Going Against the Grain

During the section called "Schools of Their Own" in the piece of literature Going Against the Grain, the history of how literacy was perceived was defined.  The article explains parts of the background of Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles and major contributions to Spelman College.  This part of the article then goes into detail about the successes of many of the first graduates of Spelman College.  It is interesting to know that even though the early graduates, after college, entered a world where the expectations were much lower than those of now, they succeeded in many ways.  Clara Howard was sent to Spelman College by her father, graduated from the college in 1887, and began her missionary work in Africa.  She excelled greatly in this way, but had to put her work on hold because of the scare of disease.  

As a young, black woman of the 21st century, I would love to experience even simply visiting Africa in some way or another.  There are a number of opportunities to do so, but Ms. Howard was brave enough to go against the bounds of her time and spread the word through her religious works.  

Another section called "Coming to Voice: Maria W. Stewart," explained the struggles of a widowed woman who toils with the loss of her husband, lacking financial stability, and discrimination of her time.  This section explains the inner-workings of a few of the well known abolitionists of the 1800s.  Ms. Steward attempts to stand alone while presenting issues of race and gender discrimination, but soon gets shunned.  The society around her did not see it place for a woman to be speaking out on the issues in absence of a man's help.
The compilation of all the different readings in this section provides a certain insight about different aspects of the time that sometimes gets overlooked.  It is necessary to see as many aspects as possible in order to get a more accurate view.  


-Jessica Robinson

Stuggling to Make the Grain into Butter

The section entitled Charlotte Forten and the Port Royal Commission in Jaqueline Royster's "Going Against the Grain" in my eyes starts an entirely new perspective on the struggles that Africans in America have faced. Of course throughout the entire piece, and in the many repetitive readings like it, the empowerment of us as African Americans and women especially is emphasized,  in focusing on how important literacy is. But being the type of person that I am, historical context as opposed to mere opinions sits better with me because I tend to think critically. Before telling the story of Charlotte Forten, Royster gives reference to the Civil War, and basically stresses that because we were still not equal in the eyes of our "superiors" (i.e. former slave owners), even after the Emancipation Proclamation, we now fought in the "crusade against slavery" to be seen as human beings. What caught my attention was the mention of the political side to the war, i.e. that it was once a battle for economic power over southern agricultural resources (though at the time African slaves were a "resource" themselves).   


Before the Emancipation Proclamation, yet during the heat of the war, a battle between the Union and Confederate soldiers took place on Hilton Head Island on November 7, 1861. The Union victory brought about more than a Confederate loss of southern ports, but more importantly a loss of "contraband". This "contraband", now belonging to the U.S. Treasury Department, consisted of 50 plantations worth of African men, women, and children; 10,000 newly freed people without housing, substinence, or the education necessary to  acquire these things on an alien planet. With this, the Port Royal Experiment uggested by Edward L. Pierce began, which provided government assistance to freed "contraband", or former enslaved persons. Also with this experiment, claims were to be made on land and critical resources lost after the battle as well. The jobs of missionaries during this time was to cultivate those African-Americans who were now free. And although northern missionaries did believe that Black people deserved freedom and educational opportunities, they still failed to see them as equal human beings. 


This was the part that got me. How were white northerners who had a sense of superiority embedded in them throughout the years of slavery (that technically were still continuous at the time) expected to "cultivate" and improve the lives of those who they had been previously taught to oppress and conquer? Though they were "passionately committed" to the cause of beginning the process of cultivation, they were still nevertheless White. In further reading this text, it became apparent to me that Charlotte Forten had the same views in mind. She understood what it meant to be dedicated to her people in times of hardship and mistreatment, and aside from her socioeconomic stature, she never forgot who or where she came from. 

Going Against the Grain

My grandma always said to me “you better get your lesson child!”  After reading “Literacy as a Mandate for Action” and “Literacy Opportunities after 1800” in Royster’s “Going Against the Grain”, I have a whole new appreciation for that saying.  It was prohibited to teach slaves how to read and write in efforts to keep them completely disconnected form the rest of the world.  When they were first granted their emancipation, “African Americans understood the implications of literacy and learning in political, economic, and social progress. Royster 123” The root of this idea seems to dwindle among our culture in that we no longer pay close attention to the crucial topics at hand thus displaying our lack of literacy in these areas.

