Reframing portraits of Black womanhood

Chapter Three considers the political, racial, and social crises plaguing the late 1960s by reading Soul Sister, Grace Halsell’s 1969 memoir. A freelance journalist and a White House staff writer for the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, Halsell was also a protégé of John Howard Griffin, who famously passed for black in 1959. While previous scholarship on Griffin has wrestled with his place as an enduring icon of racial empathy, this chapter details Griffin’s previously unknown mentorship of Halsell. Bolstered by extensive archival research, this chapter demonstrates how Halsell prepared for her performance of black womanhood by relying exclusively on Griffin’s instruction without any advice from black women. The chapter also situates Halsell’s blackness within important discussions around the contentious relationship between racial equality and 2nd wave feminism. Ultimately, Halsell’s six-months as a black woman in Harlem and Mississippi during the burgeoning black power movement ironically reveals grotesque assumptions about black sexuality, authenticity, and class.

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Sounds and Signs of Black Womanhood

10.1017/9781108773546.013 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 137-146

Author(s):

Meina Yates-Richard

Keyword(s):

Black Womanhood

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Raising the Bar

10.5622/illinois/9780252043482.003.0002 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 12-45

Author(s):

Cat M. Ariail

Keyword(s):

Gender Roles ◽

Black Woman ◽

Olympic Games ◽

Gold Medal ◽

American Identity ◽

Black Womanhood ◽

Traditional Gender Roles ◽

Ideal Image ◽

Sport Culture ◽

The Relationship

This chapter chronicles the international athletic experiences of Alice Coachman, the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, examining how her successes, especially at the 1948 Olympic Games, challenged the ideal image of American athleticism and, in turn, American identity. The relative invisibility of Coachman in the white sporting press indicates that she raised uncomfortable questions about race, gender, and American belonging. The interracial homecoming held in her hometown of Albany, Georgia, and a visit to Oval Office further expose how Coachman’s achievement required white America to rethink the relationship between race, gender, and American identity. While black sport culture lauded Coachman, they presented her as figure of black womanhood, reinforcing the centrality of traditional gender roles to ideal Americanness.

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