• The Courage of Women •

      The courage of women moves me. This power only women have turned out to be the prime mover of my life, and for me, it was the words of women which raised me up and inspired me to have the courage to be a writer. One of the moments I felt this kindling was when my mother took me to see Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, a pivotal and moving episode in my life that remains with me still. This nurtured and encouraged my own creativity. The work of this successful woman of color, who shared her message with audiences all over the country, and later, all around the world, became the foundation upon which my personal creativity was developed. As I read and studied and learned more, I came to discover that a former African slave was one of the first women to be published in Colonial America. What courage there! But, it is not just women of color who bucked the tide of society and kept striving for all of us who came after, it is every woman who worked, both in and out of the house. Every women who marched for the vote, who rode the buses for civil rights and dared to sit in any seat. Every woman who didn’t listen when she was told she couldn’t do math or fly a plane or be an astronaut or a scientist or an athlete. Thank goodness these women didn’t listen to anyone but themselves. They listened to their own hearts. They heard a call to greatness and listened. It is all of us, flowing like a river and rising like the tide – unstoppable. So many of these women made hard choices and took a bet on the future, more for us than for themselves. They were largely overlooked and ignored by historians. And this is why I love books like this that bring forth those women who bravely forged our future. Bravo to great women!

      —Ntozake Shange, poet, novelist, performer, and playwright, who wrote the Broadway-produced and Obie Award-winning For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf