Go, Tell Michelle

Description

Winner of the 2009 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Award, in the category of edited volume, presented by the Association of Black Women Historians

"You are me. When I look at you, I see me. I see the young African American woman who, through good family values, strong roots, hard work, and perseverance, has come into her own … Though your journey may not be easy in the coming days, weeks, months, or years, think of us to ease your burden and pain. Think of those who you inspire. Think of those who you have given hope to. Think of those whom you have filled with pride. Think of your sister … Think of your favorite cousin. Think of your mother. Think of me. We are the same."

"To you Michelle I take off my African woman hat from Cameroon, my motherland. You have given us African women the courage and the hope to move on and up. You keep your head high and hold your husband close to your heart. Keep praying my sister, you are the best. You have lived the dream of every ebony woman. Ride on sister, we are with you."

"You are the song, you are the proverb, and you are the symbol of human dignity."

"When you and your family go to the spot under the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, where Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, you will take with you our history of dreams deferred; however, you will also take with you our prayers and hopes for an America that is ready to build and dream anew."

"Thank you for your courage to say yes, to step from behind your private veil into the public eye, to step forward with the grace of boldness, to carry a message that 'Hope is a wise decision' and also teaching the importance of learning to prepare oneself because with hope, things can change. I sat next to my daughter, praying that all women would tell this message to themselves, their daughters and sisters, nieces and neighbors, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, friends and sisterfriends, strangers and mates. But most of all, I thank you from the bottom of my heart to remind me to keep being hopeful so I can keep flapping my wings and not be afraid to fly."

"What I really want to say is thank you for existing and remaining visually the kind of woman I've always wanted to be. I'd given up hope. I'd given up hope that Black men could affectionately and passionately adore a woman publicly the way that your old man adores you. I'd given up hope that I'd get to keep my booty and succeed in the commercial production world of NYC. I honestly didn't believe I'd be able to be intelligent and sexy at the same time and be taken seriously … You two have revolutionized what I believe to be possible in Black life. Black, young, sexy, beautiful, brilliant, and powerful. How marvelous."

"We are one woman, blessed to be born Black in America … I rejoice for every little girl, every teenager, young adult and yes even every senior, who like me, can look at you and see herself. I rejoice for the mothers who loved their children as much as you and I do, yet could not protect them."

"Thank you for making me reconsider bringing my Black babies into this world."

Passionate, shattering, and tender, this astonishing book gathers together letters to Michelle Obama, written by African American and African women. Shortly after the election, the Uncrowned Queens Institute in Buffalo, New York, sent out a call across the country for African American women to share their hopes, fears, and advice with the new First Lady. Hundreds of letters and poems poured in, signaling both an unprecedented moment in our nation's history and a remarkable opportunity for African American women to look at the White House and see and speak to one of their own there.

These very personal letters and poems, written by African American women from all ages and walks of life, celebrate a newfound hope for our world and children, speak to a strong sisterhood with the First La
Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Sujets

