Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Angela Y. Davis

From one of this country’s most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women blues singers through a feminist lens. Angela Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday as powerful articulations of an alternative consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American culture.

“One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself”

“History is not there for you to like or dislike it is there for you to learn from it and if it offends you even better because you are less likely to repeat it. It's not yours to erase; it belongs to all of us.”

“By understanding history we have a common ground to understand each other.”

“Education takes place in the combination of the home the community the school and the receptive mind.”

“There is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honouring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.”

“Before we even attempt to teach children, we want them to know each of them is unique and very special. We want them to like themselves to want to achieve and care about themselves.”

“Education heels gives new information new knowledge of who they are and what they are.”

“Education is creating not limiting and destroying.”

“You may not have been born in Africa but Africa was born in you.”