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I was born the second child of a lower, middle-class Black family. I emphasize "Black" because that is the first thing you notice when you see me. My Blackness is [...]

This paper examines the life stories of six African American women who worked as maids for white families in the Deep South from the 1920s to the 1950s. Together their narratives present the facts about life during those times that are not contained in the history books. The role of older Americans as preservers of history and teachers of the younger generation is explored., There is awareness today, in the tradition of historian Howard Zinn, that the personal stories of people should be explored in order to bring to life the daily struggles and [...]

An African American woman narrates her experiences in Rwanda and Uganda, which she visited as part of a USAID project on library automation in 1991. Rwanda has many brave people committed to the preservation of their culture, but also presents contrasts between poverty and wealth. The abundance of natural resources enables the people of Uganda to maintain a higher level of living. The devastation of Uganda began with the war that was started by Idi Amin during the 1960s and the 1970s. In both countries, war, poverty and political problems have caused books to become endangered species.

A black lesbian reflects on her 13 year relationship with a survivor of an abused childhood. For the relation to last, personal limits had to be rearranged. Stresses included her partner's involvement with another person, but the commitment to the relationship emerged as the top priority.

Poetic prose is a creative, novel, qualitative technique used to present in a multivocal, interactive, and interwoven style the findings of in-depth, thematic interviews with 12 African American mothers with deaf daughters. It provides a frame of reference that permits the reader to enter the social world of African American women and understand their world from their perspective and this interface of spirit and scholarship, theory and muse, encourages connection between researcher and participants.

Fifty elderly African-American women living in poverty were interviewed for a research project entitled 'Chronic Poverty and the Self in Later Life' which studies the effects of long-term poverty on women's self-concepts. The fact that ten women out of the forty-five women in our sample who bore children lost them to murder, drugs, or other forms of violence made the subject of horrendous death (Leviton, 1995) salient during data analysis. Interview transcripts from three women who lost children to horrendous death were examined for reactions to the children's deaths and subsequent thoughts and feelings about their own deaths. Key themes emerging from the women's narratives were: 1) women's experience with poverty and abandonment, their expectation that life includes suffering, and their religious faith assisted them in grief work; 2) currently, women focused on present joys and concerns rather than on past sorrows; 3) women did not articulate thoughts about their own deaths in light of their child(ren)'s deaths; and 4) women doubted or negated the concept of an afterlife, which contradicts traditional African beliefs and may speak to the loss they endured.

African-American mothers of low income enrolled in an Even Start program were videotaped as each told a personal narrative to her child. A content analysis of the stories gave three major themes identified by Stahl. Of the 17 personal narratives, 4 were attitude stories, 5 were behavior stories, and 8 were character stories. The importance of using personal narratives is discussed and recommendations for research indicated.

Five days are recalled from a summer helping in a pediatric ward for children with AIDS. The plight of the child Imani served as a central story, with the pediatrician Sister-Friend Pat serving as a guide. While Imani's health deteriorated, her mother abandoned her, and a phone call from Pat was not answered out of fear that it was about Imani's death.

A black film maker reflects on her family's influence upon her work. Since the parents suffered from racism, they left a legacy of anger and a drive to succeed in the face of adversity. These energies have been channelled into a creative process which emphasizes discovery, and is well suited to the medium of documentaries about Afro-Americans or Africans.