A Site For People Who Value Independent Black Women Who Need Equality Without Sameness, along with Interdependence, Reciprocation, and Respect From Those That Love Them In Order To Thrive....
Black American Women have always been feminists. It's just that they were called "having an attitude" instead of "feminists"
...On the women’s page of the Negro World,black women activists articulated the position Sojourner Truth had emphasized so many years earlier: the struggle for women’s rights cannot be divorced from the struggle for civil and human rights. Following the ratification of the nineteenth amendment in August 1920, the Jamaican black nationalist Amy Jacques Garvey praised the amendment for expanding opportunities for women in the public sphere. She was not oblivious to its limitations especially as it pertained to black women in the United States. But, [Harvey] saw it as a source of inspiration and a step towards greater liberation for all women.
In [Harvey's] writings during this period, she often drew comparisons to white feminist movements in her efforts to encourage black women to push harder in the fight for their liberation and the liberation of other people of color.
“White women are rallying all their forces,” she argued, “and [they are] uniting regardless of national boundaries to save their race from destruction and preserve its ideals for posterity.” “We see them in the law courts pleading as advocates; they preside as judges and administer laws; while in less numbers, yet they are to be seen in parliaments, congresses and council chambers legislating for their people.” “Be not discouraged black women of the world,” she added, “but push forward, regardless of the lack of appreciation shown [to] you. A race must be saved, a country must be redeemed….”
16- Nina Simone: "What Happened, Miss Simone?" (Netflix) I had already put the "Strong Black Woman" stereotype away as far as being something I aspired to. But this really put the nails in Strong Black Woman's coffin for me. I highly recommend watching this one. 17- Ruby McCollum: "You Belong To Me" (Amazon Prime) Though this documentary is far from perfect. I might buy it to add to my black history collection.
McCollum's story takes place during a period not talked about too much in Black History books except for the Black Renaissance. But it would have been better if black women had total control of producing it. I stopped and started it a few times to make sure I had a full picture of what was happening during the police investigation. However, you'll get the full picture of what happened after this black woman killed a white doctor in a southern town in the 1950s if you know your black history and can read between the lines. You'll also have a better understanding of what black women were/are going through between the end of slavery to the end of The Civil Rights Movement and beyond. McCollum's son speaks about his mother, in very sexist terms, at the very end of the documentary. But his attempt to defend (the white doctor or his father or men in general) doesn't take away from the story that's told. (Last seen on Amazon Prime) 18- Fannie Lou Hamer - "This Little Light Of Mine" (???) (I've seen a very short documentary on Hamer. I'm pretty sure this is not it. It looks like it's been praised quite a bit and is being sold to schools. If your kid says they're showing it at their school, make sure you go "visit" that day because it's expensive if it's not on Netflix or Hulu.) 19- "All Jokes Aside: Black Women In Comedy" (New From VH1)
"Ever since Venus and Serena Williams started playing in tennis tournaments, they've provoked strong reactions - from awe and admiration to suspicion and resentment. They've been winning championships for over a decade, pushing the limits of longevity in such a demanding sport. How long can they last? In Venus & Serena, we gain unprecedented access into their lives during the most intimidating year of their career. Over the course of 2011, Venus grappled with an energy-sapping autoimmune disease while Serena battled back from a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. Neither Venus nor Serena let their adversities hold them back. They drew their greatest strength from each other."
There are no known images of Sally Hemings
This is what someone imagined she looked like Source: pinterest
"Sally Hemings, born in 1773 in Virginia, worked on the Monticello plantation of Thomas Jefferson. She was a nursemaid to his daughter Mary and traveled with the family to Paris. Though it was rumored that she had several children with Jefferson, both the family and [white] historians denied the claim. "
"The claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, a slave at Monticello, entered the public arena during Jefferson's first term as president, and it has remained a subject of discussion and disagreement for two centuries."
"Based on documentary, scientific, statistical, and oral history evidence, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF) Research Committee Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (January 2000) remains the most comprehensive analysis of this historical topic. Ten years later, TJF and most historians believe that, years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson [became] the father of the six children...[Sally Hemings is recorded as having given birth to] including Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings.
Historical Background
In September 1802, political journalist James T. Callender, a disaffected former ally of Jefferson, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years "kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves." "Her name is Sally," Callender continued, adding that Jefferson had "several children" by her..."
