Customer Reviews

Having It All?: Black Women and Success

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I have one peeve with this book: The author excludes teachers as successful, college-educated professionals (pg. 6 Introduction, hardcover)! Teachers, at the time she wrote this book and today, are required to earn a Bachelors degree, to receive specialized, professional training to be certified, AND they must obtain a Masters Degree within about 5 years after completing the training just to keep their jobs. With all of those educational requirements, how could Chambers say that teachers are not "college-educated professionals"? Then to make matters worse, Chambers says that she uses "success" in the "broadest terms" to include teachers. So teachers aren't successful in her eyes. According to her, a successful Black woman must be an attorney or a doctor or have earned an MBA or have earned a Bachelors degree from an Ivy League school. Even though I meet her standards for the successful Black woman, I can appreciate the ambition, brains and professionalism in my past teachers. Moreover, I have family members who are teachers, and they are just as ambitious, smart, and (dare I say) more humble than some of the women Chambers praises in this book. I hope she realizes that it took successful teachers to help those Black women she features in this book to get to where they are. And those teachers, as well as many others, are just as successful as any other degreed middle and upper-class professional she'd put on a pedestal.

The only book I've ever read that makes discussions about race and gender exciting. Perfect for anyone trying to understand the changing face of success in America.

This book should be read by everyone! Its depth, humor, intelligence and sensitivity reflect the predicament of resilient African-American strivers. But, its real value and appeal lie in the complex, universal humanity conveyed by the interviewees. Whether you're the object of the the issues so expertly handled by Chambers, friends, loved-ones, or allies in addressing them, or interested newcomers, you will benefit from this affirming work.

I read Ms Chamber's book, and I was real glad to know that there are sisters who are achieving and doing things some of us have only dreamed of. I enjoyed reading of the Aunt Jemina's who although some folk had beef with them, these women were representatives of Quaker Oats during segregation, and had toured the country meeting people and promoting the product. one of them urged other women to go out and meet others as well. In present day situations, although the women are achieving, they are also having unique situations, such as being one of the onlys,meaning being the only black in town or at a company, or who has achieved some first momentum. One lady spoke of living in a predominately white town in California, and whenever she would go and make an order, the salespeople would hesitate ordering thinking she wouldn't come back and all. Another spoke about having a black West Indian nanny who called her by her first name, told her personal business, and then had the nerve to tell her that they didn't care to work for black people. Then you had a woman who had a prominent position with a prestigious museum in New York, who after the museum changed administrations, demoted and finally fired her despite the fact that she did great things for this museum. She has went on to the Studio Museum of Harlem. And on and on. Most spoke of vacations in Europe, living in the best of communities, but still there was this echo among them if this was really worth it. It should be required reading at colleges and high schools. Very resourceful book.

This book is an interesting read and I enjoy the women's stories the author chose to profile. However, I picked up this book with hopes of more key success techniques for black women hoping to attain the status of those mentioned in the book. Instead was an overwhelming reinforcment of captalism, consumerism and black women using white/western definitions of success.

Chambers however did pick a unique topic that is becoming very influential in Black American culture. But with lack of statistics, surveys and data to show numbers, many of the statements were more opinions and less factual.

For the sequel, I hope she emphasizes the techniques that move the women to the "top" and provides more numbers to give a broader view of middle class professional black women

Journalist Veronica Chambers has attempted to give readers a panoramic view of the successful Black woman's journey amongst a sea of self-help and other nonfiction books on similar subjects in Having it All. Drawing upon historical context along with interviews with an assortment of African American women, it appears she has favorably portrayed them in this text. Recent articles such as the Newsweek article about successful Black women's strides and challenges juxtaposed against the reported dismal picture of African American men's accomplishments give a short synopsis of the obstacles, fears and triumphs of having it all. This book digs further into the psyche of Black women, who Zora Neale Hurston has called " the mules of the world". But we have come a long way baby, as evidenced in the changing face of Aunt Jemima who has gone from an overweight, handkerchief wearing mammy to a perfectly coifed, smartly dressed intelligent woman that entertainment stylist B. Smith would be proud to honor.

Can Black women have it all? Over a five-year period Chambers spoke with such high profile women as Janet Hill, Starr Jones, and Donna Auguste along with others not as well known who struggle with the same doubts and concerns as their White counterparts but with the added burden of race. What is interesting is how each of these women define success. Some count having it all as having successful careers along with the financial rewards along with a satisfying marriage and children. Still others women measure their success by their careers strides only and do not feel the need to marry and/ or have children. But more times than not, they all find themselves straddling the line between the Black and White worlds. Some of these women are first generation college graduates from working-class backgrounds, others have parents who were the first to partake of the benefits of the civil rights movements, and still others come from affluent backgrounds of several generations.

