Edim Glory (Editor Introduction) - Well-read black girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves

wont you celebrate with me

by Lucille Clifton

wont you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

All the books in my library hold a memory. When I was a child, they fulfilled promises and offered me a clear view of worldsboth real and imagined. My earliest memory is of my mother reading Eloise Greenfields Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems. She would hold me in a tight embrace as we lay in bed. Our nighttime ritual was complete after reading several poems, where she emphasized the word love in every stanza. Honey, I Love served as an ode to my childhood, and I recognized myself immediately on the page; a Black girl with wide eyes, full lips, and thick braided hair. The book was my first introduction to poetry that was full of rhythm and everyday language. I was delighted to learn that my trip to the grocery store could be a poem. Greenfields use of prose is simple and memorable: her vision unyielding. At five years old, I was proud to be Black.

Eloise Greenfields poetry, and the reflection of myself I saw in her pages, gently led me toward authors like Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelouand many more. The authentic and captivating stories created by these authors have been passed down from one generation of Black women to the next, and the next. In reading them myself, getting to know them in my own way, their books and profound literary legacy have become my inheritance.

Can you recall your first encounter with The Bluest Eye, Their Eyes Were Watching God, or The Color Purple? Those are the memories that pull Black women toward one another and solidify our unspoken sisterhood. Reading highlights the intersection of narrative and self-image to create compelling explorations of identity. Reading allows us to witness ourselves. Being a reader is an incredible gift, providing me with a lens to interpret the world. Most important, it has invigorated my imagination and allowed me to choose which narratives I want to center and hold close.

In her essay The Reader As Artist, Toni Morrison described the act of reading this way:

That Alice-in-Wonderland combination of willing acceptance coupled with intense inquiry is still the way I read literature: slowly, digging for the hidden, questioning or relishing the choices the author made, eager to envision what is there, noticing what is not. In listening and in reading, it is when I surrender to the language, enter it, that I see clearly. Yet only if I remain attentive to its choices can I understand deeply. Sometimes the experience is profound, harrowing, beautiful; other times enraging, contemptible, unrewarding. Whatever the consequence, the practice itself is riveting.

Yes, the practice itself is rivetingits always been that way for me. I continued to read more and more stories, and, growing up, I developed an unrelenting trust in my authors.

The sentences offered satisfaction and a newfound self-awareness. The worlds they created allowed me to look for parallels in my own life. With every book I read by a Black woman, I attempted to fully acknowledge my own triumphs, fears, and pain, without reservation. I learned to understand the significance of Pecola Breedlove, Janie Crawford, and Celie. Their fictional experiences were different from mine, yet their voices offered a reflection that I desperately needed. Along with so many young women, I connected to these characters justifiable yearning for love and gained tremendous strength from their courage. I discovered character-revealing moments that went to the heart of who I was.

When I was a freshman at Howard University in Washington, D.C., I worked as a reading instructor at Maya Angelou Public Charter School. I was drawn to the school because of its namesake. I had already read Angelous 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, twice by then. The first time was rather theatrically in the seventh grade. I recited the chapters aloud to my unassuming baby brother, Maurice. We both stumbled through the coming-of-age story and understood little of the childhood trauma she encountered. Yet I read it intently because I was intrigued by the relationship between Maya and her brother, Bailey. At twelve years old, I was seeking myself in her story, looking for the parallels in our childhoods. The second reading happened when I was much older. I was nineteen and fully aware of Maya Angelous legacy. I knew she had been San Franciscos first Black female streetcar conductor at age sixteen. I knew she had been close friends with James Baldwin and worked with Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was iconic. A civil rights activist, dancer, actress, journalist, and of course world-renowned author. This time Angelous distinct voice was clear in my head, and her words resonated in a visceral way. As I read about her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, my tears flowed endlessly. I cried for her pain and for her triumphs. The relentlessness of racism that plagued her childhood, the sexual abuse she suffered, the way literature helped her to regain her voice when all seemed lost. After reading her memoir, something in my heart and mind clicked, and forever changed me. I suddenly understood that her story was part of the larger story of Black womanhood and survival. She wrote openly about injustice, celebrated Black motherhood, criticized racism in the Jim Crow South, and unequivocally fought for her own personal freedom.