"Jefferson traveled to Paris in 1784 to serve as the American minister to France. He took his eldest daughter, also named Martha, with him, while his two younger daughters, Mary and Lucy, stayed with their relatives, as did Hemings. After Lucy Jefferson died of whooping cough, Jefferson called Mary to Paris in the summer of 1787. The 14-year-old Hemings came with her. Hemings spent the next two years living with the Jeffersons in Paris, along with her brother, James, who served as Jefferson's personal servant. There is strong evidence to suggest that during this time, Jefferson and Hemings began a sexual relationship..."
A 14 year old girl who is owned by a forty-plus old white man cannot "begin a sexual relationship" with someone who owns her. I'd argue that a 40 year old slave cannot "begin a sexual relationship." Both of those relationships are rape because the slave has no choice. And raping a 14 year old makes Jefferson a pedophile or something one half step a way from being a pedophile. Some will argue that "women got married younger back then" The lack of consent aside, I've traced my family's history and the women consistently got married between 19 and 21 years of age. It's amazing how consistent my family's history is on my mother and my father's side.
Jefferson raped a child. Period. When white historians lie and shade history in their own favor they make movies where Sally is a curvy woman seducing her master.
This is a still from the movie JEFFERSON IN PARIS.
The black female stereotype in white imaginations everywhere has the black girl as overly overtly and overly sexual from a young age -- as compared to innocent white girls. For centuries this has made it easier for white historians to believe a man can own a woman and still have the relationship be consensual enough to call it "an affair." In 12 YEARS A SLAVE, a black filmmaker makes sure that there are two realistic depictions of black women "voluntarily" having sexual relations with white men in the film.
One of the stories in the movie is about a woman who slept with her white master and kept him happy to save her own life and eventually her children's lives -- which worked until he died. In the movie, we meet her after she's been sold as a result of his death. Her children are taken away and sold elsewhere.
The other black woman, played by Alfre Woodard, smiles at the white owner has pleasant sex with her in exchange for dressing her in fine linens and letting her sit pretty and drink tea on the porch while he works. This black woman tells Lupita N'yongo's character that there's a special place in hell for all the white slave owners -- because the filmmaker has this character recognizing herself as raped.
We'll never know how a 14 year old girl like Hemings responded to being forcibly raped or blackmail raped or seduced-by-owner rape. The thing we do know is that the white washing of history has left Thomas Jefferson as one of those superior caliber white men in the minds of white people. And anything that white historians add to white supremacy is deadly for black and brown people. Donald Trump riding a wave of white supremacy into the White House along with the subsequent rise in hate crimes is proof of this.
Previously unpublished data by the university’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism show that hate crimes in at least six major urban centers, including New York City, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, registered double-digit increases last year.
Among them:
New York City notched an uptick of 24 percent in hate crimes, the highest in over a decade.
New York state had an increase of 20 percent.
Chicago saw a rise of 24 percent, the highest since at least 2010.
Cincinnati, Ohio, saw hate crimes jump by 38 percent.
Columbus, Ohio, reported an increase of nearly 10 percent.
Montgomery County in Maryland, adjacent to the nation’s capital, had an increase of more than 42 percent.
Seattle, Washington, registered an increase of 6 percent in malicious harassment.
Yeah, history means "his story." The victor (dominate-er) gets to frame the narrative more often than not. But sometimes a lie is a lie is a lie when someone is deliberately white washing history.
Read the fine print.This movie is about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
And the full title says, "Sally Hemings An American Love Story."
And then below the title, "Bound By Slavery Freed By Love"
This DVD/Movie cover doesn't just reflect a lie being told about Sally Hemings. The white history articles and white history books and white history movies mentioned above reflect the widespread lies that white people have been telling themselves about the horrors of slavery for centuries. This movie SALLY HEMINGS AN AMERICAN LOVE STORY has 4.5 stars out of 5 star rating and is being sold on Amazon.com right now. White people are still telling themselves that white supremacy and slavery was not the horror that it was.
Make no mistake, the cotton was being picked in the south, being processed into material in the north, and sold to Britain. All of the white people in these areas benefited greatly from slavery. American and British capitalism and wealth was built on slavery. We are all benefiting from it to this day (some more than others) That's why so many white people are STILL very invested in making slavery look less horrible than it was.
