The Africana Womanism Journal

Volume 1, Number 1--Fall 2010

Dedicated to my Graduate School Mentors, Dr. Richard K. Barksdale & Lucy Grigsby

Managing Editor

Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems, UMC

Editorial Assistant (Journal home base personnel)

Journal Coordinator (Journal home base personnel)

Editorial Board

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante Dr. Mark Christian

Temple University Miami University of Ohio

Dr. Annette Ivory Dunzo Dr. LaRese Neferet Hubbard

Howard University Cal State U-Long Beach

Dr. Maulana Karenga Dr. Itai Muwati

Cal State U-Long Beach University of Zimbabwe

Dr. Daphne W. Ntiri Dr. Pamela D. Reed

Wayne State University Virginia State University

Dr. Anne Steiner Dr. Barbara Wheeler

Central State University (Emerita) Kean University

Advisory Board

Atty. Alvin O. Chambliss Jr. Dr. Alveda King, Politician, Activist

Last Original Civil Rights Attorney in America Niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2006 Charles Hamilton Houston Chair, NCCU Founder, King for America; Former

School of Law Georgia State Representative

Tavengwa Gwekwerer, Professor Daisy Lafond, Former Publisher, Voice Magazine

University of Zimbabwe Columnist for The Virgin Island Daily News

Dr. Zifikile Mguni-Gambahaya, Prof, U of Zimbabwe Dr. William E. Nelson, Jr., Prof. Emeritus

Chair, The Council of Africana Womanism African/African American Studies, Ohio State U

Paula Peebles, Original Prog Coordinator, Million Vicki Salter,, Former Publicity Dir, Essence

Women March; Phila Chair--Nat’l Action Network Magazine & Black Enterprise, DE Entrepreneur

Roxie Smiley-Carter, Educator and Entrepreneur Lillian Smith, President/CEO, LS Production

President, Dover, DE Chapter--NAACP Former Executive Producer, DONAHUE

The Africana Man, Woman and Child: In It Together

Articles

Naming/Defining Ourselves outside of Clenora Hudson-Weems,

De-womanization, De-feminization, Professor/Author

De-humanization

Africana Womanism and African Proverbs: Itai Muwat—U of

Theoretical Grounding of Mothering/Motherhood Zimbabwe, Chair, AS;

In Shona and Ndebele Cultural Discourse Zifikile Mguni-

Gambahaya;

Tavengwa Gwekwerer

The End of Feminism II: The Dogma of Tommy J. Curry,, Post Doctoral

Racial Normativity in Black Feminism— Fellow, Africana Research Center,

The Africana Womanist Alternative Penn State U

Reclaiming Africana Womanist Writings in Academe Linda Johnson-Burgess

Assist Professor, TSU

The Importance of Maintaining Generational Alysia Logan, Author--

Coherence thru Africana Womanist Lineage Drama High Series

African Male Perspectives on Africana Womanism Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, Assoc. Prof, U of Pittsburgh

The Global Mission--The Two in Concert: Ama Mazama, Author,

An Africana Womanist Principle Assoc. Professor, Temple U

Healthy Relationships between Men & Women: Tiffanydenise, Author,

Unconditional Love Free Lance Writer (NY)

Africana Womanism for the 21st Century Mark Christian, Author, Professor, Miami U of Ohio

Barack H. Obama: The Question of Blackness & Power Pamela D. Reed, Assoc. Professor, VA State U; Columnist

Book Review

Africana Womanism & Race & Gender in the

Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama


Message from Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems, President & CEO, The Council of Africana Womanism, Reclaiming Ourselves & Conceptualizer of Africana Womanism ***

The Council of Africana Womanism, Reclaiming Ourselves) represents the continuing growth and development of Africana Womanism (AW), further advancing its presence outside Academe, where it has resided for well 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 Africana Womanism 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 Africana Womanism 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 momentous year, we will launch a major resource tool—The Africana Womanism, Reclaiming Ourselves 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 Africana Womanism Annual Summits held in the U.S in 2009 and 2010. Subsequent issues will include select papers from this years Conference and future Conferences for The Council of Africana Womanism. During the Opening Reception of this 1st Council of Africana Womanism Conference, the University of Zimbabwe Chapter will be officially launched.

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.

That said, it is clear that 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 WILL NOT WAIT!

“Sankofa!”--Go back and fetch the lessons of our past!

On the viability and launching of “The Africana Womanism Journal”

The first African American woman intellectual to formulate a position on Africana womanism was Clenora Hudson-Weems, author of the 1993 groundbreaking study Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Taking a strong position that black women should not pattern their liberation after Eurocentric feminism but after the historic and triumphant woman of African descent, Hudson-Weems has launched a new critical discourse in the Black Women’s Literary Movement. (Patricia Liggins Hill, ed, Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition, 1811)

The fact of the matter is that Africana Womanism is a response to the need for collective definition and the re-creation of the authentic agenda that is the birthright of every living person. . . . It is the African woman’s own voice emerging from the debris of a vast cultural wasteland in the Western world. Having been the victims of so much brutality in the West, the African woman, in all of her guises, comes now to the forefront of the struggle for centeredness. (Molefi Kete Asante, Afterword for Hudson-Weems’Africana Womanist Literary Theory, 138)

Africana Womanism as a theory is characterized by affirmation and engagement. Distinct from feminism, black feminism, and womanism in its insistence on family-centeredness and prioritizing the triple plight of Africana women in order of race, class, and gender, it ultimately seeks to unite the Africana woman and man in the struggle for human survival. (Adele S. Newson-Horst, Contemporary Africiana Theory, Thought & Action: A Guide to Africana Studies, 362)