Africana Man/Woman/Child: In It Together
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Positive/Negative Male-Female/Relationships*
1. Love
2. Friendship
3. Trust
4. Fidelity
5. Truth
6. Mutual Respect
7. Support
8. Humility
9. Enjoyment
10. Compassion
11. Sharing/Caring
12. Complimentary
13. Security
14. Interdependence
15. Spirituality
Contempt
Rivalry
Distrust
Infidelity
Deception
Disrespect
Neglect
Arrogance
Mean-Spiritedness
Callousness
Selfish/Egotism
Negative Criticism
Insecurity
Dependence
Non-Spirituality
*From Africana Womanism & Race & Gender in the Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama ,
with explication, and Africana Womanist Literary Theory, with explication.
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Africana Womanism Society Topics:
1. Spirituality: With God in Front, Hand in Hand, We Will Survive
2. Africana Womanism: Prioritization of Race, Class and Gender: Not a Feminist Thing
3. Authenticity: Reclaiming Africana Womanist Writings in the Academy
4. Africana Womanism: Mothering and Nurturing without Apology
5. Barack Hussein Obama and Michelle Obama: Reciprocity & Collective Potential
6. Parental and Racial Empowerment: Assuming Ultimate Responsibility
7. From Emmett Till to the Katrina Disaster to Haiti: The Race Factor in the Media
8. Family Centrality: In It Together in Combating Societal Ills
9.
Africana Male-Female Relationships: Making Them Work
10. Genuine Sisterhood or Lack Thereof
11. The Africana Womanist as Health Nurturer: Natural Cures & Preventions
12. Naming and Defining Ourselves: Against De-womanization/De-feminization/Dehumanization
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Africana Womanism Signature Poem
*****Dedicated to All Africana Womanists*****
Africana Womanism: “I Got Your Back, Boo”
Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems ***
Don’t you know by now, girl, we’re all in it together;
Family-Centrality—that’s it; we’re going nowhere without the other.
That means the men, the women, and children, too,
Truly collectively working-- “I got your back, Boo.”
Racism means the violation of our constitutional rights,
Which frees us from on-going legal and even physical fights.
This 1st priority for humankind is doing what it must do,
Echoing our 1st lady, Michelle--“I got your back, Boo.”
Classism is the hoarding of financial privileges,
Privileges we must all have now in pursuit of happiness.
Without a piece of the financial pie, we’re doomed to have a coup,
Remember, each must protect the other--“I got your back, Boo.”
Sexism, the final abominable sin of female subjugation,
Is a battle we must wage right now to restore our family relations.
All forms of sin fall under one of these three offenses--racism/classism/sexism.
Africana Womanism--“I got your back, Boo”--corrects our common senses.
April 19, 2009—for Africana Womanism Society Summit Attendees
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Message from Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems, President & CEO, Africana Womanism Society &
Conceptualizer of Africana Womanism ***
The 1st National Africana Womanism Society Summit, April 21-22, 2009 in Pittsburgh,,
represents the continuing growth and development of Africana Womanism, further advancing
its presence outside Academe, where it has resided for over two decades. While interdisciplinary
research on the subject and invitations for me to speak on it globally support the theoretical
premise, its applicability to our every day lives in the world place clearly validates its relevancy.
Dr. Delores P. Aldridge, Grace T. Hamilton Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies
at Emory U, is one of the leading Africana Womanist scholars, having endorsed AW theory with
jacket blurbs and a Forward, as well as promoting it in her books and articles. She has
communicated its urgency, necessity and usefulness as an authentic tool of analysis, which has
also been documented by other AW publications (books, chapters, articles, etc) dating back to
the 1980s. As we continue our debates on critical issues relative to Black life globally, we place
up front our quest for workable solutions to those problems confronting our current and future
survival. This year, we will launch a major resource tool—The Africana Womanism and Male
Journal--with articles by and for our world conscious thinkers, as we continue to mentor our
people and our leaders of tomorrow. The Premier Issue, which will maintain guest status at host
institution(s) until its permanent home is identified, will be released this Fall 2010, consisting of
papers from the 1st & 2nd AW Annual Summits. Subsequent issues will include select AW
Summit papers.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Former Chair of Africana Studies at California
State University-Long Beach, was the first to suggest in the 1990s that I develop and host a
national Africana Womanism Conference, which took some time, but it did ultimately come to
fruition. In Addressing our critical concerns globally, we will pick up where we left off in 2004,
with the Inauguration of the Africana Womanism Charter Chapter in Pittsburgh, with my
initiative, along with Aubrey Bruce and his late wife, Jennifer Hinsey Bruce. That event evolved
later in the 1st Africana Womanism Summit (2009), which I organized, along with Aubrey and
Pastor Eileen Robinson. Many burning topics were debated then and now, we witness a
continuum. Among today’s burning issues for debate include the role of Africana women and
men in a concerted mission to remove the wedge between them, which has divided our families.
As our children are our future, we will continue to focus on them, as highlighted by the Africana
Womanism Girls Society, Young Girls of the Africana Diaspora, launched last year. These preteen/teen-age budding Africana Womanists of character constitute the flip side of the malefemale coin, which command our commitment to properly preparing them for conscious
responsibility and accountability. The Emmett Till Murder Case, the Katrina Disaster and Haiti
are additional hot topics for debate relative to the global plight of our people.
The time is NOW! Welcome to an event of a lifetime, indeed, a rendezvous with our
mission and destiny. Let’s reclaim, reexamine and reincorporate our rich legacy of collectivity,
leadership, integrity and accountability. WE CAN NOT AFFORD TO WAIT!