It's ridiculous that www.biography.com and monticello.org have romance language or white-washy neutral arrangement of language that hides the fact that Jefferson in Paris at 44 years of age while Hemings was 14 when he sent for Hemings (his wife's half sister) the in the very same year his wife died. There's no romance here or anywhere there's ownership of a black girl child --- depicted as grown woman in white movie after white movie and a white history book near you. Bottom Line: Your history source always matters.
Furthermore,
the personal history of your historian matters
which includes that person's
race, ethnicity, and gender.
Some historians try to overcome their personal history and some do not. White people have a crappy record of refusing to overcome their personal histories in an attempt to tell an accurate history. Furthermore, many white historians cannot separate the description "American" from description "white people" when writing about history which is another discussion altogether. Black people, brown people, and especially white people should read about black history written by black people. You should always read a people's history from one of it's own. When that's not possible, make sure to check and double check what's being said by getting multiple sources....and even then find a source of history from the same demographic that's being reported about. When you get down to wanting to know about black women specifically, refine your sources even more. Read about black women's history as written by black women. Because male supremacy is real too, inside and outside the black community. I learned all kinds of things about Martin Luther King, SNCC, and Marcus Garvey's wife Amy Garvey that I'd never heard before thanks to the writings of black women. * * * * *
Drusilla Dunjee Houston spent her life fighting against the efforts of white supremacists to hide and discredit the history of Africa and those of African descent. There were two events in the year 1915 that called Houston to this mission - her brother, Roscoe Dunjee, founded the Black Dispatch newspaper in Oklahoma, and W.E.B. Du Bois published his book 'The Negro,' which took aim at the racist belief that African peoples had no history to speak of.
Inspired to action, Houston took on the role of contributing editor for her brother's newspaper, where she served for many years. She also founded two new schools for women and girls in McAlester and Sapulpa, Oklahoma, intent on giving educational opportunities to those who had long been denied them. Her own scholarly work focused on the Cushite civilization, a powerful empire that thrived for thousands of years in the ancient world near the site of modern-day Sudan.
At his interview with The HistoryMakers, scholar and HistoryMaker Jacob H. Carruthers, Jr. was kind enough to share a quote from Houston that he treasures. It goes as follows: "Lift up your heads, downtrodden and discouraged Ethiopians, and listen to this marvelous story told of your ancestors who wrought mightily for mankind and built the foundations of civilization true and square in days of old."
In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first African American aviator with an international pilot's license in the United States. She was licensed in France.
images: Bougie Black Girl and wikipedia
Bessie Coleman heard stories from pilots returning home from World War I about [black men] flying during the war. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman.
So, Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad. Coleman received financial backing from a banker named Jesse Binga[6] and the Defender and went to France where she got her international pilots license.
Over the next five years Coleman performed at countless air shows. The first took place on September 3, 1922, in Garden City, Long Island. The "Chicago Defender" publicized the event saying the "wonderful little woman" Bessie Coleman would do "heart thrilling stunts."
She announced her intent to start a flying school for African Americans, and began recruiting students for that future venture. She started a beauty shop in Florida to help raise funds. She also regularly lectured at schools and churches.
Bessie Coleman landed a movie role, but walked away when she realized that the depiction of her as a black woman would be as a stereotypical "Uncle Tom." Those of her backers who were in the entertainment industry in turn walked away from supporting her career.
(I haven't been able to find a reference lately. She had a hard time getting black men to train her to fly too. Sexism is real in the black community...in ways it seems like it wasn't during slavery and the day immediately following. Read Black Women's History written by black women when you can. Black feminists also cover a lot of black history in their texts.)
"Zora Neale Hurston knew how to make an entrance. On May 1, 1925, at a literary awards dinner sponsored by Opportunity magazine, the earthy Harlem newcomer turned heads and raised eyebrows as she claimed four awards: a second-place fiction prize for her short story "Spunk," a second-place award in drama for her play Color Struck, and two honorable mentions.
