Intentional Reads: Love and Liberation

February is, by far, my favorite month of the year. Despite the cold weather and dark days, it is filled with light and love, as seen in the month-long celebration of African-American history and Valentine’s Day. As a mother, a reader, and a writer, acknowledging the power of love and liberation in all forms is the best way to honor the resilience associated with womanhood. 

As I consider the power of love and its ability to be revolutionary, I can’t help but think about:  

Formerly enslaved Black women who shared their experiences with abolitionist organizations. Published as slave narratives, their stories humanized the lives of enslaved Black people who resisted oppression every moment of their day to achieve freedom.

Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is one of the few slave narratives by Black women. As an enslaved woman, Jacobs resisted the sexual advances of her owner by hiding in a crawl space for seven years. Ultimately, she was able to escape and was reunited with her children and brother in New York. While working as a nanny, Jacobs reached out to a group of abolitionists and feminist organizations to share her story. 

 Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Where would Celie be without learning to read–the foundation of freedom? And how would she have learned about the power of voice and intimacy without the blues and Shug Avery? 

Ellen Edler, a co-editor of Literary Mama’s poetry section, also shared some poems about love, freedom, and motherhood written by Black women. 

Audre Lorde’s Sister in Arms is a powerful–historical, intersectional feminist poem exploring motherhood and active resistance. The speaker is breastfeeding while protesting apartheid in South Africa. She ultimately takes the baby off her breast and puts the baby on another woman so that she can go and fight. 

Camille Dungy’s The Average Mother explores universal themes related to motherhood, such as exhaustion and the ability to bounce back despite challenges. 

Finally, Tracy K. Smith gives us Wade in the Water. Honoring the Geechee Gullah ring shouters, Smith highlights the importance of African-American womanhood and ancestry. 

Shining a light on love and the fight to share our stories will remain a powerful way of resisting sexism and racism while honoring our roles as mothers and women. I’m leaving you with a video on the tradition of ring shouting, an act of both resistance and love.