|
Books by Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers
(2003 /
Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon
(1999)
The
Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells (1995) /
Erotique Noire/Black Erotica
(1992) /
Homespun
Images
( 1989) /
Notable Black Memphians
*
* * * *
Overview
Miriam DeCosta-Willis, author
and college professor, was born 1 November 1934, in
Florence, Alabama. She received her B.A. at Wellesley
College in 1956; her M.A. Johns Hopkins in 1960; her
Ph.D. Johns Hopkins in 1967 in Romance Languages. In
1967 she joined the faculty of Memphis State University
as the first African American member, and while there
agitated for more black staff members. When King was
assassinated in 1968 she was in the march that erupted
into violence and the police used mace on her.
DeCosta-Willis
became a professor of Spanish and in 1970 chairperson of the
Department of Romance Languages at Howard University. At Howard, she was exposed to Afro-Hispanic
authors. In 1975 DeCosta-Willis left Howard and in 1979
returned to teaching at LeMoyne-Owen College. She
remained there for ten years before taking a position at
George Mason University. Leaving in 1991, DeCosta-Willis
took a position with the University of Maryland, where
she remained until her retirement in 1999.
DeCosta-Willis served for ten years as an associate editor of
SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women. She is co-founder and a former chairperson of the
Memphis Black Writers Workshop, and has served on the Memphis
Arts Council advisory committee and a review panelist
for the National Endowment for the Humanities. DeCosta-Willis
has four grown children. She divides her time between
Washington, D.C., and Memphis.
*
* * * *
|
Black Memphis Landmarks
By
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
These sites, some
of which are forever lost, must never be forgotten.
Thankfully, with this book, Miriam DeCosta-Willis makes
a major contribution in preserving the memory of many of
these places and the pioneers associated with them.—Ronald
A. Walter, Co-author of
Nineteenth Century Memphis
Families of
Color, 1850-1900
Black Memphis
Landmarks is a must read book for anyone interested in
the numerous contributions that African Americans have
made to the development of Memphis. Dr. DeCosta-Willis
has documented many of the landmarks and achievements
made by Black people in Memphis.—Frank
J. Banks, co-founder Banks, Finley, Thomas & White, CPA
|
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical
Essays
Edited
by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars
and creative writers from Africa and the
Americas. Called one of two significant
critical works on Afro-Hispanic literature
to appear in the late 1970s, it includes the
pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the
1930s, as well as the essays of scholars
whose interpretations were shaped by the
Black aesthetic. The early essays, primarily
of the Black-as-subject in Spanish medieval
and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding
20th-century creative works by
African-descended, Hispanophone writers,
such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet,
novelist, and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes
the significance of Negritude in Latin
America. This collaborative text set the
tone for later conferences in which writers
and scholars worked together to promote,
disseminate, and critique the literature of
Spanish-speaking people of African descent.
. . .
Cited
by a literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal
study in the field of Afro-Hispanic
Literature . . . on which most scholars in
the field 'cut their teeth'." |
*
* * * *
Table
*
* * * *
Miriam at Westover
“Meanwhile Louise
Dillingham was attempting to admit a group of four to
eight African-American girls of different ages. It
turned out to be more difficult than she thought, and in
the autumn of 1950 only two girls of color arrived in
Middlebury. One of them, Michele Baussan, a shy senior
with a Russian father and a Haitian mother, had probably
met the headmistress the previous summer, when Miss
Dillingham had vacationed in Haiti. Although Michele’s
native language was French, she turned out to be “a very
good student,” the headmistress thought.
“The other girl, a
junior, was Miriam Decosta of South Carolina. She had
been highly recommended by Elizabeth Avery, who had
attended Westover in 191 and 1912. A native of Michigan,
Elizabeth had moved to the South with her second
husband, where she had scandalized Charleston society by
divorcing him to marry Judge J. Waities Waring, after he
also obtained a divorce. She held enlightened views
about race relations, and Judge Waring backed minority
rights in his court. In January of 1950, after she gave
a fiery antisegregation speech that attracted national
attention, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on the
Warings lawn. Around that time, Elizabeth told a black
friend about Westover’s new admission policy, and the
friend suggested that Mrs. Waring meet Miriam. The
girl’s father was the dean of the graduate school of
South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, and her
mother, also a college graduate, with an advanced
degree, was a college professor. The Warings invited
Miriam and her parents to lunch at their home—another
radical action at that time—before writing to Miss
Dillingham about her.