The names of the writers who beat out Hurston for first place that night would soon be forgotten. But the name of the second-place winner buzzed on tongues all night, and for days and years to come. Lest anyone forget her, Hurston made a wholly memorable entrance at a party following the awards dinner. She strode into the room--jammed with writers and arts patrons, black and white--and flung a long, richly colored scarf around her neck with dramatic flourish as she bellowed a reminder of the title of her winning play: "Colooooooor Struuckkkk!" Her exultant entrance literally stopped the party for a moment, just as she had intended. In this way, Hurston made it known that a bright and powerful presence had arrived. By all accounts, Zora Neale Hurston could walk into a roomful of strangers and, a few minutes and a few stories later, leave them so completely charmed that they often found themselves offering to help her in any way they could.
Gamely accepting such offers--and employing her own talent and scrappiness--Hurston became the most successful and most significant black woman writer of the first half of the 20th century. Over a career that spanned more than 30 years, she published four novels, two books of folklore, an autobiography, numerous short stories, and several essays, articles and plays." "
And we wouldn't know who she was if Alice Walker hadn't dug her work up and started having it redistributed to the masses (us).
* * * * *
Most days I am sure I would have loved to have had Zora Neale Hurston as a friend.
There are other times when I'm not quite sure.
“I am not tragically colored.
There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.
Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less.
No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
The thing I am sure of is that I probably never would have left her presence without something worthwhile to think about and consider. She was uniquely herself in so many ways no matter what anybody else thought.
That makes her great all by itself. If you haven't read her book "Their Eyes Were Watching God," you're missing a major piece of your education. This book is a classic of Black American Literature.
As you may or may not know, first wave feminism officially began for white women in 1848 at a meeting in Seneca Falls, NY
However, Maria Stewart, a black woman, was the first American woman to address women's rights in public in 1832 -- not Lucretia Mott, not Elizabeth Cady Stanton. And Frederick Douglass became the first American man to address women's rights a few years after that.
That's right. Feminism began among black women before white women in the U.S. And this makes perfect sense. Black women and black men had to do what they had to do regardless of fashionable gender roles -- when we were first brought here.
There are posts on this blog that cover this same information in a lot more detail, a lot of it from the book "When and Where We Enter." But if you can put up with a perky white woman giving laying out some black women's history, you'll get a thumbnail sketch of the true black origins of American feminism a lot more quickly.
Hidden Figures Barbie Dolls don't exist yet. But they should.
An instagram account called "A DOLL'S WORLD AFTER ALL" re-creates pop culture moments with dolls that are barbie sized, from what I can tell. And the image below was created by this instagram account.
The thing is, I'm thinking why don't we ask instead of wish. Why don't we ask Mattel to make these as part of their Barbie collection.
Can you imagine giving your daughter or your niece a doll based on a woman that's a math genius? Can you imagine having tiny little girls that are 5 or 6 years old thinking that want to be a computer genius, engineer, or rocket scientist when they grow up--before they even know what a computer genius, engineer, or rocket scientist really is?
Whichever little girl you're thinking of right now? She's going to be needed in a STEM job 20 years from now, especially if she's black.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), African American women and girls comprise a little more than 6% (N=19,730,247) of the total U.S. population, 14% (N=861,642) of female students enrolled at four-year institutions, and 10.4% (N=19,160) of female graduate enrollment in STEM fields.... While the 10.7% figure for Bachelor’s degree and 13% for Master’s is encouraging, the percentages obscure some fields (such as mathematics), where African American female degree attainment is 800% less than degree-attainment levels for white females! Similarly, graduate school (and the subsequent advanced degree) is critical in preparing scientists to engage in high-level research and development, but also in forming professional networks. These networks may not only help to open doors for careers in industry (such as those in Silicon Valley), but for opening doors to careers across all sectors.
I just donated money to an outfit that encourages black teens to go to college for engineering. Apparently the numbers for black people in these fields are way down.
Despite having repeatedly read that a larger percentage of black women earn degrees than white women and black men, both sometimes, there are a lot more white women and black men in STEM jobs than black women. So we have to do something. That first thing we should probably do is inspire out little girls.
You have to dream it
in order to achieve it,
no matter what IT actually is.
And playing with dolls
has always been
a large part of a girl's dream cycle.
Why not start her dreaming
of being a genius that changes the world?
DebLynn
First step? Ask Mattel to make Hidden Figures Barbies. Since we're dreaming and inspiring dreams we should have the dolls look like the movie characters That means that Octavia Spencer doll is gonna have to a bit more curvy
I couldn't figure out who to write at Mattel. So I just wrote the people who handle the press. If you're feeling energetic and optimistic, why not write to Mattel yourself at press@mattel.com.
