Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday.

DAVIS, Angela Y.

Item Number: 138110

New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.

First edition of this work by the legendary activist and writer. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, “To Thelma, Peace! Angela Y Davis 2/2/98.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Chin-Yee Lai.

From one of this country's most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women blues singers through a feminist lens. Angela Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday as powerful articulations of an alternative consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American culture.