“Westover was
Miriam’s first experience of the white world. Miss
Dillingham thought her poised and self-assured, and she
admired the way she seemed to adapt quickly, easily, and
naturally. Classmates remembered Miriam as
self-contained and sometimes high-spirited, as well as a
good athlete and a great student, but the fact is that
she often wept at night. The girls were pleasant enough,
she remembered, but there were problems with parents. On
New Girl weekend, the only people who spoke to her
parents were teachers and the Rev. Charles Ives, the
minister of the Congregational Church across the
Middlebury green, who had recently delivered a strongly
antisegregation sermon. As a result of parents’
opposition to Miriam rooming with their daughters, she
was the only girl in the school without a roommate
during her two years at Westover.
“To make matters
worse, she was also the only African-American in the
entire school her senior years, except for members of
the household staff, like Minnie Price, who had been the
headmistress’s maid before working in the school’s post
office. Anticipating difficulties at Glee Club dances,
Miss Dillingham asked her and another girl to be the
ones that played the records on the Victrola. While the
headmistress later recalled that Miriam used to dance
all evening at such events, Miriam recalled them as
“unpleasant.” She also disliked the headmistress’s
awkward attempts at impartiality, what Miss Dillingham
called as attempts not to discriminate “for or
against” a Negro pupil. Well aware of her
educational opportunity, Miriam studied diligently and
found the teachers “wonderful,” especially Spanish
teacher Celeste Fernandez. She never forgot Mr.
Schumacher’s fascinating Ideas and Images elective about
northern European and Spanish painting. When she
graduated in 1952 it was with the highest grades in the
senior class, and with the school prizes in art, French,
and Spanish.”
Source: “The
Desire for Justice: Admitting Negro Students” (pp.
123-124). In
Westover: Giving Girls a Place of Their Own. By
Laurie Lisle. (2009).
*
* * * *
|
Westover: Giving Girls a
Place of Their Own
By
Laurie Lisle
Westover, a girls' school in Middlebury,
Connecticut, was founded in 1909 by
emancipated "New Women," educator Mary
Hillard and architect Theodate Pope Riddle.
Landscape designer Beatrix Farrand did the
plantings. It has evolved from a finishing
school for the Protestant elite, including
F. Scott Fitzgerald's first love, to a
meritocracy for pupils of many religions and
races from all over the world. The
fascinating account of the ups and downs of
this female community is the subject of
Laurie Lisle's lively and well-researched
book. The author describes the innovations
of the idealistic minister's daughter who
founded the school in 1909, her intellectual
successor who turned it into a college
preparatory school in the 1930s, the quiet
headmaster who managed to keep it open
during the turbulent 1970s, and the
prize-winning mathematics teacher, wife, and
mother who leads the high school today. This
beautifully illustrated book tells an
important story
about female education during decades
of dramatic change in America.—
Publisher, Wesleyan |
 |
*
* * * *
Response
Rudy,
where on earth do you find these things? It came from a
100-year history of Westover that the author sent me
last year after interviews with me that she'd done. I
haven't even read the book, because I don't have warm,
fuzzy memories of my two years at that New England prep
school. They had the nerve to delegate me as their most
significant grad of the 1950s and to ask me to come back
and speak at the 100th reunion. My memories are too
painful. Such passages, though, indicate that I need to
get started on my memoir to set the record straight.—Miriam,
1 May 2010
*
* * * *
Published Works
Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers
(Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publisher, 2003)
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
(1977)
Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon
(1999)
The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells (Beacon Press, 1995)
Erotique Noire/Black Erotica (New York:
Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1992)
Homespun Images (Memphis, TN: Wimmer Brothers,
1989)
*
* * * *
|
Notable Black Memphians (Miriam
DeCosta-Willis)—This
biographical and historical study by Miriam DeCosta-Willis (PhD,
Johns Hopkins University and the first African American faculty
member of Memphis State University) traces the evolution of a major
Southern city through the lives of men and women who overcame social
and economic barriers to create artistic works, found institutions,
and obtain leadership positions that enabled them to shape their
community. Documenting the accomplishments of Memphians who were
born between 1795 and 1972, it contains photographs and biographical
sketches of 223 individuals (as well as brief notes on 122 others),
such as musicians Isaac Hayes and Aretha Franklin, activists Ida B.
