The Smithsonian Institute's website on the National Museum of African American History & Culture best summarizes the aims and circumstances of the African American Women's Literary Renaissance when it observes:
The Black Arts Movement, the creative companion to the Black Power Movement and Black Panther Party, began to dwindle alongside its ancillaries by the year 1974. In that time, the violence of the day, along with increased vilification by the U.S. government (COINTELPRO), led to the end of Black militancy for a time. Many of the movements most prominent figures--Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and Stokely Carmichael had either departed the U.S., or seemed to have disappeared altogether for a time.
The nation had given sway to a calm--some might say of resignation, but perhaps more of a shift--to a quieter rebellion. Many women of the movement, like Angela Davis, had become notable scholars, speakers and activists. Others matriculated at colleges like Spelman, Barnard, and Howard, educating themselves into becoming some of the greatest forces of the latter 20th century. The pen was once again mightier than the sword. The 1970s began with a quiet young woman, a student at Spelman, who was researching black folklore for a story she was writing. She visited her library's stacks, but all she found were the exceptionally racist renderings of black culture, written by white males--often those who masqueraded as 'medicine men' and intruded upon black communities to take notes and generally ridicule them. It was not until this young woman came across a volume called Mules and Men, by the writer Zora Neale Hurston, that Alice Walker would find not only the source she needed for black folk culture, she found her spiritual mother. Her novel, The Color Purple (1982) shows Hurston's influence through the focus on two women's lives, growth, and discovered independence.
Alice Walker would later become one of the "big three" major writers of the African American Women's Literary Renaissance: Toni Morrison (Beloved, Sula, The Bluest Eye), Alice Walker, (The Third Life of Grange Copeland, The Color Purple, Meridian), and Gloria Naylor (Mama Day, The Women of Brewster Place). These three brilliant writers helmed a resurgence of African American women's writing that took hold in the 1970s that was unprecedented and long-awaited. Each writer brought her own voice and perspective to the literary page and shared the innermost concerns of a long-unsung demographic. Women of color could see themselves in their literature, whether it was the terse and complex prose of Morrison, the straightforward and evocative style of Walker, or the warmth and intuition of Gloria Naylor, every woman had an image in print.
Toni Cade Bambara 1939-1995
In the 1970s and 1980s, African American women writers were free to explore some of the subjects formerly avoided by black writers of any gender: love, sex, politics, the family, relationships, were treated with increased honesty and verisimilitude. The topics of rape and incest were not avoided, yet they were also not treated any kind of supplicating victimhood. Instead, and for some, it was a fact in their characters' existence: one to be met head-on, without apology.
Among the publications Walker would return to circulation was Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She had seen few volumes like it: this was a narrative, told in third person, of a young woman who moves from one relationship to another to discover who she really is, and uncovers her inner strength. Here, the voices of Hurston's native Eatonville can be heard, and the familiar folk dialect alternates with the voice of the narrator. Janie Crawford begins her journey believing she must marry to make her grandmother happy. Instead she learned she was strong enough to be on her own. The themes Hurston engages are now familiar: women's lives, loves, community, fears, joys, and turmoil. Conflict between themselves. Conflict with the outside world. But by 1970, this type of novel had all but disappeared for black women.
Of course, these writers were not the first to treat such subjects: the presence of Maya Angelou had long been felt, and she was a formidable godmother of the printed word. However, these new voices followed suit, dealing in similar subjects as Angelou had in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Others appeared from far-flung areas of the U.S., including Ntozake Shange, an innovative and brilliant young poet and dramatist. Others followed, delving into genres such as Science Fiction: Octavia Butler was the first African American woman writer of that genre. Tina McElroy Ansa produced readily relatable contemporary fiction like Baby of the Family, and writer and filmmaker Julie Dash is included, with her acclaimed Daughters of the Dust. Some of them were men: the playwright August Wilson (Fences) is included in this stellar group. Common among these writers is the emphasis on community, connectedness, and the ways the identity might fracture without that necessary connection to community. Women's relationships--particularly that of mother and daughter--are explored here, as is women's wisdom (Motherwit), and women's sexuality. Many writers, such as Ansa, Dash, and Naylor, returned to themes of conjure and the root worker as central within the community. Toni Cade Bambara features the conjurer as central to the recovery of her protagonist's wholeness in The Salt Eaters.
Perhaps most importantly (and for our discussion), these writers, especially Bambara and Morrison, here, introduce the interior life and worldview of the black child--especially, the black female child--a perspective readers had never encountered to any marked degree before. In "Gorilla, My Love," we meet the spunky Hazel (who answers to a great many names), who sees the world through her sense of right and wrong. In The Bluest Eye, we see a more tragic turn for a little girl who believes blue eyes are beautiful--whether gazed upon, or gazed through at the world. Here, she talks about that decision to present this most vulnerable life in her first novel:
As you read, think about these themes and how they intertwine in the works of the selected authors. Think about the way they construct their characters--either as whole beings, or those who might be a little fractured. A little lost. A little wounded, even. However, it is through these novels of discovery that we find just where there strength lies. I think Hurston would have approved.
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