“Sankofa!”--Go back and fetch the lessons of our past!
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The Africana Womanism and Male Journal
Volume 1, Number 1--Fall 2010
Managing Editor
Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems, UMC
Editorial Assistant (Journal home base personnel)
Journal Coordinator (Journal home base personnel)
Editorial Board
Dr. Delores P. Aldridge
Emory University
Dr. Molefe Kete Asante
Temple University
Dr. Mark Christian
Miami University-Hamilton
Dr. Annette Ivory Dunzo
Howard University
Dr. LaRese Neferet Hubbard
Cal State U-Long Beach
Dr. Maulana Karenga
Cal State U-LB
Dr. Daphne W. Ntiri
Wayne State University
Dr. Pamela D. Reed
Virginia State U
Dr. Anne Steiner
Central State U (Emerita)
Dr. Barbara Wheeler
Kean University
Advisory Board
Aubrey Bruce
Pro Football Writer of America; Senior Sports Ed., New Pittsburgh Courier
Atty. Alvin O. Chambliss, Jr.
Last Original Civil Rights Atty. in America; 2006 Charles Hamilton Houston Chair,
NCCU School of Law
Paula Peebles
Original Program Coordinator, Million Women March/ Chair, Phila Chap, National
Action Network
Lillian Smith
Pres/CEO, L. S. Production; Former Executive Producer, DONAHUE
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The Africana Man, Woman and Child: In It Together
Articles
Naming and Defining Ourselves: Against
De-womanization/De-feminization/
De-humanization
Clenora Hudson-Weems
Africana Womanism and African Proverbs:
Theoretical Grounding of Mothering/
Motherhood in African Culture
Itai Muwati, Zifikile
Mguni-Gambahaya,
Tavengwa Gwekwerere
The End of Feminism II: The Dogma
of Racial Normativity in Black Feminism—
The Africana Womanist Alternative
Tommy J. Curry
Reclaiming Africana Womanists in Academe
Linda Johnson-Burgess
The Importance of Maintaining Generational
Coherence thru Africana Womanist Lineage
Alysia Logan
African Male Perspectives on Africana Womanism
KwameBotweAsamoah
Love the Women in the Movement: They Keep
the Dream Alive
Alveda King
The Global Mission--The Two in Concert:
An Africana Womanist Principle
Ama Mazama
Healthy Relationships between Men & Women:
Unconditional Love
Tiffanydenise
Book Reviews
Africana Womanism & Race & Gender in the
Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama
Pamala D. Reed
AW&R&GPCBO
Mark Christian
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In Celebration of Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems’ Africana Womanism
By: Dr. Pamela D. Reed, dedicated to The Africana Womanism & Male Journal
Much is said and written about Africana Womanism, but many do not know the historical
backstory that inspired its creation. Exactly what prompted Hudson-Weems to walk into the
firing line of the formidable feminist lobby that dominates the American body politic—and the
Academy? A brief look back is now in order.
As far back as 1851, when Sojourner Truth delivered her groundbreaking “Ain’t I a
Woman?” speech at the Akron Women’s Convention, non-White women have pointed out the
cultural and class limitations of feminism, then in its earliest stage, commonly referred to as
“First-Wave Feminism.” At this time, the primary foci of women’s rights efforts were universal
suffrage, the right to own property, and ending “chattel” marriage—wherein women and
children were the “property” of married men.
Of course, the early feminist movement of the 18th and early 19th centuries was necessarily
focused on White, middle class women, since no other race of people had any rights under
American law—particularly African Americans, who were initially enslaved and later subjected
to the state-sanctioned system of segregation and discrimination called Jim Crow.
Not to
mention Native Americans.
Since Truth—one of the earliest forebears of Africana Womanism—women of various
cultural backgrounds have followed suit, carving out their own versions of feminism. Hence, we
have Black Feminism, Chicana Feminism, Jewish Feminism, Latina Feminism, Native American
Feminism, African Feminism, French Feminism, Asian-American Feminism, Women of Color
Feminism, so-called Third World Feminism, etc.
But perhaps nothing has challenged the
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primacy of feminism like the theory of Africana Womanism, as espoused by Dr. Clenora
Hudson-Weems of UMC.
As the editors of the classic collection Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the
African American Literary Tradition (1997) note, the release of the theory of Africana
Womanism in the mid-1980s, and its further explication in 1993, with the publication of HudsonWeems’ seminal work, Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves, “launched a new critical
discourse in the Black Woman's Literary Movement.”
Africana Womanism states that history and culture demand that Black women not be
feminists, focused solely on gender issues such as female empowerment, “but rather Africana
Womanists who prioritize race, class and gender in a collective liberation struggle with the entire
Africana family, men included, for race empowerment.”
This tension between gender and race played out in full view of the world in 2008 during
the Democratic presidential campaigns of then Senators Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary
Clinton, which is the subject of Hudson-Weems’ latest project [book], Africana Womanism &
Race & Gender in the Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama.
Another often overlooked challenge confronting today’s feminism is that of the generation
gap. Plainly put, many of today’s young women are, to borrow a phrase, just “not that into”
feminism. Moreover, in retrospect, many now view the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s—
which has come to define the movement—as a failed experiment. I could not agree more.
And for her keen insight and tireless work toward repairing the damage and
strengthening the Black family unit, the entire Africana world owes a debt of gratitude to our
sister, Dr. Clenora Hudson Weems. Long live Africana Womanism … and its progenitor!
(Adapted from “Feminism at the Crossroads,” May 2009, in Insight into Diversity, formerly the Affirmative
Action Register).
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