The setting for this interview with Mamie McFadden was done in her home at 10786 S. Peoria, Chicago, Illinois. The house is a brick cottage with a concrete based metal rail porch. Mrs. McFadden welcomed me at the door and mentioned that her cleaning lady had recently departed and that she was excited to do this interview. Walking in the door at 12:30 in the afternoon, I was greeted with the aroma of cooking cabbage from the rear kitchen area. The living room, where the interview would take place, appeared to stop in time. There was no doubt that this home was decorated in the prime of her life during the 1970s. The orange plastered walls contrasted with the crème ceiling, along with the square tiled mirrors on the south wall, took me back to the days when I was a little boy and my aunt had a similar styled living room. It occurred to me that most African American women, not only share a sisterhood in trials and tribulations, but also in taste and decorations.
Mrs. McFadden stands at 5’2”with slightly hunched shoulders. She is caramel-skinned with brown eyes and weighs about 120 pounds. She is a survivor of two bouts of cancer and was recently released to return to her duties as a Sunday School Teacher. She is a widow, whose husband passed in 1994. She wears a brown contemporary wig and dresses more modern than most women her age.
I began the interview asking “When were you born?” Her response was “September 30, 1940.” She continued with a big smile on her face saying, “I am 71 years old.” My mind immediately went back to the 1940s and the conditions that many African Americans were facing during the Great Depression and World War II. Mrs. McFadden told me she was born in Milledgeville, Georgia. She repeated it with pride, sp...
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...ls the times she was victimized by prejudice individuals. She seems relieved in her smile when she speaks of the bonds between her and her siblings, and even a few white neighbors she called brother and friends. She is still close to her family as they all reunite every Thanksgiving in Georgia. She travels to the South, sometime traveling to the South by train, but as I sat with her I could see she took many trips to the South while sitting in her living room. Upon ending this interview, I was sure she had much more to say.
Works Cited
Hurston, Z. N. (1995). Their Eyes Were Watching God. In Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories (pp. 173-334). New York: Literary Classics of the United States.
McFadden, M. (2012, February 10). Recalling Life. (E. D. Jr., Interviewer)
Verner, B. (1994, June 12). The Power and Glory of Africana Womanism. The Chicago Tribune.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Reissue Edition 2013
The social, cultural and political history of America as it affects the life course of American citizens became very real to us as the Delany sisters, Sadie and Bessie, recounted their life course spanning a century of living in their book "Having Our Say." The Delany sisters’ lives covered the period of their childhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, after the "Surrender" to their adult lives in Harlem, New York City during the roaring twenties, to a quiet retirement in suburban, New York City, as self-styled "maiden ladies." At the ages of 102 and 104, these ladies have lived long enough to look back over a century of their existence and appreciate the value of a good family life and companionship, also to have the last laugh that in spite of all their struggles with racism, sexism, political and economic changes they triumphed (Having Our Say).
Hurston, Lora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990.
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
and the academic endeavour, to illuminate the experiences of African American women and to theorize from the materiality of their lives to broader issues of political economy, family, representation and transformation” (Mullings, page xi)
In the beginning of the book Hunter proceeded to tell us about the history of African-American women in a broader narrative of political and economic life in Atlanta. Her first chapter highlights the agency of Civil War era urban slaves who actively resisted the terms of their labor and thus hastened
Hurston, Zora N. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1937. Print.
Each of these letters provides details about the lives of middle-class married African American women living in the Upper South in the early twentieth century. By looking at these documents along with the finding aids that explain the collections they are a part of one could get a good sense of what life was like for a fictional woman of similar circumstances.
She leaves behind her family in order to pursue what she believes is the greater good. She leaves behind a family of nine, living in extreme poverty, to live with her biological father—who runs out on her at a young age to satisfy his need to feel big and important, simply based on anxieties about the hardships around him. Moody comes from a highly difficult and stressful situation, but she stands as the only hope for her starving family and leaves them behind for a life of scholarship and opportunity. This memoir leaves the reader with a sense of guilt for Moody’s decisions, and one may even argue that these decisions happened in vain, as the movement never made a massive impact on race relations. Unfortunately for Moody, she would continue to witness atrocious hate crimes up until the year of her
For Anne Moody, what were some of the most difficult obstacles to black progress—both within and outside of the African-American community—in the Jim Crow South? What degree of success did she and others achieve in addressing those obstacles? What was her perspective on her own past and future, and on the past and future of her country, by the book’s end?
The twentieth century was a time of tremendous change that commenced with WWI and the Great Depression. While WWI brought countless deaths, the Great Depression affected both urban and rural Americans. Yet, underlying these devastating events was the abuse of black Americans. Both whites and blacks had to cope with the major occurrences of the time, but blacks also faced strife from whites themselves. During the early part of the twentieth century, white Americans Russell Baker and Mildred Armstrong Kalish gained kindred attributes from their families, especially in comparison to that of Richard Wright, a black American. The key differences between the experience of whites and blacks can be found within the mentality of the family, the extent to which they were influenced by their families in their respective lives, and the shielding from the outside world, or lack thereof, by their families. Through the compelling narrations of these three authors, readers can glimpse into this racially divided world from the perspective of individuals who actually lived through it.
Smith, J, & Phelps, S (1992). Notable Black American Women, (1st Ed). Detroit, MI: Gale
4. Hurston, Zora Neal. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Collins, 1937. Print.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1990.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper and Row. 1937. Revised Ed. Perennial Library. 1990.