Thelma Golden, former curator at the Whitney Museum and now a director at the Studio Museum in Harlem, talks about having a sense of entitlement, never allowing race to be a stumbling block. Robin Nelson-Rice, who has traveled and lived abroad in her career, talks of being worlds apart economically and education-wise from her family, and the author herself talks about constantly being asked for financial assistance by her extended family. Susan Fales-Hill, who is a legacy of affluence, regularly appears in Vogue and Vanity Fair society pages and cautions Black women to keep their options open when choosing a mate. Still another young woman who was raised by parents in the Black Power movement despairs of finding a Black man with which to grow old.

This was very well researched and written and like other exposes in the same vein including "Our Kind of People" by Lawrence Otis Graham, overdue. Chambers, who has been a staff editor at Newsweek and other publications, continually stresses that the women we see in these pages are not exceptions, but the norm, women we know and see everyday. I don't know if this book is so much about women who want or have it all as about women who have come into their own and have learned to negotiate their lives on their own terms. I would recommend it if only to reassure us that, yes we can have it all.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

Thank you, Veronica! Having It All? is well researched, insightful and positive. Chambers boldly explores the challenges and triumphs of black women who now have choices to pursue their dreams and enjoy the best of what the world has to offer. I was inspired. We are fabulous and there are many others like us, ladies. Every black woman should read this book!

I'd heard about this book numerous times. I'd read about it in Essence, read numerous customer reviews and knew I would have to read it one day-- if only I could get through the 200 pages of assigned reading I had to do. Little did I know once I picked this book up, I would be unable to put it down. I found myself opening its pages anytime I had the opportunity and finishing it in no time. It's that good.

As a college senior about to graduate in less than a month, this was perhaps the best book I could have read to prepare me for the journey that lies ahead. In it I found images of myself...who I am now, and who I'd like to be. Chambers does an excellent job capturing the emotion, joys and pains of Black women who live successful lives as mothers, professionals, and socialites, and this book makes it clear that success definitely means different things to different people. It provides much needed evidence that "Black women" is not a monolithic category full of angry, money hungry, lazy, uneducated, snobby, or lonely women. Instead "Having it All?" shows that Black women in America and around the world are living it up and dealing with the same issues women of all races proclaim to be their own.

Chambers beautifully intertwines interviews with sisters from every street in the black middle class and upper class neighborhoods with parts of her own life, providing a diary-like, advice filled, "here's how I did it, how I'm doing it, and you can too" type of book. What I liked most was that Chambers and the women she spoke with were completely honest about their lives. The ladies' honesty and eagerness to open and reveal the most personal aspects of their lives for our benefit radiates off every page. But dont read this book if you are looking for advice on how to "make it," instead read it to be inspired and reminded that despite what anyone else might say about us, no matter what people think we can or cant do, you can create the life you want...at your own pace and in your own way.

I hope you enjoy :o)

I have never encountered a book that is more about ME as a black woman than HAVING IT ALL? by Veronica Chambers. I didn't read the book when it was published in 2003, and I really regret that now. This book is interesting and captivating from cover to cover. Granted, it isn't a book or guide to success as a black women. Rather, the book focuses on the fact that many black women are now and historically have been very successful in America, although we are rarely portrayed that way in American art, media, or history books. And despite the problems and challenges that we face along the way -- from unsupportive families, to office politics, to general racism -- black women continue to make sigificant, even if invisible, achievements, and to define "success" in our own terms.

I am SO impressed by this book, and I was moved and inspired by the accounts of the black women that Chambers speaks of in this book. This book should be required reading for successful black women everywhere. It is so good to really see that we aren't alone and that we aren't the firsts. We are everywhere.

I must say that this bookd is long overdue. Finally a book that heralds the accomplishments of a sector of the population that has been constantly overlooked: black women. Throughout the book, the author discusses the age old question of whether it is possible to have it all. Judging by the women profiled in the book, its not only possible, but imperative! Granted some of the women felt that there was more that they could do or acquire, but a majority of them were qute settled and happy with themselves and their chosen lifestyles.
The book is an easy read, something that is difficult to accomplish in some instances with nonfiction. Chambers brilliantly weaves in self help strategies with colorful and interesting anecdotes. I would definitely recommend this book to every black woman out there. It provides a lift as you read and see just how powerful and accomplished black women are and continue to be on a daily basis in a world that only grudingly acknowledges them.