Black Women's Lives: Stories of Pain and Power [Paperback]

Kristal Brent Zook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2006

Kristal Brent Zook explores the lives of contemporary African America women from all walks of life. Based on her travels across America and years of interviewing and building relationships with women from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, she offers vivid archetypal portraits of a school principal in Georgia, a filmmaker in Los Angeles, a factory worker in Mississippi, a corporate executive in New York City, a prisoner in Seattle, and an organic farmer in Vermont, among others. Through these portraits, Black Women's Lives explores common overlapping themes while highlighting the shared dreams, hopes, and disappointments of ordinary women. This book also reveals the many challenges and inequalities that black women still face, and how far this nation has yet to travel if it is to live up to its promise to create an equal and just society for all citizens.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An organic farmer, a union organizer, a teenage lesbian stabbed to death in a hate crime and the president of a cosmetics company that makes hair relaxer all get their stories told in this anthology of Zook's articles for Essence magazine. As a reporter, Zook has a passion for social justice, and her best chapters focus on public health issues that disproportionately affect impoverished black women and children. She writes about a woman in Birmingham, Ala., for example, who fights companies that want to dump toxic chemicals in working-class or black areas and who started a group dedicated to raising awareness of lead poisoning in children, the major symptoms of which—hyperactivity and aggression—are precisely those of attention deficit disorder. In another chapter, Zook explores the possible causes behind the high rates of HIV/AIDS among black women in small Southern towns, among them low self-esteem, mistrust of doctors and an unwillingness to challenge men about their sexual histories. Zook (Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television) has a weakness for clichés and a tendency to gush about how her subjects "empowered" her, both of which detract from the raw power of the stories she tells. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Ten years ago, journalist Zook chronicled the lives of black women working on catfish and poultry farms in rural Mississippi; she became engrossed in the struggle of these women and broadened her search to find compelling stories. She traveled across the U.S and collected stories of struggle with obesity and health, toxic pollution in disadvantaged communities, AIDS, cultural isolation, unions and organized labor, addiction, and violence. Among the interview subjects: a young woman from the projects who had a baby at 19 and never finished college but went on to create a center for young women's development and to win a MacArthur "genius grant"; owners of a bookstore in Washington, D.C., that specializes in books about black women; a filmmaker struggling with limited Hollywood images of black people; a prisoner, former prostitute, and drug addict sentenced for nonviolent, drug-related offenses; and a high-powered Manhattan executive of a cosmetics company. In her epilogue, Zook tells of her own struggles and those of the women in her family. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 263 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books (February 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560257903
• ISBN-13: 978-1560257905
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great biographical read!, May 1, 2011

By 

Short Young Thing "Shorty" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Women's Lives: Stories of Pain and Power (Paperback)

I really enjoyed reading this book. I love that it gave mini-biographical stories of women on various different walks of life: a prisoner, a lesbian, an executive, etc. It was very a intriguing read, a good reminder that everyone, every black woman is so different yet we all experience highs, lows, pain, regardless of our different pasts, presents, and futures.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Urban Book Source, January 5, 2008

By 

The Urban Book Source "www.urbanbooksource.com" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Women's Lives: Stories of Pain and Power (Paperback)

Black Women's Lives delivers bite sized stories that will fill it's readers with pride as their eyes cross each page. Told through the stories of sisters, past and present, the pen of Ms. Zook paints a delightfully authentic picture of the roles of women, regardless of color. But for the everyday Black woman this is a celebration of their being and their struggle. It is seldom that a compilation of this kind covers ground as equally about women from all fronts, from the lesbian teen killed in Newark, NJ, and the teenage mother who drowned during hazing to the president of SoftSheen and the solo AIDS activist in Quincy, Fl., each were allowed their deserved 15 minutes of fame in the pages of this anthology. Kristal's chapter titles adds to the relatable feel with simple headings such as "Worker", "Sister", "Activist", and "Farmer". This book is a spirit lifter, eye-opener, and breath of fresh air, all in a manageable 240 page package.

1. What did you like best about this book?
I loved how the author chose everyday women to highlight the struggles and triumphs Black women across the world experience.

2. What did you dislike about this book?
There wasn't anything I disliked in particular, except I would have liked to know more about some of the women discussed.

3. How can the author improve this book?
I would like the author to add a little more background/or epilogue about a few of the women.

5.0 out of 5 stars A real look at the real lives of diverse black women, October 5, 2007

By 

Jonathan Yoder "Jon" (DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Women's Lives: Stories of Pain and Power (Paperback)

This highly readable book looks at the real lives of a diverse group of black women. It gives you a clear and vivid sense of their achievements, struggles, and losses. It is written in very clear, direct prose with quotations and vivid descriptions of the women in their own element. She enhances her feature-story approach with researched data and information pertinent to the issue at the heart of each chapter. She keeps the focus on each black woman's life so you get a definite sense of her and what she is going through. Above all, she shows real care and concern for women's struggles.