THE SISTERHOOD

A history book centers on black women in Africa and the United States.

In this work, Fuller (Major Impact!, 2016) arranges his account of the history of women of African descent into themed chapters that explore their influence in politics, culture, the military, and the family, among other topics. Each chapter moves chronologically from ancient and medieval African societies through the 19th and 20th centuries and up to the present, with the focus in more recent times primarily but not exclusively on black women in the U.S. Among the women who appear in the text are Harriet Tubman, Maggie Lena Walker, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Dorothy Height. Discussing Tubman, he asserts that she made “around 19 trips to the South to bring relatives, friends, and strangers to freedom.” Fuller draws connections between historical and present-day figures and deftly shows how black women have always been leaders within their own communities and in the wider society as well. The book concludes with capsule biographies of many of the women who appear throughout the text. The work is deeply researched and fully cited, with a complete bibliography at the end. In addition, Fuller displays a clear enthusiasm for and knowledge about his subject. While the volume tells an intriguing story, highlighting the work and achievements of both famous and little-known African American women, it is hampered in its effectiveness by prose that could benefit from significant editing. There are non sequiturs (“On a side note,” actor Yul Brynner “portrayed Ramses II in the film, The Ten Commandments. There are other fictional representations of him in other films, adding to the controversy of the story related to the Exodus”); ungrammatical sentences (“Once believed that all life came from the African woman, the natural assumption was that she was a deity”); and an awkward tendency to use female as a noun (“These females became even closer when they each lost a son”). Adverbs are sometimes used incorrectly (for instance, “likewise” and “purportedly”), limiting readers’ comprehension of the text. Fuller has produced a thoughtful collection of stories about women who have often been overlooked by history, but it requires further polish to reach readers effectively.

An absorbing and informative overview of black women’s history in need of stronger editing.