Educators From The United States

"If the fifteenth century discovered America to the Old World, the nineteenth is discovering woman to herself."

"Through weary, wasting years men have destroyed, dashed in pieces, and overthrown, but to-day we stand on the threshold of woman's era, and woman's work is grandly constructive. In her hand are possibilities whose use or abuse must tell upon the political life of the nation, and send their influence for good or evil across the track of unborn ages."

"A large proportion of the offices in this vast country is not held by the best, most learned and most cultivated men, but by men of mediocre attainments, whose hearts and whose eyes have been fixed on those places, and who, to obtain them, have used every means, honorable and dishonorable."

"Neither the black boy nor the white will ever be educated in the best and broadest sense of the term who seeks an education merely to reach an office, for, as in nature a stream never rises higher than its source, so in life men never rise higher than their ideals. The education that merely seeks an office must of necessity be limited to the dimensions of that office."

"To counteract the prevailing assumptions about black women as immoral and ignorant, Cooper had to construct a narrator who was aware of the plight of uneducated women but was clearly set apart from them in refinement, intelligence, and training."

"Cooper ... speaks for ordinary black women, she rarely, if ever, speaks to them."

"One needs occasionally to stand aside from the hum and rush of human interests and passions to hear the voices of God. And it not unfrequently happens that the All-loving gives a great push to certain souls to thrust them out, as it were, from the distracting current for awhile to promote their discipline and growth, or to enrich them by communion and reflection. And similarly it may be woman's privilege from her peculiar coigne of vantage as a quiet observer, to whisper just the needed suggestion or the almost forgotten truth. The colored woman, then, should not be ignored because her bark is resting in the silent waters of the sheltered cove. She is watching the movements of the contestants none the less and is all the better qualified, perhaps, to weigh and judge and advise because not herself in the excitement of the race."

"To me, faith means treating the truth as true."

"Jesus believed in the infinite possibilities of an individual soul. His faith was a triumphant realization of the eternal development of the best in man—an optimistic vision of the human aptitude for endless expansion and perfectibility. This truth to him placed a sublime valuation on each individual sentiency–a value magnified infinitely by reason of its immortal destiny."

"Our God is power; strength, our standard of excellence, inherited from barbarian ancestors through a long line of male progenitors, the Law Salic permitting no feminine modifications."

"You will not find science annihilating personality from the government of the Universe and making of God an ungovernable, unintelligible, blind, often destructive physical force; you will not find jurisprudence formulating as an axiom the absurdity that man and wife are one, and that one the man—that the married woman may not hold or bequeath her own property save as subject to her husband's direction; you will not find political economists declaring that the only possible adjustment between laborers and capitalists is that of selfishness and rapacity—that each must get all he can and keep all that he gets, while the world cries laissez faire and the lawyers explain, "it is the beautiful working of the law of supply and demand;" in fine, you will not find the law of love shut out from the affairs of men after the feminine half of the world’s truth is completed."

"A boy, however meager his equipment and shallow his pretentions, had only to declare a floating intention to study theology and he could get all the support, encouragement and stimulus he needed, be absolved from work and invested beforehand with all the dignity of his far away office. While a self-supporting girl had to struggle on by teaching in the summer and working after school hours to keep up with her board bills, and actually to fight her way against positive discouragements to the higher education; till one such girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates.”"

""I am my Sister's keeper!" should be the hearty response of every man and woman of the race, and this conviction should purify and exalt the narrow, selfish and petty personal aims of life into a noble and sacred purpose."

"Since the idea of order and subordination succumbed to barbarian brawn and brutality in the fifth century, the civilized world has been like a child brought up by his father. It has needed the great mother heart to teach it to be pitiful, to love mercy, to succor the weak and care for the lowly."

"The earnest well trained Christian young woman, as a teacher, as a home-maker, as wife, mother, or silent influence even, is as potent a missionary agency among our people as is the theologian; and I claim that at the present stage of our development in the South she is even more important and necessary."

"When colored persons have been employed it was too often as machines or as manikins. There has been no disposition, generally, to get the black man's ideal or to let his individuality work by its own gravity."

"Respect for woman, the much lauded chivalry of the Middle Ages, meant what I fear it still means to some men in our own day—respect for the elect few among whom they expect to consort."

"The idea of the radical amelioration of womankind, reverence for woman as woman regardless of rank, wealth, or culture, was to come from that rich and bounteous fountain from which flow all our liberal and universal ideas—the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

"Whence this sneaking admiration we all have for bullies and prize-fighters? Whence the self-congratulation of “dominant” races, as if “dominant” meant “righteous” and carried with it a title to inherit the earth? Whence the scorn of so-called weak or unwarlike races and individuals, and the very comfortable assurance that it is their manifest destiny to be wiped out as vermin before this advancing civilization? As if the possession of the Christian graces of meekness, non-resistance and forgiveness, were incompatible with a civilization professedly based on Christianity, the religion of love!"

"We too often mistake individuals’ honor for race development and so are ready to substitute pretty accomplishments for sound sense and earnest purpose."

