maria Fearing? What about Sara Griffith Stanley, Amanda Berry Smith, Lucy Craft Laney, and Maria Stewart?

While these names may not be familiar to you, these women lived faithful and influential lives in a world that was filled with injustice. They worked to change laws, built schools, spoke to thousands, and shared the Gospel all around the world. And while history books may have forgotten them, their stories can teach us so much about how we can live today.

Praise for Carved in Ebony

"What a gift this book . . . will be to you! Jasmine has a way of teaching you a history lesson you never knew you needed, while pointing you to a God who deeply cares for his children."—JAMIE IVEY, bestselling author and host of The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey podcast

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780764238864
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Edition description:	Young Reader's Edition
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jasmine L. Holmes has written for The Gospel Coalition, Desiring God, Fathom Mag, Christianity Today, and The Witness. Jasmine is the author of Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope, and contributor to Identity Theft: Reclaiming the Truth of Our Identity in Christ, and His Testimony, My Heritage: Women of Color on the Word of God. She teaches humanities in a classical Christian school in Jackson, Mississippi, where she and her husband, Phillip, are parenting three young sons. Find more at www.jasmineholmes.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

A Note for the Adults 11

1 Elizabeth Freeman 13

One Woman's Fight for Freedom

2 Maria Stewart 23

The Boldness to Speak

3 Sarah Mapps Douglass 33

A Consistent Quaker Woman

4 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 43

The Bronze Muse

5 Charlotte Forten Grimké 53

A Northern Teacher Goes South

6 Sara Griffith Stanley 63

The Southern Spitfire

7 Amanda Berry Smith 73

God's Image Carved in Ebony

8 Maria Fearing 83

Mother from Far Away

9 Lucy Craft Laney 93

Lifelong Educator

10 Nannie Helen Burroughs 103

Speaking What's on Her Mind

Notes 113

Editorial Reviews

11/08/2021

Educator and essayist Holmes (Mother to Son) employs her love for storytelling, history, and her Christian religion in this enlightening collection of portrayals that showcase “the inherent dignity and worth of women,” as a direct reproach to America’s “shabby record of acting in good faith toward its Black residents.” Each chapter focuses on a different historical woman, such as Sara Griffith Stanley (1837–1918), a dedicated abolitionist who affirmed that “the image of God in the body of the Negro”; and Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915), a minister who preached even to white audiences in the U.S. and England and established a legacy working with orphans in India and Africa. Holmes doesn’t shy away from contrary opinions on figures whose ideologies she disagrees with, such as Booker T. Washington or Nannie Helen Burroughs (whom she criticizes for teaching Black people they can only be respected by earning respect), though she also recognizes Burroughs’s challenging of how white people placed “all kinds of barriers in the way of the progress of the Negro race.” Holmes trains a spotlight on notable Black women who lived life as she and others of faith wish to—through personal empowerment and religious devotion. It’s crucial reading for anyone studying the intersections of feminism and race, with or without a religious lens. Agent: Don W. Gates Jr., the Gates Group. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly