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PANTHEON of STELLAR WOMEN Graces VOICESVOICES An Occasional Newsletter of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Northern Iowa Vol. 5 no. 2 PANTHEON OF STELLAR WOMEN graces. On one occasion in 1857, Truth, whose given ith great anticipation, the staff of the Center for name was Isabella Baumfree, WMulticultural Education looks forward to the show, was accused of being male, Ain’t I a Woman, which is a chamber music theater produc- so she bared her breasts to tion rendered by the prove the complainant wrong. Core Ensemble, All of her adult life, Truth including a percus- was an advocate for the sionist (Dr. Michael abolition of slavery and racial Parola), pianist injustice, equality and equity (Hugh Hinton), and for women, and the nonvio- cellist (Tahira lent resolution of conflict. Whittington). The After the Civil War, she was actress, Taylore part of the reparations Mahogany Scott, movement—demanding that the U.S. government donate will play four land in the developing West to former slaves. She was a renowned women in U.S. history: Sojourner Truth, Zora sought-after peripatetic preacher at a time when women Neale Hurston, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Clementine Hunter. were oftentimes disallowed from speaking boldly in The Core Ensemble is not new to the University of public. Northern Iowa. The group first came to UNI to highlight In addition to honoring the life of Truth (1797- the period known as the Harlem Renaissance in Of Ebony 1883), Ain’t I a Woman lifts up the remarkable anthropo- Embers, with Akin Babatunde portraying the likes of poets logical career of novelist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Countee Cullen as Hurston (1903-1960) attended Howard University and well as the esteemed philosopher Alain Locke. Upon their earned her B.A. in anthropology from Barnard College return visit just a few years ago, the Core Ensemble put on (Columbia University) in 1928. Hurston’s first book, Tres Vidas, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, was published in 1934 during the which celebrates Harlem Renaissance to modest acclaim. The following the lives of three year, she completed Mules Latin American and Men, a look into voodoo women: Frida of the Florida and Louisiana Kahlo, a Mexican varieties. Her best praised painter; Rufina work by far, Their Eyes Were Amaya, a peasant Watching God, came onto the activist in El literary scene in 1937. This Salvador; and book interweaves social Argentinean poet, science and the writing craft; Alfonsina Storni. These two shows captured the intriguing it delves into the cultural stories of the historical figures being depicted, so much so style of blacks in the post- that it was never a matter of if they were coming back to bellum South. Hurston UNI, but simply when. performed research for Ain’t I a Woman, written by Kim Hines, conveys America’s premier anthro- the challenges of racial and gender prejudice and discrimi- pologist, Franz Boas, as well nation faced and triumphed over by four African American as assisted the Works Prog- women, who eventually left astounding and seemingly ress Administration with her ethnographic fieldwork on the inimitable legacies still worthy of celebrating today. The music and style of blacks. Hurston’s subsequent books, title of the performance emanates from a speech Sojourner such as Tell My Horse (1938), Moses, Man of the Mountain Truth gave at a Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), had lukewarm Ohio, during 1854. She boasted of her ability to do physi- to critical reviews, albeit Dust Tracks on a Road, her cal labor as well as a man and to be independent of a man’s autobiography of 1942, was a commercial success. Hurston VOICES 2 did not dwell on race relations, she harbored the notion that She was good with her hands, so she cooked, cleaned, and blacks could construct a separate panacea somewhat picked cotton in Louisiana for plantation owners. But she modeled after her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, i.e., the was also very creative—able to make quilts, curtains, and first incorporated black community in the United States. baskets as well as expressive dolls for After the Second World War, Hurston’s celebrity dimin- children. She had a lot of ingenuity and ished with the advent of the civil rights era. She was could utilize whatever was at her disposal opposed to the nonviolent revolutionary movement and to craft something unique, interesting, and wound up supporting rightwing politicians. Author Alice superior. Sometimes during the 1940s, Walker (The Color Purple) is attributed with resurrecting after she had entered her fifties, some Hurston’s work. paint was left on the plantation. Knowing One person firmly ensconced in the mesmerizing her artistic talents, a plantation warden miracle of the modern-day civil rights movement is Fannie encouraged her to put her creative genius to work. From Lou Hamer. Hamer