When our ancestors were transported to the Americas from the homeland we embodied our own native language.  It’s not that we were illiterate we just didn’t know the popular literacy that was necessary at the time in order to advance.  There were those who believed that slaves should be educated.  Slaveholders believed that it would improve the efficiency of the slaves, while social reformers of the oppressed, and Christians believed in their education as well.  Those who did advocate for the education of African Americans also had a strong belief in that the education should be limited so to not give the slaves any type of power over them.

Literacy has its costs.  While we may yearn for the opportunity to become literate it truly depends on the content and context of that literacy.  Whites allowed the slaves some literacy in order to take them out of their so-called “barbaric ways” and convert them into Christians who know and understand the law and the language.  Whites did all they could to strip slaves of their own identities and literacies and forced them to become part of the newfound society completely extinguishing their native literacies.  These circumstances make you rethink the cost of literacy and whiter it’s worth the trouble.

Literacy is about expressing yourself in your own way, not about conforming or doing what is expected of you.  Go against the grain.  By the 19^th century there was a large group of literate African Americans where the ability to read was more developed than the ability to write.  How ironic that our oppressors are able to once again have control.  We have the ability to read their literature, but don’t have the necessary writing tools in order to give a response and our own opinion.

           Catherine Williams Ferguson a former slave formed her own religious educational school to help orphaned children.  It wasn’t until African Americans began to form their own schools did we have control over our literacies.  It’s important that we appreciate all that our ancestors have endured so that we may have the benefit of those literacies allowing us to express our true opinions.

Wood grows in a way that makes it easy to cut in one direction, the grain.  Going against the grain is when you go the difficult route and cut in the other direction.  It is going against the norm and in our case, developing literacy despite those who attempted to keep us uneducated and ignorant.

African American Women Going Against the Grain

In Jaqueline Royster's piece "Going Against the Grain", Royster describes the understandings of African American women from an early stage. Royster states, "Since the beginning of Africans' lives in the Americas, African American women have been encumbered by racist, sexist, class-bound ideologies" (109). She goes on to explain that these adversities lead to the rise of a fight for women to question and demand justice and power. African American women understood how life was in the United States, and also understood the power of literacy in changing this. I think that this understanding was important, because by fighting for their rights they were also fighting for the rights of all African Americans. I feel that it is refreshing to know that through out all of the abuse that was faced, African American women have played a big role in the demand for our rights since the very beginning.


Royster goes on to describe a "Spirit of Activism" (114) which was developed by black women. Women, such as Belinda and Lucy Terry, were showing resilience as they fought for their rights through the legal system and through literature. These women, among others, fought for their rights and set an example to others to do the same. Terry fought for her rights and took defeats, but did not give up. Eventually she was able to succeed, showing that it was possible for others to do the same as she lead by example.


I find that the fight by women for rights to be a crucial part of our progress from the days of slavery to now. Although women as a whole are not recognized as much as we deserve, we have been a large part of the movement. More commonly known women like Harriet Tubman are only a small fraction of the women of this time period to do the same thing. Roster describes that Benjamin Franklin "recognized the importance of standing up for principles, whether the effort results in immediate success or not" (121). Women like Lucy Terry who fought for their beliefs set examples for many others to do the same. Even her defeats helped us get where we are today in some way. This gives me the desire to stand up for what I believe and to fight for my rights. I feel that the work of these women who have come before us needs to be continued. We should understand where we come from, and use our literacy to continue to move us forward.

Response to "To Be Black, Female, and Literate: A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation

In the literature piece titled “To Be Black, Female, and Literate:  A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation, Leonie C. R. Smith lays out the struggles that have shaped her throughout her life.  Ms. Smith explains her many personal struggles starting with the loss of her mother at the age of five.  It seems to be a pattern in Ms. Smith life that results in her making realizations about herself and the world around her.  She undergoes many struggles that are typical in Black America mixed with much more personal issues that she had to cope with.


