Unapologetically Black: If One of Us is Not Free, None of Us Are Free

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As we come to the close of Black History Month, Sacajawea’s Parent Racial Equity Team is reflecting on how the stories we tell about our history shape the present. Black History Month is both an opportunity to explore the contributions of Black figures from the past, and an invitation to think about how their actions and experiences continue to change and shape our lives today. In this newsletter we are highlighting two towering Black literary figures and storytellers, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde, as part of our continuing engagement with the Black Lives Matter at School Year of Purpose (previous content is on the Sac PTA website).

This month’s guiding principle asks the question, “How can you share who you are without shame?” The principle of Unapologetically Black affirms that Black Lives Matter, without need for qualification, recognizing that freedom and justice for ourselves is a necessary prerequisite for wanting the same for others.

Two authors who embodied this principle are Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde, who refused to compromise their expressions of the Black experience in order to appeal to White audiences. Their works illuminate universal truths while remaining grounded in specific identities.

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize, and more, Toni Morrison explored the complexities of the Black experience with a distinctive literary voice, earning enormous critical and commercial success over her long career. Many of her books, including the modern classics Song of Solomon and Beloved, are explorations of how past trauma can reverberate into the present and future, and how the damage inflicted by racism warps our lives in long-lasting ways.

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," whose prolific writings grappled with intersectionality and how our different identities shape how we interact with each other and the world. Lyrical and deliberate, Lorde used poems, essays, speeches, and activism to push for a world that would allow the free expression of the whole self:

"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not lead single-issue lives. 

Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone. 

What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities.”

- Audre Lorde

We encourage you to learn more about these two great authors, and ask how the stories we tell about history and identity shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

More resources:

If you have one minute, read The Work You Do, the Person You Are by Toni Morrison

If you have four minutes, watch ‘It Is My World’: Remembering Toni Morrison, Iconic Author of the Black Experience

If you have six minutes, watch this introduction to Audre Lorde from PBS Learning

If you have ten minutes, read this biography of Audre Lorde at Poetry Foundation, then explore some of her poems on the site

Check out some of the all ages books on this list, created by the Seattle Public Library, including:

Use The Essential Toni Morrison guide or 'Her Subject Is America': Teaching Toni Morrison, both from the New York Times, to help you get started on one of her books, or explore her life

Pick up The Selected Works of Audre Lorde for an overview of her writings