Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters. - book reviews

Ebony, May, 1993

THE complex and often misunderstood relationship between African-American mothers and their daughters rarely has been explored, yet it is the universal union that is at the very foundation of Black womanhood.

Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers & Daughters (Harper Perennial, $12) is an anthology of poems, stories and essays that acknowledge and celebrate generations of Black women. The collection includes works by such authors as Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and Sonia Sanchez, among others. These insightful writers explore the intensely emotional relationship between mothers and daughters.

Double Stitch features a foreword by Maya Angelou and an introduction by Spelman College President Johnnetta B. Cole. The book's editors are members of the editorial collective SAGE: A Scholarly journal on Black Women.

For nearly a quarter of a century, poet Nikki Giovanni has occupied a unique position in the literary world. Equally respected and rejected by Black writers and the literary establishment, this renaissance woman defies categorization.

Giovanni's meteoric rise to the forefront of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s can be traced to her ability to translate the everyday experiences of Black people into poetic verse. Yet, her writings about ordinary people were equally scorned by the literati as "low art" and by some Black writers who strongly believed that she compromised her work for commercial success.

In Conversations with Nikki Giovanni (University Press of Mississippi, $32.50 cloth, $14.95 paper) Giovanni talks about her conflicting image in a collection of 27 interviews conducted between 1969 and 1992. Edited with an introduction by Virginia C. Fowler, the chronologically arranged text reveals the evolution of Giovanni's ideas and captures her distinctly African-American voice.

Malcolm X: The Great Photographs (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $40 cloth, $24.95 paper), a photographic documentary of the milestones in Malcolm X's public life featuring photographs by Gordon Parks, Eve Arnold and Henri Cartier-Bresson and text by Thulani Davis.

With its inspiring message of hope and perseverance, the song, "Lift Ev'ry Voice And Sing," written in 1900 by brothers James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson, is widely known today as the African-American national anthem.

Almost a century later, the inspirational song lyrics have been paired with dramatic prints by celebrated artist Elizabeth Catlett in Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing (Walker and Co., $14.95). Taken together, the text, illustrations and introduction by Jim Haskins express Black America's triumph over suffering.

Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos: Notes and Post-Soul Black Culture (Harper Collins, $20), an interesting and in-depth examination of African-American popular culture in the last two decades, by Nelson George.

Pride of Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color (Avon, $10), a memoir recalling the strong-willed and fiercely independent women in author Carol Ione's family

The March on Washington (Harper Collins Publishers, $15) traces the historic march from the violent attacks on Black protesters in the South to the final press conference of the day, by james Haskins with an introduction by james Farmer.

We'll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African-American Gospel Composers (Smithsonian Institution Press, cloth $49.95, paper $19.95) chronicles the history of gospel music as a worldwide phenomenon, edited by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Smithsonian curator and director of Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Rosey Grier's All-American Heroes: Today's Multicultural Success Stories (MasterMedia, $9.95) describes the football great's rise to fame with the Los Angeles Rams and also includes inspirational profiles of other successful Americans.