Sojourner Truth came to me in a dream. Dressed in all white, she was standing upright on a stage, holding a microphone. The audience was filled with an intergenerational representation of womanist emcees. From MC Sha-Rock to Roxanne Shanté, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Left Eye, Foxy Brown, Lil’ Kim, Da Brat, Eve, Rah Digga, Ladybug Mecca, Megan Thee Stallion, Rapsody, and many more. As I watched from the side of the stage, I witnessed Sojourner Truth deliver the illest lines ever . . . “Ain’t I a woman.” She did not just speak the lyrics; she rapped them. Her words were hard, raw, and matter of fact. Truth left the audience in awe. She glazed the womanist emcee crowd with a mission to advocate for them as she advocated for herself. They were women like her reflecting similar pain endured, however evolved. Truth and the womanist emcees observed Black, strong, maternal, femininity, as well as oppression, and being pushed to the margins while looking at one another. Staring into the past and future of their existences, Truth and the womanist emcees saw and felt injustice. They shared the experiences of occupational injustices: the denial and deprivation of participation in chosen meaningful activities that limited the satisfaction of their lives. Once this was realized, I then locked eyes with Rapsody, who bore on her face the weight of rectifying the wrongs caused with her lyrical liquid swords. After a tear fell from her eyes, my eyes welled . . . then . . . I woke up.
Upon awaking from this dream, I lay paralyzed in thought of the rapture caused by my subconscious mind. On this cloudy, rain-filled morning, I felt heavy in submission to share what had been revealed to me. So, I reflected on what I experienced within my dream state. I pondered why Truth had come to me, why the womanist emcees would be called to attend the performance, and the meaning of locking eyes with a tearful Rapsody. I felt the best way to analyze the dream was to compare what I knew about Sojourner Truth to the experiences of Black womanist emcees and myself. What was Sojourner’s experience as a Black woman emcee that led her to advocate for fair treatment? Has a womanist emcee since MC Sha-Rock argued similar sentiments in a modern era? Did Rapsody feel inundated with the meaning of Truth’s lines to which she was moved so much that she dedicated an album to Black feminism? It was with these questions in reflection that I established the following research questions to guide the examination:
a) What occupational injustices have we experienced as Black women womanist emcees?
b) How do the experiences of injustices differ from Truth’s era to current?
c) How have we evolved?
d) Is more advocacy needed to improve equity for Black women?
