Gifts of the Season- Stories of African American Christmas
This rich and complex collection of poems and stories reminds us once again of the enduring significance of the Christmas holiday among African Americans. We are allowed a glimpse into a past that highlights the love, hope, faith, aspirations, holiday traditions, family values, spirituality, and fears common to our ancestors yesterday and meaningful to us today.
~ Bettye Collier-Thomas – Introduction to A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories
A word about “A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories” complied and edited by Bettye Collier-Thomas; Boston: Beacon Press, 2018.
This rich and complex collection of poems and stories reminds us once again of the enduring significance of the Christmas holiday among African Americans. We are allowed a glimpse into a past that highlights the love, hope, faith, aspirations, holiday traditions, family values, spirituality, and fears common to our ancestors yesterday and meaningful to us today. ~ Bettye Collier-Thomas – Introduction to A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories.
Back in print for the first time in over a decade, this landmark collection features writings from well-known African-Americans and contains little-known stories and poems dating from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s. This collection reflects the Christmas experiences of everyday African-Americans and addresses familial and romantic love, faith, and more serious topics such as racism, violence, poverty, and racial identity.
I invite you into these poems and stories. Put yourself in the place of African Americans during a period of racism that denied people opportunity and identity. Many of the characters in these stories were living in extreme poverty. All were living under the oppression of Jim Crow laws and in the shadow of lynching. Yet, there is love. In spite of all their troubles, people found and shared love. If there is an enduring message in these African American Stories of Christmas, it may well be the saving and healing power of love.
We begin with “The Sermon in the Cradle” by W.E.B. Du Bois.
STORY ~ “The Sermon in the Cradle” by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1921.
STORY ~ “Christmas Eve Story” by Fanny Jackson Coppin, 1880
STORY ~ “White Christmas” by Valena Minor Williams, 1953
