Quiet Mountain Essays; vo.1, no. VI &VII
Copyright, 2003
All Voices Present and Accounted For
Suzanne Sunshower - QME Administrator
It is difficult to start a new writing site. Particularly from rural - if not remote - environs. No longer
a city dweller, I am also no longer daily in touch with other women writers or involved in an ongoing, physical, cultural community from which to draw writers and readers to the site. In fact, the idea to
start an online space called Quiet Mountain Essays grew partially out of that loss of comradeship, joined with the unhappy acknowledgment that feminist publications (as well as bookstores) were continuing to disappear, leaving some women writers and readers worried about the future health of
both. Not to mention that with the demise of each publication came the severance of a link to civilization for rural women readers like myself.
Not a particular fan of the Internet, starting a website was still a less expensive, and more realistic, response to these losses than birthing a print publication. The Internet also seemed the best way to, potentially, quickly engage the interest of the widest range of women, geographically speaking. Rather impetuously, I decided to go ahead and attempt to build a new site that would be fairly unrestrictive, and hopefully, responsive to the growing number of women looking to the Internet for reading and writing spaces.
To that end, Quiet Mountain Essays will become whatever its readership (its contributors) makes it, through participation in the site. Writings on this site could represent a wide range of concerns and interests reflective of the myriad points of view percolating in and between the women who visit this site - if these women share their thoughts and insights.
Started in June 2003, QME has only been "searchable" on the Web since late September, so new folks are coming across it all the time. QME's survival will depend upon writing contributions from its readers - that is, women other than myself. QME cannot be fully born, let alone grow, without the participation of other interested parties. I urge you to visit the Submissions page and consider adding your voice to this site, so that QME can become a true mix of women's voices today.
When I sat down the other night to write another 'little piece' to further tide over QME, as has happened the last couple months, a topic did not come to me straight away. I decided to peer into my little green book called The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood, with my eyes settling on a random page. The suggested writing exercise on that page was to write something for which an obituary had been the inspiration. That suggestion indeed gave me an idea.
Rather than look up an actual obituary, I pulled a book off my library shelf called The Face of Our Past (my favorite pictorial masterpiece):Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present, edited by Kathleen Thompson and Hilary Austin. Most of these images are of women now long gone. Looking into their faces and trying to imagine their lives and times, I thought would be close to speculating from an obituary.
I began to browse this treasure trove for some striking image or information about Black women that would inspire me to write something which in turn might inspire thought or reflection in you, the QME reader.
One photo in the book particularly caught my eye that night. It was of a group of Black women suffragettes in Georgia. I don't know what exact year they are standing in, but the book names the early 1900's. The photo prompted me to quickly pull other 'herstory' related books from the shelves, and to leaf through them, curious to find other faces of Black suffragacy. I found, unfortunately, that I have no other books with photos or significant mention of the contributions of Black suffragettes. In fact, the one book I have that is all about suffragacy is Shoulder to Shoulder, which was a 1975 documentary by Midge Mackenzie, about the movement in Great Britain.
In many a book I have seen the oft-quoted line, "Ain't I a woman", which was spoken by Sojourner Truth, a former slave who fought for abolition, and who was also a speaker on behalf of women's suffrage and other rights. I know, in fact, that it was at the 1852 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio that she spoke the famous words. I also know that many Black women in America, often former slaves, spoke out for women's suffrage before it was a strident movement among caucasian women. Yet, it occured to me - an American, Black woman who frequents bookstores of all kinds - that I had never seen a book about Black suffragettes, or even one other book which held a group photo of Black suffragettes. If I had, surely I would have bought it.
Still and all, this particular omission from my personal resources had never pained me until that night I sat on the floor, looking at the photo spread of two dozen awe-inspiring members of one Southern chapter of Black suffragettes, while sifting through a pile of books which entirely lacked their historical presence.
I remembered reading somewhere that (white) suffragette strategy for gaining the vote had admittedly not included gaining voting rights for Black women, for fear of alienating Southern white women from the cause. 'Shoulder to Shoulder' did not mean white shoulder to black shoulder. Black women (all non-white women) were on their own. It would seem that even in the story's telling, non-white women were still on their own.
Clearly, if the photo of Black suffragettes was circa-early 1900's, that would mean many of these women's rights freedom fighters had already endured and survived American slavery, or had at least been born into American slavery. Staring into their sturdy faces, the women appeared to me to be extraordinarily contemporary looking, like any one of them could be someone's aunt in Chicago or a store clerk in Detroit - today. True to the writing exercise, I really could only imagine what their lives had been like, what they had seen; only imagine the kind of determination necessary to have survived climbing through layers of oppression, facing unspeakable dangers in order to persevere in their own times and lives, while retaining courage and optimism literally against all odds and indignities. Only to still be considered a footnote in what should read to all women as 'ourstory'.
Below this photo is a quote from "A Voice from the South by a Black Woman from the South" 1892, written by Anne Julia Cooper, 1858-1964. In part it reads:
"She [Black woman] stands now at the gateway of this new era of civilization...pregnant with hope and weighty with responsibility...To be a woman in such an age carries with it privilege and an opportunity never implied before."
Talk about triumph of the will...!
If our foremothers - of all colors, within their own lives and times - could see the way to make their stands for dignity of human and civil rights, and for self-determination, then we, as the inheritors and benefactors of their great strides and spirit, have no choice but to continue to march, push, agitate, and fight for the dignity and rights of women everywhere. We have no right not to.
As in no times before, our lives are now lived within a global village. We have the opportunity to truly, meaningfully stand shoulder to shoulder. However, we must not look only into the faces of the women who have gone before, for our strength and inspiration, we should also look to each other. Our responsibility in these unique times is to make sure no women are left 'on their own' in the present or behind to history; we must make sure the needs, insights, accomplishments, indeed presence, of all women in our historical times are acknowledged, made known and recorded.
Hopefully, next generations will see in our writings and images, and in the fruits of our efforts, that women worked together to build the bridges to their future. All women present and accounted for.
