Self, Other, and Jump Rope Community: the Triumphs of African American Women
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Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Fall 2007 Self, Other, and Jump Rope Community: The Triumphs of African American Women Wynnetta Ann Scott-Simmons Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Recommended Citation Scott-Simmons, Wynnetta Ann, "Self, Other, and Jump Rope Community: The Triumphs of African American Women" (2007). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 507. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/507 This dissertation (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SELF, OTHER, AND JUMP ROPE COMMUNITY: THE TRIUMPHS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN by WYNNETTA SCOTT-SIMMONS (Under the Direction of Ming Fang He) ABSTRACT Using Critical Race Theory, Critical Literacy, Black Feminist Thought as a theoretical framework and Oral History as research methodology, the lives of four young African American women are explored as they leave their culturally insular surroundings, “Jump Rope Communities”, to seek access to the codes of power and registers of language in all-White, all-girl, elite private schools during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In capturing the memories, perceptions, and lived experiences of these women over thirty years later, the journey into a world of divergences was explored--divergent language codes, divergent social, cultural, and economic stratifications, and divergent linguistic expectations, behaviors, and dispositions. The study focused on the motivational factors that prompted attendance at All-White, all-girl, private schools despite feelings of success within culturally segregated Jump Rope Communities. The resilience of spirit necessary to continue to move the race forward that is displayed by the African American female is also explored. The research includes an historical look into the benefits of and challenges of segregation, integration, resegregation, and the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the creation and continuance of Jump Rope Communities. Through a personal view of lived experience, the researcher took an inside look into the spirit of togetherness, the establishment of a unifying goal, and synergy that 1 exists among the Jump Rope community members. Various forms of literacy such as cultural literacy, family literacy, community literacy, music literacy, artistic literacy, historical literacy, and oral literacy were explored. In exploring these forms of literacy, the researcher calls for a recognition of cultural self, cultural voice, and cultural identity and an on-going effort to build a cultural community to prevent the loss of cultural and linguistic heritage. INDEX WORDS: Black Feminist Thought, Critical Race Theory, Oral History, African American Females, Integration, Segregation, Desegregation, Civil Rights, Literacy, Critical Literacy, Resiliency, Cultural Identity, Minority Community 2 SELF, OTHERS, AND JUMP ROPE COMMUNITY: THE TRIUMPHS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN by WYNNETTA SCOTT-SIMMONS B.S., Bennett College, 1982 M. S. Education, Mercer University, 2002 Ed. S. Education, Mercer University, 2003 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION STATESBORO, GEORGIA 2007 3 © 2007 Wynnetta Scott-Simmons All Rights Reserved 4 SELF, OTHERS, AND JUMP ROPE COMMUNITY: TRIUMPH OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN by WYNNETTA SCOTT-SIMMONS Major Professor: Ming Fang He Committee: Ming Fang He William Ayers Saundra Nettles John Weaver Electronic Version Approved: December 2007 5 DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my personal partners in education; to the people who provided such broad and strong shoulders upon which to cry and to stand so that my view of possibility lay before me unobstructed. To my first educators, Winfield and Bennetta Scott, they taught me the value of an education and its power to determine the course of your life. They expected me to make good on my share of the generational promise. To my segregated school house educators, Mrs. Ore, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Wiggins, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Strand who, in their ethic of care, dedication to excellence in teaching, expected excellence in learning. We jumped then to learn. We jump today to make you proud. For My People by Margaret Walker For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues and their jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power; For my people lending their strength to the years, to the gone years and the now years and the maybe years, washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching dragging along never gaining never reaping never knowing and never understanding. For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama backyards playing and baptizing and preaching and doctor and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss Choomby and company; For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn to know the reasons why and the answers to and the people who and the places where and the days when, in memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we were black and poor and small and different and nobody cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood. 6 For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to be Man and Woman, to laugh and dance and sing and play and drink their wine and religion and success, to marry their playmates and bear children and then die of consumption and anemia and lynching; For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy people filling the cabarets and taverns and other people's pockets needing bread and shoes and milk and land and money and something—something all our own; For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied and shackled and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures who tower over us omnisciently and laugh; For my people blundering and groping and floundering in the dark of churches and schools and clubs and societies, associations and councils and committees and conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches, preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by false prophet and holy believer. For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the face, all the adams and eves and their countless generations; Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirit and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control. 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The house does not rest upon the ground, but upon a woman. Mexican Proverb To be a woman of the Negro race in America, and to be able to grasp the deep significance of the possibilities of the crisis, is to have a heritage, it seems to me unique in the ages. Anna Julia Cooper, 1858 – 1964, Educator, Activist, Feminist, Scholar To my Special S’s: Steven, my safe harbor; Thank You for turning the ropes of our lives to match the pace and rhythm of my dream; Shayna and Sianna, the embodiment of our hope and possibility; Thank You for jumping in stride with my dream. Your support and encouragement helped the dream see the light of day. My thanks and recognition extends to my dissertation committee. To Ming Fang He, my incredible major professor, whose words of encouragement, guidance, and understanding helped me to find my own place between the ropes. Doctors Ayers, Nettles, and Weaver, my enders, who set the pace and the rhythm of this jump rope session by improvising through suggestion. – I will be eternally grateful to you all. To Estelle, Joanne, and Theresa – Thank You for once again deciding to inhabit memories of days long past and a past long in memory but short on preservation. Thank- You for allowing me the privilege of telling your stories and sharing your insights. In stirring up old messes our stories live on these pages. To Thelma – My research and road buddy. Thank you for your shoulder, suggestions, and encouragement to keep my eye on the road, my foot on the pedal. 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................8 PROLOGUE: INTRODUCTION TO TRIUMPHANT POTENTIAL ............................11 CHAPTER 1 LEARNING THE ROPES............................................................................16 Personal Jump Rope Game.......................................................................21 Jump Rope History ..................................................................................28