The more people that lean on them to make the dolls the better. The more people that lean on them the more convinced Mattel will be that there's a market for these dolls.
Or is there a black barbie-type doll maker that you think can do it better?
Dream it Work at it Achieve it Write Mattel or call them. Happy New Year! HIDDEN FIGURES is due to come out to theaters in wide release on January 6th. Sometimes a movie is cheap and easy history. Go see it! Then try a find a book on the three black women that won the space race for The United States
It is no accident that you are seeing more and more black women represented in movies, television, and plays. This relatively new phenomenon is almost entirely due to black women from Julie Dash to Ava DuVernay, many of them black feminists, deciding to move behind the camera and create their own visions.
Not only have they been giving us black movies with black women in them (with significant speaking roles), they've also been giving us black women's perspectives on current events and black history, both.
These women have been reducing black women's e-racesure one story at a time. And some directors that have come along lately aren't pretending to be colorblind to colorism, which is major step in the right direction for the black community.
The generation of black girls growing up now are going to see themselves being themselves. The generation of black girls growing up now will have had a black first lady too. Their confidence and power is going to be amazing in the real world.
The images washing over us everyday have an effect. Black girl magic can only increase thanks to the directors in bathed in gold light on this black director tree.
I, for one, can't wait to see what comes next for black female directors and content makers. I can't wait to see black girls and black women starring in coming of age stories, fantasy, and sci-fi movies.
Who knows? I might even get to see Octavia Butler's book Kindred made into a movie or a mini-series one day
Feeling Rebloggy
THE DIRECTORS 1. JULIE DASH Dash’s first feature —Daughters of the Dust(1991) — was the first film by an African American woman to receive a general theatrical release in the United States; the Library of Congress named it to the National Film Registry in 2004. Dash returned to the film’s characters and their Gullah milieu in her novel of the same title, published in 1999. Read More https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/la-rebellion/julie-dash
If you have not seen Ms. Dash's groundbreaking film (or you would like to see it again), it has received a 25th-anniversary restoration that will open theatrically on November 18th. Watch the trailer athttps://youtu.be/zdMxR2M_ddM.
2. NEEMA BARNETTE Neema Barnette is an American film director, and the first African-American female sitcom director. Barnette was the first African-American woman to get a three-picture deal with Sony. [She did one of her first television movies in 1993]
Her work includes a mixture of film and television. She has directed television programmes as such as The Cosby Show, A Different World, Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven, Diagnosis Murder, China Beach to name a few.
She has won numerous awards, honours, and nominations, among them an Emmy Award for her after school special To Be a Man, two NAACP Image Awards, and a Sundance Film Festival Award for her film Civil Brand. She owns her own production company Hope Entertainment and is also a professor of film at the UCLA School of Film & Television. [She recently directed an episode of "Queen Sugar" for Ava DuVernay and Oprah]
Women prisoners strike up a friendship with a young law student (Mos Def) who works as a part-time prison guard. Together they discover that a corporation funds and is profitting from the plantation-like work environment they are forced to work under. In a botched attempt to organize a protest against their "slave labor", the women take over the prison - A rare glimpse of the effects of the prison industrial complex on female inmates.
3. EUZHAN PALCY
WithA Dry White Seasonin 1989, Euzhan Palcy became the first black woman to direct a Hollywood studio film. She has been fighting the system ever since, and leading the way for a new generation of black female directors....
Palcy’s journey to Hollywood from the French-Caribbean island of Martinique seems like a fairy tale, even to her. There were no filmmakers in Martinique, but at a very early age "I developed an attraction for films and I knew when I was 10 or 11 that I wanted to make movies," she says. "Sometimes I would tell people and they wouldn’t understand that. They all thought that I was talking about being an actress. I said, ’No, no, no.’"
Kasi Lemmons' feature screenwriting and directorial debut, Eve's Bayou, was the highest-grossing independent film of 1997. The film went on to win the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and receive seven NAACP Image Award nominations, including Best Picture. Eve's Bayou starred Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, and Vondie Curtis Hall; and was an early showcase for young actors Meagan Good and Jurnee Smollett.
