From Slave Cabins to the White House

Koritha Mitchell analyzes canonical texts by and about African American women to lay bare the hostility these women face as they invest in traditional domesticity. Instead of the respectability and safety granted white homemakers, black women endure pejorative labels, racist governmental policies, attacks on their citizenship, and aggression meant to keep them in "their place." Tracing how African Americans define and redefine success in a nation determined to deprive them of it, Mitchell plumbs the works of Frances Harper, Zora Neale Huston, Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, and others. These artists honor black homes from slavery and post-emancipation through the Civil Rights era to "post-racial" America. Mitchell follows black families asserting their citizenship in domestic settings while the larger society and culture marginalize and attack them, not because they are deviants or failures but because they meet American standards.

Powerful and provocative, From Slave Cabins to the White House illuminates the links between African American women's homemaking and citizenship in history and across literature.

Koritha Mitchell analizeaza textele canonice ale si despre femeile afro-americane pentru a dezvalui ostilitatea cu care se confrunta aceste femei in timp ce investesc in domesticitatea traditionala. In locul respectabilitatii si sigurantei acordate gospodinelor albe, femeile negre suporta etichete peiorative, politici guvernamentale rasiste, atacuri asupra cetateniei lor si agresiuni menite sa le mentina in „locul lor”. Urmarind modul in care afro-americanii definesc si redefinesc succesul intr-o natiune hotarata sa-i lipseasca, Mitchell recunoaste lucrarile lui Frances Harper, Zora Neale Huston, Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama si altii.