Putting Down Chapter One

Well, I got the introduction out of my system, for the most part. It's now one good revision away from going off to my chairs. On track to send it off by my 27th deadline--YEAH!! Need to step away from it for a couple days though so I'm off to work on Chapter Two.

I'm tired, but must get-it-done. The opening paragraphs to Chapter 2 are drafted. I woudl still like to find some type of a quote or anecdote to open the chapter. The purpose of the chapter is to give a survey of Black women's political rhetorics; the chapter does similar work to the introduction of another one of my favorite books--Shirley Logan's We Are Coming. My goal is to give an overview of the history, developments, and growing diversity of Black women's political expressions. Since my study is going to focus so narrowly on formal, elected politics, I think it is important to show that there is a diversity of political expressions by Black women that extend far beyond electoral politics and goes back much farther than the Voting Rights Act/civil rights movement. Sometimes when I read the literature, scholars paint this picture that Black people did not become politically active until the 1960s. So I want it to be clear in my work through this chapter that by no means did Black women's politics begin with Shirley Chisholm.

Chapter two will have four major sections. Tomorrow, I will tackle the first section, which gives an overview of Black women's rhetorics prior to emancipation. Since nineteenth-century rhetorics were my area of study for my MA, it will be fun to get back to writing about my first love.