The Problem of Black Motherhood in Grimke, Wright and Dunbar-Nelson

            Throughout Harlem Renaissance literature there is a strong focus on the issues presented by black motherhood.  Some works, like Alice Dunbar-Nelson's  essay "Woman's Most Serious Problem," point out the necessity of motherhood.  Dunbar-Nelson uses alarming statistics about birth rates to make her point.  It seems more often the case, however, that motherhood in the black community is portrayed negatively.  Often mothers are put in precarious situations and forced to watch as their children are treated unfairly and violently by white dominated society.  Being injured or killed for simply being who you are is something that no mother wants to see for her child, and causes negative feelings towards the idea of having children.  Richard Wright's "Bright and Morning Star" illustrates the constant worry faced by a mother, and the way in which she struggles to protect her children.  Wright takes great care to place Sue at the epicenter of the problems faced by her son.  Angelina Weld Grimké's Rachel deals with motherhood by showing the ways in which potential African American parents are discouraged from having children because they perceive that bringing a black child into the world is an act of cruelty.  These works come together to present an image of motherhood as unattractive to black women.

            Wright's "Bright and Morning Star" begins with Sue's worry and nervousness as she waits for Johnny-Boy: "She sighed, troubling, Johnny-Boy's been trampin in this slop all day wid no decent shoes on his feet" (75).  This suggests that a black mother's fate is to worry for her children because danger and hard times for them are inevitable.  She forces herself into doing chores around the house to take her mind off her son, but asks, "But how could she forget Johnny-Boy out there on those wet fields . . . that was just what Sug had been doing when the sheriff had caught him, beat him" (76).  As she claims "Ah been a lil scared ever since Sug went t jail" (76), she affirms that she lives in constant fear for her children.  She has already lost one son and sees it as inevitable that she will lose another: "Sug was gone and she didn't know just when Johnny-Boy would be taken too" (77).  Sug's incarceration before the action even begins suggests that the odds for these children are so slim that a mother with two sons is likely to lose them both, whether they be lost to prison or violence.

            Just as Sue worries about the fate of her children, Rachel worries about the fate of her potential children.  It is a worry that Rachel acknowledges: "this is the way I should feel, if I were little Jimmy's mother" (203).  Referring to women like Sue, Rachel claims, "everywhere, throughout the South, there are hundreds of dark mothers who live in fear, terrible, suffocating fear, whose rest by night is broken, and whose joy by day in their babies on their hearts is three parts—pain"  (203).  Judging from examples she sees around her, she seeks to avoid the violence and incarceration that has plagued the children of women like Sue.  Her experience with violence comes in the form of the tragic lynching of her father and brother.  These past events shed light on the reason that Rachel abandons her dream of having children.  She does not wish for her own children to be treated badly at school, nor can she imagine seeing them lynched.  The unfortunate thing for Rachel is that she sees constant reminders of the fate of black children.  The young girl Ethel Lane is treated so harshly in school that she is only able to stay for two weeks, and her worst fears are realized as Jimmy comes home from school to ask her what the word "nigger" means. 

            The awful situations observed by these characters creates a pessimistic belief that black children are doomed from birth.  There is little motivation to bring a child into the world who will be hated, assaulted, and forced into the place of a second class citizen.  Childbirth is complicated by the issue of how hard it is to be an African American, as Rachel says "We are all blighted" (225).  It is a feeling shared not only by mothers, as Tom says "how pathetic and tragic a thing — a little colored child is?"  (212).  He again refers to the idea that black children are doomed from birth and have only pain to look forward to.  Referring to this belief, she asks Strong if he believes that it may sometimes be a kindness to kill.  She ponders whether "it would be more merciful—to strangle the little things at birth" (203).

            As mothers, these women have the safety and well-being of their children in mind, but society complicates this by making it harder to be a minority.  Seeing the treatment of people of color creates a hopeless feeling for the future of your children.  Not having children may be a somewhat pessimistic view, but the texts make valid statements about the tragedies a black mother will have to endure should she decide to have children.  While Sue serves to demonstrate the stress that a mother is put through, Rachel represents the reasoning that goes into having a child.  These women clearly love children, but Rachel sees not having children as an act of love.  She wants to help her children preemptively by not even having them.  By keeping children from the world entirely, she saves them the pain that comes from living in a white dominated society.  Just as Tom claims in Rachel, the difference between white and black children is stark: "Their children shall grow up in hope; ours, in despair" (208).  While whites are also among the persecuted in "Bright and Morning Star," Johnny-Boy's punishment is made all the more severe because he is a black man.  The difference between white parents and black parents becomes a wide gap where white parents have hope for their children to grow up and be successful, while black parents have despair.