"Certainly, in the Black literary community in particular, those of us who are Black Lesbian writers are frequently, as Barbara Smith recently said with her characteristic wit and pointedness, "the 13th Fairy." Who's the 13th Fairy? That is the godmother who is always forgotten, who is not invited to the ball, or invited too late. Black Lesbian writers are very frequently the "13th Fairy" of Black arts. For example, look at the writers invited to present at the recent Black Arts Festival held in Atlanta...The Black Lesbian-bashing that takes place in the Black Arts Movement is notorious, and I don't have to discuss that here, or discuss the origins of it, but the fact that it still exists when our communities need cultural workers of vision so much is terribly wasteful. When I talk about battling silences, battling invisibility, battling trivializations, I am not only speaking about fighting them in the white literary establishment. If establishment Black male writers cannot see that Barbara Smith and Cheryl Clarke and Pat Parker and I are their sisters in struggle, and that we fight on the same side, then the question is, "What are we fighting for?""

"(What lessons would you pass on to young LGBTQ activists?") Learn your limits. Also, what other strategies of dissent are in operation besides the "putting of one's body on the street"? Should you be engaged in registering voters in areas where there is historic discrimination and repression, radical blogging, educating others and educating yourself about radical life choices, feeding the hungry where no one else is, confronting lawmakers who are doing the opposite of what you put them in office to do, working at local levels?"

"the Gay and Lesbian community contributes to this invisibility. What do you think it means when Lambda Rising, Washington D.C.'s Gay bookstore, that says it "celebrates the Gay experience," takes a full page ad in Blacklight and does not include one single title by a Black Lesbian? Should Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, Ann Shockley, Cheryl Clarke and others, laugh or cry? It's not only the literary establishment that renders us invisible."

"I would also say to young people, be among people as you make your decisions about the way you fight injustice, because the struggle should not be a solitary, individualist endeavor. I don't believe courage springs full-blown like Athena from the head of Zeus (pardon this descent to the Greeks.). I think it has to be developed. Develop your courage in concert with others who share your longing for change. I gained the courage to live as a lesbian because I saw other black lesbians out there in the street talking about Pride."

"I would say to young people about putting your body on the street, having never done that myself in any way that endangered my life, assess the purpose and the goals. Is the gesture symbolic--if so is it worth risking arrest or endangering your life? The March on Washington was a grand symbolic gesture. And television--the parent of the Internet--revealed a sea change in American opinion about injustice on the basis of race. A national conversation about racial injustice began with the March; and it hasn't really stopped, though it goes out of fashion for some. Now, if only we could have a national conversation about slavery."

"For a woman to be a lesbian in a male-supremacist, capitalist, misogynist, racist, homophobic, imperialist culture, such at that of North America, is an act of resistance."

"When I read Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation by Dennis Altman in 1972, I came to understand the relationships among systems of oppression, issues of power over and enforced powerlessness–like my friend in her abusive marriage; or like African-Americans living in Mississippi particularly prior to World War II; or gay people trying to avoid detection in a government job during the McCarthy fifties. I got more involved in feminist thinking when I first came out as a lesbian in 1973, when I met up with black lesbians in a group called Salsa Soul Sisters, and through white lesbian friends of mine in New Brunswick, N.J."

"During the 1980’s I was privileged to be part of a multicultural feminist community. I became involved in the Conditions Editorial Collective in 1981, and had the privilege of working with nearly twenty women, all lesbian-identified, who cycled through the Collective, each contributing time, expertise, and tireless editing skills as we pored collectively over the many writings submitted to the journal. We also dubbed it “a feminist magazine of writing for women with an emphasis on writing by lesbians.” Conditions published from 1976 to 1990. It was founded by Elly Bulkin, Rima Shore, Irena Klepfisz, and Jan Clausen, who opened the collective to more diversity in 1981, when I joined with Jewelle Gomez, Dorothy Allison, the late Carroll Oliver, and Mirtha Quintanales. Cherrie Moraga worked as our office manager until she went to direct New York Women Against Rape. This was an exciting time, and I learned much about feminist practice. And Conditions published so many women: Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Michelle Cliff, Barbara Banks, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Olga Broumas, Barbara Smith, Enid Dame, Cherrie Moraga, Sapphire, Shay Youngblood, Chirlaine McCray, and so many more."

"Lately, I find myself even more committed to feminism, especially for young women. I see it as something that could possibly save one’s life."

"As I said often about the Black Power/Black Arts Movements: we need our history, our culture, our literature. And this is what a whole multicultural generation of lesbians engaged in the 1980’s – creating cultural institutions so that we could live our lives with determination, decision, and yes, of course, pride."

"As you reread, circle whole sections that are good in your notebooks. They often glow off the page and are obvious. […] Naturally, there should be a place for editing and revision, but when we hear the word editor, we think, "Okay. I let the creator in me go wild, but now I'm going to get back to the proper, conventional, rational state of mind and finally get things in order." We bring out the man or woman in a tweed suit from the East Coast with a doctorate in literature who is critical of everything. Don't do that. That person in the tweed suit is just another disguise for the ego that is trying to get control of things any way it can. […] Instead, when you go over your work, become a Samurai, a great warrior with the courage to cut out anything that is not present."

