Learning Traditional Love..

In Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Woman Educators A Personal Dedication, author Sunny-Marie Birney discusses how the nuturing characterisitics of her African American teachers has shaped her into the African American woman she is today. Birney was adopted at the tender age of two. At such a youthful age she did not have any remeberance of her African American mother as she was adopted by two parents of Euro-American descent. Unable to further relate to her Euro-American parents, Birney found herself lost for eighteen years of her life. She states that three of her college professors, three African American women teachers, Drs. Susan Fraizer-Kouassi, Yvonne Williams and Mary Young strongly impacted her life. She discusses how these teachers were not only exemplary teachers but, they were nurturers and truly cared about her well being.  Birney states that because her teachers were the same complexion and race as she was, they understood the struggle to get where they were in life. She states that also foremothers such as, Emma Wilson, Lucy Laney, and Mary McLeod Bethune were all interconnected by providing literacy to one another. Birney talks about Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Opressed which states that, " Problem posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality. [It] affirms men and women as beings inthe process of becoming - unfinished, uncomplete beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality. Problem-posing eduaction is revoluntionary futurity. Hence, it is prophetic (and as such,hopeful). hence it corressponds to the historical nature of humankind. Hence, it affirms women and men as beings who transcend themselves, who move forward and look ahead..a historical movement..a deepened consciousness oftheir situation leads people to apprehend that situation..." (Birney 50). I believe that statment is true. Earlier this year, I had the chance to read Friere and that waas the first time that I thought and knew of pedagogy and of pedagogy from that point of view. Looking back on my life, I can relate to Birney's feeling of womanist and African American uplifting from African American female teachers. In my first semester here at Spelman I saw this in my former African Diaspora in the World teacher Professor Beth Sarah Wright. She taught us with a open mind and she challenged us. Being an African American herself, it appeaared she related to our obstacles as young woman at a all-women's historically black college. Alike, in this class I see thaat by our readings and Professor Greene's discussions in class she is trying to "pass the torch" to us her students. Our teachers are trying to get us enriched in our literacies and in the deepest aspect of our womanhood, self-idenity and empowerment. For they like Birney and Woodson know, " The servant of the people is down among them, living as they live, doing what they do and enjoying what they enjoy. He may be a little better informed than some other members of the group; it may be that he has had some experience that they have not had, but in spite of this advantage he should have more humility than those whom he serves, for we are told, 'Whosoever is greatest among you,let him be your servant." (p. 131) Our teachers believe we can be one of those servants.

-Jacquelyn D. Patterson

Free at last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last?!

" The desire for literacy has characterized the culture of African Americans since their arrival here under the myriad brutalities of slavery."

- Dyson ( 1973, p. 31)

In Lessons From Down Under: Reflections on Meanings of Literacy and Knowledge From an African-American Female Growing Up in Rural Alabama author Bessie House- Soremekum discusses growing up in Alabama onthe cupse of the Civil Rights Movement.She diiscusses the Civil Rights Movement and the start of it all, the refusal to sit at the back of the bus by Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alambama. Soremekum states that African Americans have been degraded and surpressed by Whites since the brinks of slavery. The oppression of Blacks almost appears to be inevitable. Soremekum alludes to her own life and tells of the time in the fourth grade when a teacher suggested that she be promoted to a higher grade. Soremekum's mother refuses the offer because she feels that her child should stay in a class setting with individuals and futhermore African American children who are on her level. She feels that by promoting her child, Bessie House-Soremekum would have been deprived of natural emotional and intellectual development.Soremekum also discusses formal and informal literacy by alluding to the way her grandmother was addressed by Whites. She stated that while she held Whites to a degree of respect and formality while, whites simply addressed her grandmother as Bessie with no such Mrs., or Ms. before her name. Soremekum suggests that it all boils down to knowledge and knowing. Some individuals are knowledgeable about the events around them but, do not act on them. While knowing of a situation, futhermore a situation pertaining to you as an individual makes you want to act on it. Soremekum came from a middle class family where education was advocated for. Her grandmother told her stories of the bouts African Americans have overcome to get to this point in life. I can relate to Soremekum. In the ninth grade, I was told by my Honors english teacher that I did not belong in a Honors course and that I belonged in a core class. Needless to say, her reasoning behind advising me to do such was not my scholastic ability but, rather my complexion. I was the sole minority in the class. I did not give up or give into the stereotype being thrown at me by my teacher. I did my best in my class to pass. So, I fully believe in Soremekum's story and her actions taken to become a professor and writer. But, do I think African Americans are no longer oppressed. NO! I think like Soremekum stated- it is the difference between being knowledgeable and knowing and the choose of whether or not to stand up and advocate for the rights of African Americans.







- Jacquelyn D. Patterson