Wells and Benjamin L. Hooks, politicians Harold Ford Sr. and Jr.,
writers Sutton Griggs and Jerome Eric Dickey, and Bishop Charles
Mason and Archbishop James Lyke—all of whom were born in Memphis or
lived in the city for over a decade. . . . |
 |
Also included
are short biographies of barbers, sanitation
workers, and postal employees such as Alma Morris,
T. O. Jones, and Tom Lee—ordinary citizens who made
extraordinary contributions to their community. The
result of ten years of painstaking research in
archives and libraries, this study draws upon
interviews, private papers, newspaper articles, and
photographic collections to illuminate Black
achievements in Memphis, Tennessee.
Located in a bend of the Mississippi
River, in the heart of the Bible Belt, and in the center of a tri-state
region that includes Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, Memphis is the
site of a rich African American culture that finds expression in blues and
jazz, in poetry and fiction, and in painting and sculpture. Less well known,
perhaps, are Black cultural expressions in business, athletics, and
medicine: for example, the founding of hospitals and a medical school; the
building of a public park/auditorium and the first Black-owned baseball
stadium in the country; and the creation of the South's first integrated law
firm and first Black savings and loan association.
Sons and daughters of the city include
city and county mayors, an Olympic medalist, an Oscar-winning actor, and
former member of the Federal Communications Commission, CEO of the Regional
Medical Center, president of Colorado State University, and professor of
orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School.
The lives of these outstanding Black
Memphians provide a context for understanding and interpreting the social,
political, and cultural history of a city in the Deep South. Notable Black
Memphians is a vital addition to all collections in African American studies
and American history.
*
* * * *
DeCosta-Willis
makes it possible to look back in a new way into the
character of wells, and, more than that, into the daily
life of African-Americans a century ago.
— Chicago Tribune
Wells and
DeCosta-Willis join together across time in a scholarly
collaborative dance of sisterhood to produce a work that
not only holds an insightful mirror to the past, but
could be used as a guidepost for African-American and
other women today in living totally self-defined lives.
—Tri-State Defender
A unique look
at the life o an independent, unmarried African-American
woman coping with financial hardships, romantic
entanglements, sexism, and racism . . . A substantial
contribution to African-American Studies
—Publisher Weekly
* *
* * *
|
Erotique Noire/Black Erotica,
edited by Miriam
Decosta-Willis, Reginald Martin (Editor),
Roseann P. Bell
A glorious, groundbreaking celebration of
Black sensuality—short stories, poems,
essays, folk tales, and letters--ranging
from the lyrical to the lascivious, from the
prurient to the provocative. It is, as well,
a serious and intellectually grounded
anthology of black literature, including
such authors as Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange,
Barbara Chase-Riboud, among many others.
(Anchor)
A collective work of art whose time has
come. Of lasting value for all lovers of
literature and the erotic, this is a
glorious, groundbreaking celebration of
black sensuality, including works by Alice
Walker, Ntozake Shange, and many more. |
 |
The editors are to be congratulated for amassing a
collection of erotica worthy in its own right
because of the writers showcased, among them Alice
Walker, Chester Himes, Gloria Naylor, Jewelle Gomez,
Charles Blockson, Audre Lorde, and Essex Hemphill.
Coverage is not limited to African American writers
but includes African, Caribbean American, and Latin
American writers, whether straight or gay, of prose,
poetry, or fiction. For some authors, this anthology
features their first piece of erotic writing.
Readers will be familiar with other selections, for
example, Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as
Power." As a whole, this book successfully
challenges stereotypical notions about black erotica
and serves up delightful sexual tidbits for just
about everyone's taste.—Faye
A. Chadwell, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia
* *
* * *
 |
Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers—This
book brings together the creative
writings of some 20 Hispanophone women
of African descent as well as the
interpretive writings of some 15
literary critics. Several genres are
combined including poetry, short
stories, essays, excerpts from novels
and personal narratives to create a
unique anthology. Featured writes
include: Virginia Brindis de Salas,
Carmen Colón Pellot, Julia de Burgos,
Aida Cartagena Portalatín, Marta Rojas,
Eulalia Bernard, Georgina Herrera,
Lourdes Casal, Argentina Chiriboga,
Nancy Morejón, Excilia Saldaña, Beatriz
Santos, Maria Nsue Angüe, Sherezada (Chiqui)
Vicioso, Soleida Ríos, Edelma Zapata
Pérez, Yvonne-América Truque, Cristina
Cabral, Shirley Campbell, Mayra Santos-Febres.
