"A black woman would have tremendous difficulties, like a black man, to go to the nitty gritty, to express what is really going on inside. Because what happens is that you are being treacherous. By telling the truth about myself I am telling the truth about my father, my mother and a whole lot of other people, too. You can get crucified for that…it's one of the things that happen when you live in a sick society. And some black women like Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison and Paule Marshall have gotten beyond that at whatever price, but they got beyond it."
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Pulitzer Prize winnersWomen academics from the United States20th-century poets from the United States20th-century African-American womenPeople from Topeka
Original Language: English
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Sources
1980 interview in Conversations with James Baldwin edited by Louis H. Pratt and Fred L. Standley (1989)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks
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Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks (7 June 1917 – 3 December 2000) was an American poet. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her book of poems Annie Allen.
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