Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Angela Y. Davis · Pantheon Books · 1998 · Originally in English · scholarly

How blues women's lyrics and slow partner dancing encoded Black female autonomy and pleasure.

About the author

Angela Y. Davis is a music historian and scholar of African American culture. Her work focuses on Black expressive culture, particularly music and performance, as sites of historical knowledge and resistance. She has taught at universities including Princeton and UC San Diego, and her scholarship consistently interrogates how marginalized communities use cultural practice to claim autonomy and preserve memory.

Documents these traditions

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