What Manner Of Woman - A Short Documentary Film

Find out about one of the most important movements in theology over the last 30 years...

For Black women at the crossroads of the Ivory towers of the academy and the stained glass windows of the Black church, the 1980s was a time of self-definition.
In 1983, the African American writer and poet Alice Walker coined the term "womanist".
The creation of this confessional concept was a significant moment for women who found themselves called to teaching in the learned guilds of religion and to ministry in the church.
Taken from the Black southern expression, "You actin' womanish," mamas, nanas, aunties, church mothers and other mothers, confirmed, critiqued and challenged their girl children, to insure that they not only survived but thrived in a world often configured to destroy their creativity, intelligence and womanhood.
So while the term womanist was introduced to the world in the 1980s, its meaning encompassed the lived experience of generations of Black women in America.
Women, who like their biblical foremothers, were legally, socially and even spiritually relegated to the edges of the church and society. These women, by Mother Wit, sheer will and passionate determination charted their own course, rewriting definitions of what is means to be Black, female, and made in the image of God.
-Dr Stacey Floyd-Thomas ©2012

Photos: Michael Stephen Levy from his book Revelations
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Pho...