Representation of Marginalization in the Life Writing of African American Women Writers

The process of imperialism and colonialism was established on the covert idea of economic and political exploitation of the underdeveloped eastern cultures by the dominant west. With the process of decolonization, the marginalized and the poor have been given a centre space alongwith the reversal of the order where those who were the object for centuries, suddenly refuse to be subjected to misrepresentation and domination, and begin to constitute their own discourses. Literature serves as a medium of honest self expression and platform to express the true self for women. American society has triply disempowered and disenfranchised African American women on the basis of race, gender and class. Many African American women writers attempt to break down traditional structures and dislocate narrative strategies in order to reexamine subject identity and to demonstrate the complexity of female experience. By writing about their lives the marginalized are valorized and their oppression turns into empowerment. Life writing helps females to explore subjectivity and to assume authorship of their own life. The account of the life of African American women writers chronicles their frequent encounters with racism, sexism and classism as they describe the people, events and personal qualities that helped them to survive the devastating effects of their environment.

history in current critical discourses is incorporating the marginalized, the minorities and the subcultural groups.
Subaltern denotes marginalized and oppressed people specifically struggling against hegemonic globalization. The subalterns are victims largely due to their marginal place or no place at all in the cultural history. With the process of decolonization, the marginalized and the poor have been given a centre space along with the reversal of the order where those who were the object for centuries, suddenly refuse to be subjected to misrepresentation and domination, and begin to constitute their own discourses. The subaltern studies attempt an authentic, consistent and interpretative version of history which is contradictory to the mainstream discourses or official documentation of history. The voice of subaltern which is largely silent and concealed must be disclosed and recovered. AudreLorde in her poem, "Litany for Survival," addresses the fear of speech of the marginal group and urges them to overcome it: … and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive. low social status and viewed as being less human than others. Literature serves as a medium of honest self expression and platform to express the true self for women. It provides positive role models which question the traditional stereotypical notions of feminine labour and capability.
Women engaged in traditionally unconventional roles inspire a sense of confidence and independence. Texts written by women instill a sense of sisterhood, of oneness, of similarity of experience and existence, and helps in consciousness-raising by sensitizing women to issues of gender relations and equality.
American society has triply disempowered and disenfranchised African American women on the basis of race, gender and class. Among these three oppressions, racism is the most powerful oppression faced by African American women. It started with them being brought as slaves and continues till now. They are often been hated and degraded because of their black skin colour. She not only leads the life of black but also a woman and thus she is in a double disadvantaged position of being black and woman in white American patriarchal society. Sexism and its oppression started simultaneously with racism for black women when they were enslaved.
They were made to work along with black men in plantations and were sexually abused by their white masters. Besides hard labour in the day, they became sex objects for white slave masters in the night, rampantly raped and forced to procreate a new breed of slaves which were to be sold off. Even after gaining freedom, African American women have been often raped and their modesty outraged by white men. The twentieth century has been a period of intense literary activity for African American women writers. It was a time when for the first time these talented writers started to write and express their creative genius. They finally came out of the shadows of racism and sexism and created works without any inhibitions portraying their growth, struggle and accomplishment.
African American women writers are acting like a mouthpiece for the existing black women in America. They have tried to declare the true reality and also created the truth in their own way, which defies existing perceptions and have universal appeal. They spread self-awareness by actively recognizing their multiple sources of oppression and they are self-empowered as they learn to rely and depend on themselves. Black women have learnt to be in action and fight for themselves because if they don't, no one else will.
For the oppressed and the exploited, finding a voice is a pertinent determinant of liberation struggle to move in the direction of freedom. In the process of learning to speak as subjects, they participate in the global struggle to end domination. Coming to voice is a gesture of resistance, an affirmation of struggle for women within oppressed groups who have contained so many feelings of despair, anguish and rage; who do not speak out of fear for their words will neither be welcomed nor heard. The shift from silence to speech, the idea of finding one's voice leads to self-transformation especially for women who have previously never had a public voice; women who are speaking and writing for the first time. Maya Angelou in foreword to Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road writes, "There is an eerie, sometimes pathetic, oft-times beautiful urge that prevails in Black American lore, lyrics and literature. The impulse, simply put, is to tell the story … to tell one's own story … as one has known it, and lived it, and even died it" (vii).
Speaking becomes both a way to engage in active self-transformation and a rite of passage where one moves from being object to subject. As subject one speaks and as an object one is rendered voiceless, whose being is defined and interpreted by others. This way woman of colour begins the process of education for critical consciousness is the awareness of the need to speak and to give voice to the varied dimensions of their lives. Telling of one's personal story provides a meaningful example to those who can identify and connect. It is important for women who resist and rebel, who survive and succeed, to speak openly and honestly about their lives and the nature of their personal struggles as a means to resolve and reconcile contradictions.
Black feminism is a necessary step toward ending racism and sexism in view of the nature of gender oppression and the magnitude of resistance to racial justice by society. Feminist thinkers work to identify the specific character of their social identity both individually and collectively. With one penetrating glance they cut through layers of institutionalized racism and sexism and uncover the core of social contradictions and intimate dilemmas. Feminist struggle to end patriarchal domination should be of primary importance to women and men globally because it is that form of domination most likely to be encountered in an ongoing way in everyday life. Black feminism as an activist response to oppression will be needed as long as black women's subordination within intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation persists.
Within the context of social injustice sustained by intersecting oppressions, black feminist thought as a critical social theory aims to empower African American women. Unless intersecting oppressions themselves are eliminated black women cannot be fully empowered.
Black feminist thought supports broad principles of social justice that transcend black women's particular needs. Black women insist on their right to define their own reality, establish their own identities and name their history. Maria Stewart's 1831 speech advises the "daughters of Africa" to: Awake! Arise! No longer sleep nor slumber, but distinguish yourselves.
Show forth to the world that ye are endowed with noble and exalted faculties.

