This timeline shows African American Literature through the eyes of prominent African American female writers of the time. Each of the excerpts touches on different views of the African American female as time went on. Where some excerpts present positive, even proud, images, others are not so sweet. Beginning with Gwendolyn Brooks and ending with Lucille Clifton, the excerpts take us through the era of Realism, past the Black Arts Era, and into the Contemporary Period.
1945
From "a song in the front yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks
But I say it's fine. Honest, I do.
And I'd like to be a bad woman too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face
1969
From "homecoming" by Sonia Sanchez
now woman/ i have returned
leaving behind me/ all those hide and
seek faces peeling/ with freudian dreams.
1970
From “Vive Noir!” by Mari Evans
i'm/ gonna spread out/
over America/ intrude
my proud blackness/ all
over the place
From “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” by Nikki Giovanni
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
Except by my permission
1973
From “Outcast” by Alice Walker
Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.
1978
From “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
From “Poem for South African Women” by June Jordan
we are the ones we have been waiting for
1980
From “what the mirror said” by Lucille Clifton
listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.