Ms. Lemmons was also honored with a newly created award from the National Board of Review, for Outstanding Directorial Debut. Among the other honors for her and the film was the Director's Achievement Award at the Nortel Palm Springs Film Festival.
Her next film, The Caveman's Valentine, starring Samuel L. Jackson, opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2001. The following winter, Ms. Lemmons directed the moving Salute to Sidney Poitier that was broadcast on the Oscars telecast during which Mr. Poitier received an honorary Academy Award.
[ Talk To Me about Washington D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, is another one of her movies]
(You may remember her face from her acting days. She was in Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling's roommate.) Read More
Based on an original script by Myron Goble, “Down in the Delta” focused on Loretta (Alfre Woodard), a struggling single parent who gets sent to Mississippi by her mother (Mary Alice) to clean up her life. There, Loretta meets a coterie of family and friends. Wesley Snipes and Loretta Divine co-starred.
* * * * *
[It got decent reviews. I think it's a good family movie with a nice little black history hook up at the end.] Read More
Gina's credits include Love & Basketball, The Secret Life Of Bees, and Beyond the Lights. But what's most interesting about Gina is what's she's up to now
SHOT'S FIRED mini-series with Sanaa Lathan
The 10-hour event series is an explosive look at the criminal justice system.
When an African American police officer kills an unarmed white college student, a small town in North Carolina is turned upside-down. Before the town has a chance to grapple with this tragedy, the neglected murder of an African American teen is brought to light, re-opening wounds that threaten to tear the town apart. Leading the Department of Justice’s inquiry into these shootings is seasoned investigator Ashe Akino (Sanaa Lathan) and a young Special Prosecutor, Preston Terry (Stephan James), both of whom are African American.
As they start to pull back the layers of both cases, they suspect a cover-up that may involve some of the state’s most powerful people, including fiercely political North Carolina Governor Patricia Eamons (Helen Hunt). She’s in a tough re-election fight, and the recent shootings in her state are making it even tougher. Meanwhile, real estate mogul and owner of a privatized prison Arlen Cox (Richard Dreyfuss), is pulled into the case, as LT. Eric Breeland (Stephen Moyer), a seasoned veteran in the town’s Sheriff’s Department, gets caught in the middle of the investigation.
Movies: I Like It Like That, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Cadillac Records
"Purportedly the first African-American woman to make a major studio movie (with Columbia Pictures), directing, writing and co-producing "I Like It Like That" (1994). Martin began her career as 2nd assistant camera on Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" (1989), after a meeting with Lee's director of photography Ernest Dickerson."
INTERVIEW: MOM ALWAYS SAID DON'T TAKE THE FIRST 2 MILLION
All the while, she was writing the script, then titled "Blackout," that would become "I Like It Like That." She sent it around to studios in 1992, a time when audiences were turning out for films by and about inner-city youths. New Line Cinema offered to back the movie for $2 million, meaning it would have to be shot in seven weeks.
...Martin and her story take on a slightly practiced "I'll never go hungry again" fervor: "I was about to be evicted, and I was eating spaghetti and oil for dinner. But I thought, 'If I shot that film in seven weeks, it wouldn't be a good movie.' So I passed on the deal. That's how my mom raised me." Columbia Pictures eventually came through with $5.5 million for nine weeks of shooting.
Tina Mabry’s feature film debut, "Mississippi Damned" – a 2009 Slamdance Film Festival selection – has been released by Ava DuVernay and Company's AFFRM + Array Releasing.
Streaming subscribers of the popular online platform [Netflix] can now screen the acclaimed drama there.
The award-winning stark drama features an ensemble cast, and follows the dreams and disappointments of 3 African American children in poor rural Mississippi. Struggling to overcome the cyclical violence and poverty at home, each hopes for a brighter future: Leigh with her flirtatious high school girlfriend; Sammy, who has a college basketball scholarship; and Kari, the youngest, considering a career as a pianist. However, each soon learns that they will have to confront their family’s past if they are to overcome what constrains them, "damned," to their Mississippi stead.
Tina Mabry is currently working with Ava DuVernay on her television show Queen Sugar
9) AMMA ASSANTE
The release of Belle in 2014 marked Amma’s second feature film. She began developing the project after producer Damian Jones sent her a postcard print of a portrait featuring Dido Elizabeth Belle and her cousin Elizabeth Murray. The film tells the story of Belle’s upbringing by her Great Uncle, Lord Mansfield, at Kenwood House in Hampstead. Contracted and commissioned to write and direct the 18th century period drama by Jones through the BFI, four years of writing and research ensued, eventually earning the movie a green light.