It was important that Leonie C. R. Smith explains the beginning of her life and the background of her family.  She has always been quick to make the necessary changes in her life in order to cope with those negative situations around her that she could not control.  The reader is able to understand that Leonie Smith is not, by any means, weak at heart or easy to give up on herself or her dreams.  Negativity shown in the beginning of the piece presented by the deceiving woman who wanted her grandmother’s land, simply sparked the unresting  determination in Ms. Smith and her family.  She was driven to be the best and succeed; this lets the reader know that in order for Ms. Smith to even be swayed by any such racism later in her life, it must have been outrageous.

Ms. Smith shares all aspects of the racism that was presented to her in her journey of success.  “The difference in learning styles and the context of my literacy education were never taken into account” (Dowdy, 189).  This part of the piece allows the reader to understand a major flaw in Ms. Smith’s education (and most educational systems) and its rigid structure and lack of accommodation.  In Ms. Smith’s life, if all else failed, as far as her issues with the students in school and self acclimation to her new school, she should have been able to display her educational talent in school.  This was not true because her intelligence was stifled by testing that limited the students to not take advantage of their various learning styles.


Finally in the literary piece, Ms. Smith leaves the reader with hope for her success to complete her Ph.D.  It is easy to see the change in the person that Ms. Smith became through her hardships during her educational process.  As she pressed forward, she was presented not only with new challenges, but with those that she had not ever experienced or ever knew existed.  This literary piece should be an inspiration to anyone who reads it and understands that life literacy comes through experience, trials, and tribulations.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION: 

Dowdy, Joanne Kilgore. Readers of the Quilt. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2005. 189. Print. 

[NOTE: Italicize "Readers of the Quilt"]

PARENTHETICAL CITATION: 

(Dowdy 189)

Black Women:: Black Literature

In Joanne K. Dowdy's piece which she entitles "Black Women/Black Literature", she conducts an interview with aWhite woman named Christina McVay, who happens to be an English professor in the department of Pan-African studies. In her interview, McVay proceeds by saying that she undertook this field of study and chose to teach in said field because of her grave interest in Black literature and culture itself. McVay had always been intrigued by other languages, particularly those she majored in during her undergraduate studies at Kent State University (German and Russian), but had found "Black English" to be quite interesting as well, because of the pieces of literature she had read conducted by Black women. She explained that while conducting her classes as a White woman in front of a Black class, she herself was a student at times, in that she took something from each students perspective. When comparing her teachings done in these Black literary classes to that of her White classes, in fact, McVay says that her White english classes are "boring" and "deadly dull". Christina McVay finishes her discussion on her outlook on teaching English in the Pan -African department by saying that every morning, she wakes up knowing that she is "going to do something all day long that [she] enjoys"

In reverting back to the piece "To Protect and Serve": African American Female Literacies by Elaine Richardson, Black women are, by nature, nurturing and protective beings who seek knowledge, with which they attempt to share with those of their culture. These qualities are what Christina McVay witnessed during her teachings and studies of Black female literature. What mainly stood out to me among many enlightening thoughts conjured up by McVay was the line that read "...I've learned to respect our elders instead of worshipping youth, to respect our past and tradition instead of being obsessed with the future and the idea of progress." These are the values that we as black people, and Black women especially, should continue to hold dear to us, and share with those of different genders and races alike. With that in mind, we should also hold dear our "Blackness" as McVay calls it. With this, I mean that terms others describe as slang and "Black English" should not be forgotten, and should be valued because in it holds culture and tradition. Of course one should know when the appropriate time of usage is, which is obviously not in an English essay or college paper, but amongst like minded people who comprehend the dialect and feel a relation to your thoughts without having to depict them as simply slang. The literature of Black people in general along with the way it is comprehended by the world will forever be a debated, criticized and judged, however it is up to those of the Black community to make these discussions positive.