Anthologies of African American Writing

Black-Eyed Susans: Classic Stories by and about Black Women

"Black-Eyed Susans: Classic Stories by and about Black Women". Ed. Mary Helen Washington. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1975. xxxii+163 pp.

• Repr. 1990 (see below).

Contents (1975 ed.): Growing up black and female. Frankie Mae / Jean Wheeler Smith -- The intimidation of color. The coming of Maureen Peal, from The bluest eye / Toni Morrison ; If you're light and have long hair, from Maud Martha / Gwendolyn Brooks -- The Black woman and the myth of the white woman. The self-solace, from Maud Martha / Gwendolyn Brooks ; A happening in Barbados / Louise Meriwether -- The Black mother-daughter conflict. My man Bovanne, from Gorilla, my love / Toni Cade Bambara ; Everyday use, from In love and trouble / Alice Walker -- The Black woman and the disappointment of romantic love. SEEMOTHERMOTHERISVERYNICE, from The bluest eye / Toni Morrison ; Reena / Paule Marshall -- Reconciliation. A sudden trip home in the spring / Alice Walker.

Washington includes three epigraphs for this collection of stories (as noted by Charlotte Jones):
• "De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see" – Nannie, in "Their Eyes Were Watching God", by Zora Neale Hurston
• "And she had nothing to fall back on: not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality, she may very well have invented herself" – Toni Morrison, "What the Black Woman Thinks about Women's Lib" ("New York Times Magazine" 22 Aug. 1971: 63)
• "Black-eyed Susan: 'A slight, pretty flower that grows on any ground; and flowers pledge no allegiance to banners of any man.'"—Alice Walker, "The Child Who Favored Daughter" (from "In Love & Trouble", 1973)

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Kinnamon 1997: 473]

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