Belle – distributed by Icon Films in Australia and Fox Searchlight in the U.S, U.K and rest of the world – opened to phenomenal success across the worldwide, releasing first in the U.S and taking a higher per-screen average than Spiderman 2 in the opening weekend. The film was championed by Oprah Winfrey – who threw a garden party at her home for Amma and the cast, airing across 4 nights on Entertainment Tonight. Meanwhile in the UK, Prince hosted the Belle premiere after-party, in celebration of the film, and performed a 90-minute intimate set for the film’s cast and crew. The movie received widespread acclaim, making Amma one of CNN’s Leading Women of 2014, and earning her nominations for various awards worldwide, including nods at the National Film Awards, UK, alongside NAACP 2014 awards in the U.S In addition, Amma was selected and awarded as an honouree along side Barbara Walters, Katie Couric and Ursula Burns, at Gloria Steinem’s, Jane Fonder’s and Robin Morgan’s, 2014 Women’s Media Center Awards in New York.
WHITNEY was Angela Bassett's directorial debut. She's done some television since (American Horror Story) And it looks like she's going to direct an episode of Scandal for Shonda Rhimes. But her movie about Whitney Houston was first
Angela Bassett is no stranger when it comes to the portrayal of iconic females on screen. She was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for her performance as Tina Turner in 1993's What's Love Got to Do With It? She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for playing Rosa Parks in 2002's The Rosa Parks Story. And last but not least she was nominated for both a BET and Image Award for her turn as Coretta Scott King in Betty and Coretta in 2013.
So when the producers of Lifetime's upcoming Whitney movie, premiering Jan. 17th, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, asked Bassett for a recommendation for a director for their biopic, Bassett, who had not previously helmed a movie, asked, "Why not me?"
"There's a caring to telling a story, to nurture a story," says the American Horror Story star, who worked with Whitney Houston on 1995's Waiting to Exhale and, as a result, felt a responsibility to make the best movie possible.
Dee Rees really blew our minds in the best way with her 2011 feature film Pariah, a coming of age film about a young, black queer woman and her struggles and triumphs. Her latest film about the life and loves of Bessie Smith, starring Queen Latifah, recently aired on HBO to much praise. The writer/director has a lot to say and we want to listen to every bit. Dee recently picked up an Emmy nomination for her work on Bessie, and the film was also nominated for Best Television Movie. With this much momentum, we think Dee Rees is indeed unstoppable and we can’t wait to see her new project with Shonda Rhimes.
Pariah was honored with the Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition “Excellence in Cinematography” Award (Bradford Young) and picked up by Focus Features. The film was honored with many awards including the
**John Cassavetes Award** at the Independent Spirit Awards (2011),
**The Gotham Award** for “Best Breakthrough Director” (2011),
“Outstanding Film –Limited Release” at the GLAAD Media Award (2012), and
7 NAACP Image Award nominations including
“Outstanding Motion Picture”,
“Outstanding Directing”, and
“Outstanding Writing” with the win for
“Outstanding Independent Motion Picture”.
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Before embarking on the production of the full feature film, Dee initially took the first act of the Pariah script and directed it as a short film for her graduate thesis film project at NYU [where she was mentored by Spike Lee] Rees also did a documentary about her grandmother returning to heer community after the devastating Liberian civil war that she barely escaped from a decade prior. [The play Danai Guirira's wrote, starring Lupita Nyongo, covers what happened to women during this war in her all black female crew-ed broadway play "Eclipsed"]
When I decided to call this list of directors that puts out positive black female content a "black directors list" I decided I had to put one person that's not the same as me, a heterosexual black female, on the list for the sake of diversity, same as black men do when they create their lists about movies and directors. So, I looked at male directors too
I considered Spike Lee first though I knew this was unlikely due to Chiraq alone --you know that film where black women close their legs and stop black-male-ON-black-male crime.
