Abbey Lincoln's "Africa"
Kelley writes, “Singer-songwriter Abbey Lincoln tells us in her 1972 song “Africa,” a paean to the continent, the home she had been searching for, the “land of milk and honey.” She sings not about a lost past but a hopeful, glorious future; she sings of a deep longing for a place like Africa, for it was remembered and experienced as a world that kept us whole. Lincoln’s lyrics echo a massive body of literary, visual, musical, and political texts.” Lincoln portrays Africa as the promised land, construing it positively despite its past with slavery and colonization. The song is an assertion and appreciation of her blackness. She is absolutely optimistic about Africa’s magnificent and striking future.
Reconstruction
Kelley elucidates, "During Reconstruction, African Americans led the fight for free universal public education in the United States, not just for themselves but for everyone. After being barred from reading and writing while in bondage, newly freed people regarded education as one of the most basic rights and privileges of citizenship... In South Carolina, for example, freed people contributed nearly thirteen thousand dollars to keep twenty-three schools running, schools that had been established by the Freedmen's Bureau." Reconstruction focuses on education because it endows individuals with knowledge to increase their literacy and qualify them for jobs. The people's contribution to public school depicts the freed people’s hunger for knowledge. Manifestly, the abolition of schools was envisioned to disenfranchise the non-white people so they would be lowly for long.
“Black Feminism”
Kelley explains, “Radical black feminists not only struggled against race, class, and gender oppression, but also critically analyzed the racial ideologies underlying patriarchy and challenged mainstream feminist conceptions of woman as a universal category. It would also be a mistake to read radical black feminism as a negative response to black male sexism within the movement.” Accordingly, black feminism is all-encompassing because it rises above the notion of ‘identity politics.’ Black feminists focus on intersectional dynamics which affect various classes of people apart from black females. Focusing on wide-ranging issues that affect all humanity makes black feminism a pertinent movement in this epoch of postmodernism.