Hardcover: 544 pages Ian Randle
Publishers Inc. (January 30, 2003
Miriam DeCosta Willis is Professor
Emeritus of African Studies University
of Maryland. |
*
* * * *
Telling the Story
Library’s Memphis Room grows with Decosta-Willis
donation
By Bill Dries
As Miriam DeCosta-Willis
spoke in the Memphis Room of the Memphis Public Library
and Information Center, a set of 19 gray file boxes was
neatly lined up near the podium. The files, containing
manuscripts, notes, photographs and other items, are
“parts of our history that never would be known” without
DeCosta-Willis donating them to a growing archive in The
Memphis Room, said library director Keenon McCloy. The
papers of the Memphis civil rights veteran, teacher,
writer and historian join a collection of 250
individuals and families who have donated their papers
to The Memphis Room, the library’s long-established
archive on the city and county’s history.
|
Wayne Dowdy, library history department
senior manager, calls it “the story of
Memphis—the whole story.” And DeCosta-Willis
is a prominent part of that story, even if
she protests that she isn’t famous. The
papers and photographs are a mix of her
research into Memphis history and her own
life. She participated in the Montgomery bus
boycott in 1955 during visits to that city.
She attended Medgar Evers’ funeral.
She
told a group of more than 100 in The Memphis
Room that for a time she didn’t consider
herself a participant but an observer. She
was among the black men and women denied
admission to the University of Memphis in
the 1950s.
G. Wayne Dowdy, senior
manager of the Memphis & Shelby County Room,
handles papers and photographs from the
Miriam Decosta-Willis collection at the
Memphis Public Library. Willis’ collection
includes photographs from the civil rights
movement, correspondence and her scholarship
studying African-American literature and
Memphis history. (Photo: Lance Murphey) |
 |
Although she had a
degree from Wellesley College, she and
Maxine Smith were denied admission in a decision by
the university that changed local history. “That started
her on her journey and that started me on my journey in
terms of civil rights,” she said. “Because we were
observing history in the making, we did not realize we
were also participants in that history.”
She would later
become the university’s first black faculty member.“But
that’s not as important as my involvement in civil
rights on campus as faculty adviser to the Black Student
Association and organizer of faculty forums.”
DeCosta-Willis
dedicates her latest book,
Black Memphis: Landmarks, to
her late husband, A.W. Willis, whom she credits for
encouraging her pursuit of the city’s history. Willis
was one of the city’s black attorneys who became the
cornerstone of the dismantling of racial segregation in
Memphis. He was also a state representative and business
leader.
As he worked on
bringing back Beale Street in the early 1970s, he
encouraged his wife to research the street’s history. “I
learned things about Memphis that I had never heard of
before,” she said. The research and other work over the
years led to
Notable Black Memphians. This reference book offers
biographical sketches and notes on 345 Memphians born
between 1795 and 1972.
“I worked all my
life trying to preserve our history. But these are just
biographical sketches,” she said. “These are just
descriptions of organizations, schools and churches and
nightclubs and things that go way back to antebellum
times and come up to where we are today. I know much is
left out. But at some point you just have to stop your
research or the books will never get out.”
DeCosta-Willis
herself has used The Memphis Room as well as the Library
of Congress in her research into the city’s history. Her
1995 editing of
The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells
brought to life not only the keen mind of Wells, but
also placed the indomitable, strong-willed crusader in
the context of the city whose violence made her a
national and international figure.
Like most
historians, DeCosta-Willis has had heartbreaking moments
in her pursuit of material not yet in any books. She
recalled funeral home owner and matriarch
Frances Hayes telling her she had in her attic
programs from every funeral at the business since the
turn of the 20th century. DeCosta-Willis said she later
pursued the lead only to be told the programs had all
been thrown out in a spring cleaning. “That is what has
happened to our history,” she said.
11 March 2011
Source:
MemphisDailyNews
* *
* * *
Capitalism and the Ideal State:
Marcus Garvey / Negroes and the Crisis of Capitalism
(Du Bois) /
Economic Emancipation
of Africa
Liberty and Empire
/
Money is Speech
/
On Capitalism:
Noam Chomsky
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
|
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
|
 |
* *
* * *
|
|
Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* *
* * *
posted 29 January 2009
|