"Anything we fully do is an alone journey. […] You are alone when you write a book. Accept that and take in any love and support that is given to you, but don't have expectations of how it is supposed to be."

"We give a lot of names to our excuses, to the reasons we don't want to write or we're afraid to. Finally, if you want to write, you have to just shut up, pick up a pen, and do it. I'm sorry there are no true excuses. Shut up and write. […] It's pretty nice to be talented. If you are, enjoy, but it won't take you that far. Work takes you a lot further. […] In writing I have confidence. Because I say I'm going to do it and I do it. That's all. Writing is the one thing in my life I continually show up for. I have given 100 percent to writing practice. That's what builds confidence. […] Don't be tossed away by your monkey mind. … These little voices are constantly going to be nagging at us. If you make a decision to do something, you do it. Don't be tossed away. … Don't be thrown off by yourself or anyone else. Let your big mind move forward."

"But last night we started to work with the Samurai. Tom brought in a loosely finished piece, xeroxed copies, and we went over it. First of all, we looked for where there was energy. It was mainly in the third paragraph. William Carlos Williams said to Allen Ginsberg: "If only one line in the poem has energy, then cut the rest out and leave only that one line." That one line is the poem. Poetry is the carrier of life, the vessel of vitality. Each line should be alive. Keep those parts of a piece; get rid of the rest. […] it's where our writing is burning through to brilliance that it finally becomes a poem or prose piece. And anyone can hear the difference. Something that comes from the source, from first thoughts, wakes and energises everyone. I've seen it many times in a writing group. When someone reads a really hot piece, it excites everyone. Be willing to look at your work honestly. If something works, it works. If it doesn't, quit beating an old horse. Go on writing. Something else will come up. There's enough bad writing in the world. Write one good line, you'll be famous. Write a lot of lukewarm pieces, you'll put people to sleep."

"What is important is not just what you do - "I am writing a book" - but how you do it, how you approach it, and what you come to value. […] There are many realities. We should remember this when we get too caught in being concerned about the way the rest of the world lives or how we think they live."

"Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak. Then come back. Don't worry. You won't have lost time. Your energy will be more direct and less wasted."

"See the big picture. You are committed to writing or finding out about it. Continue under all circumstances. Don't be rigid though."

"If you want a room to write in, just get a room. Don't make a big production out of it. If it doesn't leak, has a window, heat in the winter, then put in your desk, bookshelves, a soft chair, and start writing."

"Writers write about things that other people don't pay much attention to. […] A writer's job is to make the ordinary come alive, […] When we live in a place for too long, we grow dull. We don't notice what is around us. That is why a trip is so exciting. We are in a new place and see everything in a fresh way."

"Just write. Just write. Just write. [...] When we are in the heart of writing it doesn't matter where we are. We can write anyplace."

"The world isn't always black and white. A person may not be sure if she can go some place, but it is important, especially for a beginning writer, to make clear, assertive statements. "This is good." "It was a blue horse." Not "Well, I know it sounds funny but I think it was a blue horse." […] After I read the article, I went home and looked at a poem I had just written. I made myself take out all the vague, indefinite words and phrases. […] It made the poem much better."

"In a rainstorm, everyone quickly runs down the street with umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers over their heads. Writers go back outside in the rain with a notebook in front of them and a pen in hand. They look at the puddles, watch them fill, watch the rain splash in them."

"Push yourself beyond when you think you are done with what you have to say. […] It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out."

"Writers move with grace in and out of many worlds."

"This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. […] You practice whether you want to or not. Through practice you actually do get better. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say "I am free to write the worst junk in the world." You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination."

"It is a good idea to have a page in your notebook where you jot down, as they come to you, ideas of topics to write about. […] Add to the list any time you think of something. Then when you sit down to write, you can just grab a topic from that list and begin. Making a list is good. It makes you start noticing material for writing in your daily life, and your writing comes out of a relationship with your life and its texture. [...] Naturally, once you begin writing you might be surprised where your mind takes the topic. That's good. You are not trying to control your writing. You are stepping out of the way. Keep your hand moving."

"Don't worry about your talent or capability: that will grow as you practice. […] If you want to write a novel, write a novel. If it's essays you want or short stories, write them. In the process of writing them, you will learn how. You can have the confidence that you will gradually acquire the technique and craft you need. […] We learn writing by doing it. That simple."

"The basic unit of writing practice is the timed exercise. 1. Keep your hand moving. 2. Don't cross out. 3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. 4. Lose control. 5. Don't think. Don't get logical. 6. Go for the jugular. […] That is the discipline: to continue to sit."

"Of course, you can sit down and have something you want to say. But then you must let its expression be born in you and on the paper. Don't hold too tight; allow it to come out how it needs to rather than trying to control it."

"You tell the truth and you depict it in detail."