FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS OF BLACK WOMEN IN AFRO-AMERICAN LITERATURE

“Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they (women) act and do things accordingly.” Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Are Watching GodA study of feminism is important today as that now the atmosphere for writings by women is overflowing. We see many women writers establishing themselves on the literary sky worldwide. The abundance of literature coincides with societal changes and fittingly, the modern woman has overcome numerous obstacles to achieve placement within a patriarchal society.This feat is miraculous for African American women or especiallyfor women of color whose battle is mirrored by sexism, racism and classism. This puts black women in a privileged position to criticize the dominant racist, classist, sexist hegemony as well as to envision and create a counter hegemony. Keywords: Black feminism, hegemony, Afro-American literature, racism