When I was researching I found a lot of light women and a heck of a lot more white women getting top billing (and speaking roles) in Lee's films than I expected. This was in addition to the sexist mindset reflected in his films --the mindset that says women are good for nothing but mothering and sexing up men in a film. So he didn't make the list
Taken all together I'd guess Spike Lee's films are mostly bad for black girls. There are about a good four to a half dozen I'd be willing to show black girls. But that's it. I think. It's his pattern of not valuing black women in a healthy way that's a problem more than any individual movie --- if I block Chiraq from my mind altogether.
However, I was quite glad to see that he, at least, mentored Dee Rees and also gave money and produced a couple of things for black women film makers that wound up producing positive black images for black women and black girls in the audience -- and Dee can't even pass a paper bag test. WOW!
I also considered F. Gary Gray for making "Set It Off" which black women enjoyed and put black actresses faces out there and proved black women can carry a feature film. But the fact that he directed "Straight Outta Compton" cancelled that contribution to the images of black women about three or four times over. Ultimately, I added Tyler Perry like I assumed I would.
12) TYLER PERRY
He is problematic as h*ll with all the stereotypes. Yeah, I know.
BUT if you skip over all the Madea movies you can tell fairly easily, despite all the crap, that Tyler Perry actually LIKES black women. The black women in his movies get to be something other than mothers and sex toys and they can't pass a paperbag test in the dark. That puts him above 50% of the black male directors churning out black female images all by itself. The other 48% of black male directors just don't put any significant black female roles in their films at all. Frankly, there have been films I've seen by black male directors where I was mad when I went into the theater that there were no black women in the movie I was about to see then glad that the degrading role went to a white or light woman instead. (Black women don't need any more negative images being passed around for others amusement at this point.)
So Tyler Perry got to be on the list despite his being problematic due to Madea. He also gets big props for giving work to black actresses I hadn't seen for a minute or two. ONE DAY there will be a black male director that's a lot smarter about all stereotypes, centers 50% of his stories on black women (that are not part of a couple - don't count), where the women actually talk about something that doesn't have anything to do with men, where only 10% of the women in his films can pass a paper bag test in the dark, where she ain't a mommy, mammy, or flat on her back for half the movie. One day.
Right now, we got Tyler Perry for diversity in our black director list
I don't think the Madea character was in any of these Maybe in the one with Idris Elba?
Actually, I'm lying. Tyler Perry made this list because Daddy's Little Girls marks the first time I ever saw IDRIS ELBA. I think I gasped out loud when I first saw him come on the screen. I'll forgive a lot for that. 13) AVA DuVERNAY Ava DuVernay is kicking ass and taking names in case you haven't noticed.
At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, she won the Best Director Prize for her feature film Middle of Nowhere.
She's the first black female director to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award (Selma) Yes, she did a few feature films before the Oscar nominated "Selma" And, I suggest you take a little time to see her talent building in Middle Of Nowhere (about how a black woman's life stop when the man she loves is in jail) and I Will Follow (A woman gets to say goodbye to a woman that shaped her life. Sounds autobiographical)
A very short mini-project called The Door (with Gabrielle Union) is below.
13th is new and on Netflix. 13th is a Black History Documentary that you should not miss QUEEN SUGAR - DuVernay got a little practice working in television by directing an episode or two of "Scandal" for fellow black feminist Shonda Rhimes then went on to create "Queen Sugar" with Oprah. Queen Sugar, starring Rutina Wesley, centers on the three adult children of a black family, two sisters and a brother, that take over the farm after their father dies. It focuses on race, gender, and class through the eyes of black women and black men, both. And it's one of the bravest things I've ever seen on television for black folk. Ever. * * * * *THE DOOR (Gabrielle Union in #5 Women's Tales) No speaking. Action takes place to music.
ON A SIDE NOTE: Suzanne de Passe has been a ceiling breaker for black women in Hollywood too. "In 1972 de Passe received her historic nomination for “Lady Sings The Blues” starring Diana Ross as Billie Holiday. de Passe is one of three other black writers to be nominated the others are Spike Lee for 1989’s “Do The Right Thing” and John Singleton for 1991’s “Boyz N The Hood.”
In [Harvey's] writings during this period, she often drew comparisons to white feminist movements in her efforts to encourage black women to push harder in the fight for their liberation and the liberation of other people of color.
In [Harvey's] writings during this period, she often drew comparisons to white feminist movements in her efforts to encourage black women to push harder in the fight for their liberation and the liberation of other people of color. 