• Ethnic studies

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 12 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438429205
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Go, Tell Michelle
Go, Tell Michelle
African American Women Write to the New First Lady
Compiled and edited by
Barbara A. Seals Nevergold
and
Peggy Brooks-Bertram
Photo of Barbara A. Seals Nevergold and Peggy Brooks-Bertram by Cheryl Gorski.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
2009 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Ryan Morris Marketing by Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Go, tell Michelle : African American women write to the new First Lady / compiled and edited by Barbara A. Seals Nevergold and Peggy Brooks-Bertram.
p. cm. ISBN 978-1-4384-2918-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. African American women. 2. Obama, Michelle, 1964- 3. Presidents spouses-United States-Correspondence. I. Nevergold, Barbara Seals. II. Brooks-Bertram, Peggy, 1943- E185.86.G58 2009 973.932092-dc22 2008053693
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Index of Contributors
Foreword
This extraordinary collection of letters to Michelle Obama says a great deal about the lives, the hopes, prayers, fears, and aspirations of African American women today. Letters sent to any famous person from total strangers ultimately say more about the writers than about the recipient. In these letters we read a great deal of autobiography, as the writers seek to share their stories with the woman who will soon be First Lady of the United States of America. Evoking tales of our ancestors is an ancient tradition in many African cultures, and a tradition very familiar to African Americans. We gauge our progress and our survival against our memory of the generations that have come before us.
Interestingly, the first letter written to President-elect Barack Obama, of which I was aware, was the open letter from Alice Walker, and her message was largely about his wife, Michelle. The celebrated African American novelist urged the President-elect to remember that he did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and that he alone is not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. She reminded him, instead, that:
a primary responsibility that you do have . . . is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters.
Like so many other African American women, Alice Walker is concerned for the personal life of the new President and our new First Lady. This is understandable, for Michelle Obama s life has become the realization of dreams we have for all African American women-success, respect, power over our destiny, and the ability to exert a positive influence on the nation and the world.
First Lady is not an elected position, is not an official title, bears no official responsibilities, and earns no salary. Still, the job does come with a hefty roster of expectations. In that regard, we learn a great deal from letters to previous first ladies. For example, it used to be a tradition at the White House for the First Lady to invite congressional wives to an annual tea. In 1929, one of those wives was Lou DePriest, the African American wife of Representative Oscar DePriest of Illinois, the twentieth century s first African American congressman. Mrs. Herbert Hoover received the following letter from a nameless spokesperson for the Women s League of Miami, viciously condemning her for extending the invitation:
Dear Mrs. H. Hoover, We thought we were putting a real White Lady in the White House. Didn t even dream that you would disgrace the White House by associating with Negroes. . . . You can go to Illinois next winter and visit your Negro friend. FLORIDA don t care for you to visit the South anymore.
Well, now an African American lady from Illinois is headed to the White House for a prolonged stay, after her husband won the state of Florida. During her time in the White House, the sorts of letters Michelle Obama receives will change. Some will make demands of her, or beg favors from her; others will criticize or praise her. For now, however, as the first African American First Lady, Michelle Obama would seem to fulfill a unique set of dreams and aspirations, even as she provokes new dreams, aspirations-and dare we mention, fears. In this collection, there are letters that echo those once written to Mrs. Kennedy and to Mrs. Lincoln urging Mrs. Obama to be safe, or reminding her that she is in our prayers, or that she needs to protect her husband.
Though women-and men-from a diverse range of backgrounds certainly can identify with her, or with any first lady-(Queen Victoria of England famously wrote a heart-wrenching letter of condolence to the widow of the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, Mary Todd Lincoln)- Michelle Obama obviously holds a special meaning for African American women. We seem to recognize her as one of our own. We are simultaneously proud of her, seek to protect her, and to encourage her. And our expectations for her are obviously very high. She has not even moved into the White House, and already we hear that she is to be an Eleanor Roosevelt for our times, and by implication, for our people.
The women who have written letters in this collection are highly accomplished and hail from a broad spectrum of backgrounds. So, too, is the recipient. Born in 1964, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and of Harvard Law School; she met Barak Obama when they were both employed at the same law firm and she was assigned to mentor him. We have only just begun to know this complex young woman, and we are never likely to know her fully.
American First Ladies are, instantaneously and inevitably, among the most famous people in the world, but as we learn from First Ladies of the past-from Eleanor Roosevelt, to Jackie Kennedy, to Pat Nixon-though familiar to us, these women are ultimately enigmatic. Nonetheless, they help us know ourselves better. Through Mrs. Roosevelt we gauge our own devotion to social justice and international harmony. Jacqueline Kennedy, like Coretta Scott King, became the measure of our own dignity in grief. Hillary Rodham Clinton fulfilled the feminist ideal that a woman need not live in her husband s shadow-even if that husband is the President of the United States.
So far, Michelle Obama is serving to help us see ourselves at our best. We see validation of our choices and our values. Even the decision to have her mother accompany the family to the White House resonates with many African American women who have lived in three-generation homes; when Michelle is obliged to remain at a state dinner until late at night, Grandma will be on hand to fulfill the family bedtime ritual. So many of us know the burdens of having a working mother-albeit, not a mother with such high-profile responsibilities. In Michelle Obama, we see reflected the face of hope; the face of inclusion; the face of America as the proverbial land of opportunity, equality, and justice.
Like the other African American women who have written in this volume, I too wish her great happiness in the White House. I wish her great success in the attainment of her goals for her husband and daughters, and for the causes that are dear to her. I too hope that wonderful things will happen for our nation and for the world while the Obama family is in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This moment has been a long time in coming.
Muriel A. Howard, PhD President Buffalo State College Buffalo, New York
Preface
Choosing a title for any book is serious business. The original title for this book was Dear Michelle: Messages of Encouragement, Support and Love to the New First Lady. For the better part of three weeks, we operated with this title, and all of the letters and poems we received were under this title. When we sent a draft document to the publisher with that title, the publisher responded quickly saying, How about Go Tell Michelle. It s more dynamic and has more action. Sleep on it and tell me what you think. We slept on it and agreed. However, we made a major change, we added a simple punctuation device, a comma. Now we not only had dynamics, we had specific action: [You go] and [you tell] Michelle. From no comma to comma the title now issued a specific directive as well as a recipient of the action: [You] go and write a letter or poem and tell [Who?], Michelle.
The comma established a historic and appropriate voice and took us back to the title of an old Negro spiritual sung by America s enslaved and probably Michelle s great-great-grandparents on the Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina. The Negro spiritual is Go, Tell It on the Mountain. Most, if not all of us never noticed the comma separating go from tell , creating two distinct actions invoking both movement and voice. Presumably created first in the early 1800s by slaves, it was first popularized in 1879 when performed by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. In 1907, John W. Work, a musicologist and lover of Negro spirituals, wrote the melody and music and included it in his book of Negro spirituals. Written in irregular meter with a Negro melody, in G Major, Black folks are directed to Go and shout the good news from the mounta