African-American Womens Struggle to Gain Independence Reflected in Celie - Essay Example

Owing to both gender and race, these women were literally and socially slaves. Phillis Wheatley was named after the slave ship that brought her to America, where she grew up as a slave to Susanna Wheatley (Rosteck and Schmittroth 490). But she had her way with words. As a poet, she spoke of the ongoing slave trade, of her own experiences as a slave woman in colonial America, and of the life of African Americans in general. Similarly, Alice Walker was among those who spoke against racial discrimination in her time.

Her novel The Color Purple was as much a reflection of the condition of African American women as it was criticism on racial segregation that in her time was still one of the major concerns of the United Nations. And in the same generation as Walker, Rosa Parks also became one of the most prominent African American women. She was neither a poet nor a novelist. She was a local seamstress who one day became famous for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white commuter. Her act was taken by those fighting for African American liberation rights as a notable act of defiance not merely against another race but against the system that still held them captive, resulting to the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Throughout the struggle for liberation, many other African American women were also noted for the same actions as that of Whitley, Walker, and Parks. The bottom line is that these women became one of the rallying figures against slavery. Furthermore, their examples ultimately became an inspiration and a hope to fellow African American women and women as a whole. This was the role that they played, and they played it well. The freedom that African Americans now enjoy is in many ways a product of these women’s courage and will, as it is of the collaborative efforts of people united under one goal.