(Richardson 30)
One of the most important themes in the twentieth century African American women's literature is that of growing up black and female dealing with the experiences of a black girl growing up in a hostile environment. These writers show how African American girls develop a self-resilient spirit in order to cope with adverse external environment.The account of the life of these African American women writers chronicles their frequent encounters with racism, sexism and classism as they describe the people, events and personal qualities that helped them to survive the devastating effects of their environment. Despite the triple oppression they faced as girls growing up poor in the racially segregated towns, they stress on the role models and family She learns about real life at Joe Clarke's store, the meeting place of the men in town. After her mother's death, she moves from one place to another in search of job and education. It is her own initiative that releases her from her circumstances. She gives an account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to a prominent place among the leading artists and intellectuals.
When she learns that an actress in a travelling Gilbert and Sullivan troupe is looking for a lady's maid, she approaches the woman and in her service gets marvelous education in humanity and arts. With her fighting spirit she struggles to achieve the education she feels she should have.
She learns that if one wants to go to school the thing to do is to go to school, so she goes back to   chaplain in a racist army as forces that shape her and encourage her to be herself in segregated society. It is also the story of a girl who dreams of being a reporter like the comic-strip character Brenda Starr at a time when realizing such a dream is beyond the reach of most black children.
She shows how her upbringing prepares her for long walk across America's racial divide and makes that achievement seem natural and inevitable. After attending a largely white school in Alaska she spends her high school years in the supportive black environment of Atlanta. Being self-confident and ambitious she gives her willingness to become a test case in the struggle for equality of education. In 1961 Charlayne Hunter-Gault at the age of nineteen becomes the first Black woman to desegregate the University of Georgia. She takes one of the first steps in a massive realignment of American society when she walks the Athens campus past a jeering mob of white students.

The 1961 desegregation of the University of Georgia by Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne
Hunter is considered a defining moment in civil rights history, leading to the desegregation of Hunter-Gaulttells of harassment and support in those dramatic years, as well as of her growth as a journalist, her public speaking tours and even her romance with a white Southerner.  show The Oprah Winfrey Show, marginalization of women depicts serious flaws in assumptions that the society has developed towards women. She suggests that the society should take the sole responsibility to ensure that women are not marginalized within the society in any way. Gender discrimination and other maltreatments that might be directed towards women should be highly discouraged, condemned and stopped so that women can live free.

She concludes with "In
What needs to be done is what woman and girls have been striving for throughout timefull equality. By equality, one means equal access to food, shelter, healthcare, education, employment and the right to life. One must be aware that gender inequality is an enormous contributor to poverty around the world, and if we want to eradicate poverty we must first end the abuse and mistreatment of woman around the world. Though girls do suffer unjustly more than boys, all children suffer when their mothers face inequality.Women and girls around the world have been striving for independence since the dawn of time, it is time we wake up and see that by marginalizing girls, we are only crippling our society. Women should be given freedom to live, to speak and to work as per their choice and men should respect them for what they are and this will end the abuse against women of all races.
Black women's struggles are part of a wider struggle for human dignity, empowerment and social justice. Anna Julia Cooper in 1893 speech to women pertinently expressed this worldview: We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritisms, whether of sex, race, country, or condition….
The colored woman feels that woman's cause is one and universal; and that… not till race, color, sex, and condition are seen as accidents, The literature of the oppressed sections of society is a reaction against the subjugation of the subaltern classes, and cultural imperialism that the dominant classes create by their dominant ideology. A shift in focus from core to periphery is one of the recent developments in literature at national and international levels. The need is to promote a literary tradition, which represents the marginal viewpoint, to incorporate them in the mainstream literary discourse. The purpose is to give realistic portrayal to the marginalized sections of society by giving them voice to assert their true concerns.