was born into the Townsend family of then until her death, Hunter produced thousands of paint- sharecroppers in 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi, ings using a host of traditional and unheard of materials as during the ostracizing effects of Jim Crow segregation. Her her canvas. In uncanny, innovative, and matchless ways, farming family was threatened and humiliated and their she captured the saga of daily life on the plantation: from property vandalized and animals poisoned by white citizens field hands picking cotton to folks “getting happy” at a intent on bankrupting that household. As a young adult, worship service. she worked on a cotton plantation and fell in love with a A humble person, Hunter worked hard on the tractor driver, Perry Hamer, who worked on the agricultural plantation, and she often took work home with her. She estate. Hamer was literate and once that skill was discov- cared for a husband wracked with turmoil about his ered by others, she was summoned into service for white manhood; nevertheless, she made time to depict the bitter- landowners. Hamer knew firsthand the debilitating poverty sweet existence of African American plantation workers. found in African Americans communities in the rural South Where she lived while growing up, near and she dreamed of finding some way to exterminate racial Cloutierville, Louisiana, was caricatured oppression and improve the quality of life of black Missis- as the setting for Harriet Beecher sippians. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Hunter That day came in 1962 when she joined the youth- burned the midnight oil, after doing the ful Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). clothes washing and pressing, to hone This group of young males and females—some of whom her skills as a painter. Her work paid off were white from the North—were operating among the in June 1953 when she was featured in an grassroots to force local governments to register blacks to article for Look magazine. By the 1970s, vote. Two years later, she founded her paintings comprised numerous private collections and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic by the 1980s, they were part of traveling exhibitions. Her Party, which sought unsuccessfully to paintings were worth thousands of dollars—a far cry from be seated at the Democratic National her initial paintings selling for a mere 25 cents! Convention. She even ran for Hunter died in 1988, just shy of her 101st birthday. Congress, but because she was black, Always modest and unassuming, she once stated: “God puts she was not allowed to be placed on those pictures in my head, and I just puts them on the the ballot; this suppression did not deter her from winning canvas, like he wants me to.” more votes off the ballot than her opponent won on the Ain’t I a Woman will be showing at the Russell ballot! Early on in her civil rights work, she was badly Hall Auditorium on Tuesday, February 20, at 7:30 p.m. beaten, the aftereffect of which was her acquiring a The event is free and open to the public. Earlier in the day, perpetual limp. there will be a workshop about the show taking place in the Hamer could not tolerate seeing her people in the Center for Multicultural Education at 12:30 p.m. throes of gripping poverty, and she sought through a cooperative farming operation to prop up poor farmers by giving them the opportunity to purchase their own land. Photograph of Core Ensemble found at www.core- Hamer’s valiant efforts against racism put her in the ensemble.cc Photograph of Sojourner Truth, circa 1862 forefront of social activists regardless of race, gender, or Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston by Carl Van Vechten, 1938 physical ability. Hamer is noted for belting out “Go Tell It Photograph of Fannie Lou Hamer by Charmain Reading, on the Mountain” and for impassioned voice against n.d. injustice, declaring, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and Photographs of Clementine Hunter found at tired!” www.caneriverheritage.org Unlike Hamer, Clementine Hunter was illiterate. www.uni.edu/cme VOICES 3 OBAMA-MANIA Obama resolved to cam-paign for higher office. In 2004, he became the first U.S. senator of African descent since he staff of the Center for Multicultural Education the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877). Like his efforts Tsought to schedule a visit from Sena-tor Barack Obama to be bipartisan in the state senate, Obama sought to to the campus of the University of Northern Iowa as a transcend the backbiting and bickering that tend to mar the keynote speaker in tribute to black achievement in the political process by focusing on the dynamics of globaliza- United States. The month of Febru- tion, the necessity of col-laboration for constructive ary has been dubbed Black History change, and the embracement of ethics policies that do not Month since Negro History Week dismiss foul play.
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