First edition of the poetry collection edition of for colored girls, Shameless Hussy Press
We had seen posters advertising the piece months before we headed to midtown; Shange’s face, as painted by Paul Davis, had been plastered around the city. We hadn’t seen a black girl’s body promoting anything literary since Kali published her book of poems, in 1970, at the enviable age of nine. You couldn’t have mistaken Shange, with her head scarf and multiple earrings, for a jive tastemaker; her style wasn’t very different from that of my four older sisters, who took African-dance classes and swore by “Back to Eden. — Hilton Als
I wonder if Ntozake Shange knew how prescient she was when, at the end of for colored girls have considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf, the cast intones, “this is for colored girls who have considered suicide/ but are movin to the ends of their own rainbows” (88). Since for colored girls . . . appeared on Broadway in September 1976, women have moved to “the ends of their own rainbows” by recreating the magic of fcg on college campuses and in theaters across the world. Read More