African-American Creativity – Resilient And Nurturing

The essay of Alice Walker titled, “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens’ focuses on the creativity of African-American women in the South during the period of post-reconstruction South.  More than anything else, the essay chronicles the struggle of African-American women to keep creativity intact in the face of oppression.

Initially, the essay discusses the origins of African-American creativity being the deep spirituality of these people in reference to the passage, “Black women whose spirituality was so intense, so deep, so unconscious, that they were themselves unaware of the richness they held”. (Walker)  Here, the writer refers to creativity as ‘richness’ and the source of this creativity being the intense spirituality of black women.

  More passages in the essay express this same idea, even mentioning that the muted creativity of black women resulted to the sanctification of their bodies and minds on the creative level.  The essay also talks about how black women “driven to a numb and bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release”.  (Walker)

With this passage the author was referring to the unexpressed creativity that black women harbored within them, a creativity that was gagged by oppressive forces.  In a way, Walker also talks about how this oppression of creativity is even worse than the physical oppression that black women were experiencing.

The essay also talks about the challenges that black women had to go through to express their creativity in this particular period, subtlely indicating that the expression of black creativity during this time was close to being considered criminal.  Hence, black women, instead of openly expressing the creativity within their souls resorted to subdued outlets and more discreet means of expression.  In particular, the author illustrates this by stating the life of Phillis Wheatley, a slave in the 1700s who was given to writing poetry.  (Walker)

In discussing Wheatley, Walker explains that despite ‘contrary instincts’ (Walker), Wheatley still managed to express the gift that she had in herself.  Walker, to explain how African-American women kept their creativity alive, then uses the mother-heritage to point to the source of this creativity.

Through the heritage of creativity that ‘our mother’ have left for us, the tradition of black creativity lives on.  The author explains this particular concept by writing about how her own mother had influenced her art and how the experiences of her mother in expressing her creativity at a time when this was suppressed became the basis of the resiliency and the nurturance of her art.

For this, she effectively uses the way her mother tends their garden to serve as a metaphor of the color and the beauty of outward creativity, the same creativity that remains with her, because of the memories of her mother, hence the title, “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”, more accurately referring to the pursuit of creativity by looking at the experiences of African-American mothers, while not literally, in explaining how current black creativity thrives.  Such is a clever means of explaining the persistence of black creativity because all of us have mothers of our own.

In relation to Walker’s essay, there are pieces of art nowadays that accurately reflect or allude to the points taken up in her essay.  These pieces of art doubtlessly show how African-American art has remained resilient and has nurtured black creativity through the years, despite the challenges faced by the blacks.

In this context, it would be enlightening to discuss the works of certain black artists to illustrate this point further.  Among these black artists who reflect the ideals of Walker is Maya Angelou – “author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer and singer” (AAP)  Over and above all these, Maya Angelou lived in a period when discrimination of blacks was still a matter of concern, and hence, she was very active in defending civil rights and fighting for the recognition of black Americans.

She was closely associated with Martin Luther King and was also active among Black American Christians.  Despite the limitations on blacks during her time Maya Angelou blazed her trail and built a very sturdy reputation for black artists.  Another notable artist who had an entirely different set of life challenges, but also went beyond these challenges for the sake of her creativity is Aretha Franklin.

In her earlier years, Aretha was exposed to black separatist movements of which her father was part of – this meant that she was witness to violence and confrontations between blacks and whites.  She was even arrested herself for reckless driving and disorderly conduct and had gone through a very frustrating marriage.

Aretha, however, did not allow herself to be victimized by these unfortunate events in her life, rather, she rose above the challenges and nurtured her creativity.  She began as a gospel singer and moved on to become the ‘Queen of Soul’ (Simon & Schuster) Finally, to consider in this discussion is Langston Hughes whose work played a vital role in the artistic development of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. (AAP)

His work combined his own personal experiences with the experiences of his people, thus, communizing his own life with the life of all Black Americans.

Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘Phenomenal Woman’ is about black feminism.  It has to be understood that in early America, the word ‘black’ referred to the black male, and ‘woman’ referred to the white female, as a result black women became an invisible group ‘whose existence and needs were ignored.’ (Thistle)

This is the reason why black feminism came out as a movement to give black women identity as well as to protect black women from abuses and violations of their rights.   Aretha Franklin’s song ‘Respect’ on the other hand is a ‘call to arms for black women everywhere’ (Dillard) It was written in a time when there was separation in the music industry and when the civil rights movement was at its thickest.

The Civil Rights Movement is based on “Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, guaranteeing basic civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, after nearly a decade of nonviolent protests and marches, ranging from the 1955-1956”, (Cozzens) so ‘Respect’ is basically a demand for equal consideration and the defeat of discrimination between blacks and whites.

Finally, Hughes “The Negroe Speaks of Rivers” is a poem written in the tradition of the early Black American Experience, which is ridden with abuse and racism.  This particular poem and poet is closer to the early Negroe era and hence expresses the Negroe sentiments of the time more accurately.

Going back to the matter of African-American creativity and its survival despite oppressive periods and environments, it would be interesting to note certain passages from the abovementioned pieces that certainly magnify the resilience and nurturance of black creativity through the years.

In Hughes’  poem, for instance, he alludes to the value of going back to ones roots and the value of ones heritage to remain steadfast in one’s culture by focusing on the African experience with the lines "I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep / I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it." (6-7)

Here, he even refers to the experience of African slavery, when he speaks of the pyramids, because the black race were also among the slaves who worked along the Nile to build the ancient pyramids.

Hughes also refers to emancipation of all slaves when he talks about Lincoln in the lines, “I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln / went down to New Orleans,” (8-9) However, interestingly enough, Hughes’ also indicates a certain level of acceptance and linking of all races in this particular poem with the mention of “I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the / flow of human blood in human veins.” (2-3)

Here, the poet indicates that he has risen above the separation of races and come to embrace all races regardless of color, creed, and religion by using the image of a river to represent the commonality in human blood that flows in all veins.

In this particular poem there is validation in Walker’s assertion that heritage is necessary to keep the black creativity alive – this is where the resilience of black creativity comes from – and, other than heritage, a healthy acceptance of fate is also necessary, because without this, blacks would refuse to explore other means of expression, like quilt making as Walker mentions in her essay.