Chapter 3: Literacy Sponsorship, Beliefs and Practices Among Selected Urban African American Women

Historically, literacy has been a source of power for African Americans. According to Martinez (2010), literacy was for African Americans a “primal yearning that could not be contained by the shackles of slavery” (p. 1). Following slavery, African American women encountered other factors that prevented their access to a literate world of promise. African American women, for generations, have struggled to create a better life by accessing this powerful tool that would allow them to experience what it meant to be literate in American society. Four urban African American women shared their literacy narratives of their experiences of sponsorship and conditions that hindered them in their quest to have a sense of identity as literacy learners, as well as their beliefs and practices that afforded success. Their stories revealed socioeconomic circumstances, cultural factors, and belief systems that defined their trajectories.