Description
Book SynopsisRiché Richardson examines how five iconic black womenMary McLeod Bethune, Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Obama, and Beyoncédefy racial stereotypes and construct new national narratives of black womanhood in the United States.
Trade Review“The women Riché Richardson examines broaden notions of black womanhood in opposition to the dominant imagery perpetuated by filmmakers, advertisers, and other cultural producers in the United States. This broad spectrum of black womanhood from the early twentieth century to the present allows Richardson to make an expansive argument about the role of these women in the broader American imaginary. The idea of black women as mothers of the nation outside of the mammy role is a powerful one that has not been framed in the way Richardson does here.
Emancipation's Daughters is an engaging and important book.” -- Lisa B. Thompson, author of * Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class *
“Riché Richardson has given our tumultuous American moment a brilliant gift.
Emancipation’s Daughters is an impeccably crafted guide to the struggles, creativity, and iconic labors of African American mothers and their emancipated daughters.” -- Houston A. Baker, Distinguished University Professor, Vanderbilt University
"Richardson employs a diversity of resources throughout, including political speeches, artistic images and photos, memorials and monuments, biographies and autobiographies, and literary works to consider how Black women leaders have redefined or advanced a notion of American selfhood that is different from the national story of the 'founding fathers.' . . . Throughout the book, Richardson nicely complements the text with images to illustrate her case studies and overall thesis. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." * Choice *
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Emancipation’s Daughters significantly intervenes in how we understand Black women leaders in ways that resist the mama-fication (and even aunt-ification) that most Black women leaders experience in the public sphere. This is most powerfully exemplified in the way Richardson evokes the term 'daughters' as opposed to the familiar framing of Black women leaders as mothers. This strategic choice is quite compelling." -- Stacie McCormick * American Literary History *
Table of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xxi
Introduction: An Exemplary American Woman 1
1. Mary McLeod Bethune's "My Last Will and Testament" and Her National Legacy 39
2. From Rosa Parks's
Quiet Strength to Memorializing a National Mother 87
3. America's Chief Diplomat: The Politics of Condoleezza Rice from Autobiography to Art and Fashion 128
4. First Lady and "Mom-in-Chief": The Voice and Vision of Michelle Obama in the Video
South Side Girl and in
American Grown 178
Conclusion: Beyoncé's South and the Birth of a "Formation" Nation 220
Notes 235
Bibliography 257
Index 281
