Telling Histories

Abstract

The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate field of study only late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories that are both deeply personal and powerfully political, this book compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black women historians at various stages in their careers. The authors of these narratives illuminate how—first as graduate students and then as professional historians—they entered and navigated the realm of higher education, a world concerned with and dominated by whites and men. In distinct voices and from different vantage points, the personal histories revealed here also tell the story of the struggle to establish a new scholarly field. Black women, alleged by affirmative-action supporters and opponents to be “twofers,” recount how they have confronted racism, sexism, and homophobia on college campuses. They explore how the personal and the political intersect in historical research and writing, and in the academy. By comparing the experiences of older and younger generations, the book makes visible the benefits and drawbacks of the institutionalization of African American and African American women's history.