Somewhere out there in presentations, I've said that the greatest 10 years in African American literary history occurred from 1965 - 1976 -- so great that it refused to fit within a conventional 10-year frame. Alright, so today, I'm going to say that the greatest 25 years in African American women's writing has to be 1969 - 1994, right?
[Related: Black men writers and creativity, 1995 - 2016]
Ok, maybe you disagree. But for now, I'm providing a 60-entry timeline just to see what we have here.
1969: Maya Angelou publishes autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
1969: Lucille Clifton publishes Good Times.
1969: Carolyn Rodgers publishes "Black Poetry--Where It's At" appears in Negro Digest.
1969: Sonia Sanchez publishes Homecoming.
1970: Toni Morrison published The Bluest Eye.
1970: Alice Walker publishes The Third Life of Grange Copeland.
1970: Nikki Giovanni publishes Black Feeling, Black Talk/ Black Judgement.
1970: Mari Evans publishes I am a Black Woman.
1970: Sonia Sanchez publishes We a Baddddd People.
1970: Toni Cade Bambara edits and publishes The Black Woman: An Anthology.
1971: Jayne Cortez publishes Festivals and Funerals.
1971: Nikki Giovanni releases album Truth Is On Its Way with the New York Community Choir.
1972: Toni Cade Bambara publishes Gorilla, My Love.
1972: Sherley Anne Williams publishes Give Birth to Brightness: A Thematic Study in Neo-Black Literature.
1973: Toni Morrison publishes Sula.
1973: Nikki Giovanni publishes Ego-Tripping and Other Poems For Young People.
1974: Jayne Cortez releases album Celebrations & Solitudes: The Poetry of Jayne Cortez.
1974: Alice Walker publishes "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South."
1974: Angela Davis publishes Angela Davis: An Autobiography
1975: Gayl Jones publishes Corregidora.
1975: Ntozake Shange publishes for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.
1975: Mary Helen Washington publishes Black-Eyed Susans: Stories by and about Black Women
1976: Alice Walker publishes Meridian.
1976: Octavia Butler publishes Patternmaster.
1977: Toni Morrison publishes Song of Solomon.
1977: Octavia Butler publishes Mind of My Mind.
1978: Octavia Butler publishes Survivor.
1979: Octavia Butler publishes Kindred.
1980: Barbara Christian publishes Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976.
1980: Toni Cade Bambara publishes The Salt Eaters.
1980: Octavia Butler publishes Wild Seed.
1981: bell hooks publishes Ain't I a Woman?: Black women and feminism.
1982: Alice Walker publishes The Color Purple.
1982: Gloria Naylor publishes The Women of Brewster Place.
1983: Claudia Tate publishes collection of interviews, Black Women Writers at Work.
1983: Paule Marshall publishes Reena and Other Stories.
1984: Mari Evans edits and publishes Black Women Writers (1950-1980).
1984: bell hooks publishes Feminist theory: from margin to center.
1984: Audre Lorde publishes Sister Outsider.
1984: Octavia Butler publishes Clay's Ark.
1985: Alice Walker's The Color Purple released as film.
1986: Rita Dove publishes Thomas and Beulah.
1986: Sherley Anne Williams publishes Dessa Rose.
1987: Toni Morrison publishes Beloved.
1987: Barbara Christian publishes "The Race for theory."
1987: Assata Shakur publishes Assata: An Autobiography.
1988: Gloria Naylor publishes Mama Day.
1989: Kimberlé Crenshaw publishes "Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex."
1989: Glorida Naylor's Women of Brewster Place released as television miniseries.
1990: Elizabeth Alexander publishes The Venus Hottentot.
1990: Marilyn Nelson publishes The Homeplace.
1990: Patricia Hill Collins publishes Black Feminist Thought.
1990: bell hooks publishes Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics.
1990: Michelle Wallace publishes Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman.
1991: Julie Dash writes, directs, and produces Daughters of the Dust.
1992: Toni Morrison publishes Jazz.
1992: Terry McMillan publishes Waiting to Exhale.
1993: Maya Angelou reads poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at inauguration of Bill Clinton.
1994: Edwidge Danticat publishes Breath, Eyes, Memory
1994: Tricia Rose publishes Black Noise.
Related:
• Timelines
• A checklist of book lists
1 comment:
I agree with you when you observe that the best writing by Black American Writers was in the decade between the mid-60's and 70's.That was the coming of age of Black American writing.After the Harlem renaissance, the generation that grew up was not only aware but had also developed the means of expressing their feelings.
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