Perhaps the first true love story in African-American literature, it provided a glimpse of black womanhood virtually absent from American letters.

This armed march would symbolize their protection of black womanhood with guns as the whites protected white womanhood.

As much as it has been said that Whoopi is not a symbol of black womanhood, for many black women, she's a more realistic role model than, say, Naomi Campbell.

To my daughter, the Williams sisters are liberated black womanhood personified.

Hip-hop gains its popularity from its oppositionality and from its complicity in reproducing dominant representations of black womanhood.

"If Malcolm X represented the best of black manhood, she represented the best of black womanhood," he said.

None of these people are described in anything but the shallowest of cliches: Gregory's housekeeper is actually described as "200 pounds of beautiful, cheerful black womanhood, pure gleaming chocolate."

"She carries with her a level of grace and confidence that represents the best in black womanhood," said Audrey Manley, acting Surgeon General of the United States.

The characters represent a rich tapestry of black womanhood not often explored in film.

The picture that emerges from this forthright biography is hardly that of an uncompromised standard-bearer of black womanhood.