The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Amazon.com

Powell's Books

When I was a little girl, we sometimes found ourselves one person short when we tried to jump rope. One of us had to swing the end of the rope and the other was meant to jump -- but who was to swing the other end? Sometimes we'd make do by tying the rope onto a fence. Black feminists are like that fence -- nothing would happen without the fence, but who ever talks about it? You don't share photos of a fence or invite it to reunions.

Finally arrives Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton by Duchess Harris, and I realized what a tribute this book is to motherhood. It lionizes all the mothers -- literal or not -- in black activism (from Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan, to Dr. Joycelyn Elders). They were like that fence, holding up the other end of the jump rope and making everything possible.

Read the rest at AOL's Black Voices.

Thanks again to Gina Misiroglu of Red Room for putting me in touch with the AOL people. It's just one of the great ways she's bringing traffic to Red Room and getting attention for Red Room's authors.