Published in 1982, 'The Women of Brewster Place' is Gloria Naylor's debut novel, which won the National Book Award for first fiction in 1983. The book weaves together the interconnected stories of seven women—Mattie Michael, Etta Mae Johnson, Lucielia 'Ciel' Turner, Melanie 'Kiswana' Browne, Cora Lee, Lorraine, and Theresa—who have reached a low point in their lives and find themselves living in the run-down apartments of Brewster Place. The novel explores themes of class, gender, sexuality, and the African American experience, highlighting the women's struggles, resilience, and the formation of a strong sisterhood despite their hardships. The narrative spans several decades, from the 1940s to the mid-1970s, and is noted for its lyrical prose and frank yet hopeful portrayal of an African American community[1][3][4].
In this episode we speak with Professor Randi Gill-Sadler about various published and unpublished works of writers and filmmakers Toni Cade Bambara and Gloria Naylor.
Randi Gill-Sadler is a teacher, scholar, and writer. She received her PhdD in English and her graduate certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Florida. Her research and teaching interests include 20th century African American and Afro-Caribbean women's literature, U.S. Cultures of Imperialism, and theories of Black diasporic relation and anticolonialism. Her work has been published in Feminist Formations, Small Axe, Radical History Review, and Oxford American magazine. She is currently writing her first book which revisits the Black women's literary renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s to explore how Black women writers like Paule Marshall, June Jordan, Gloria Naylor, and Toni Cade Bambara reckoned with African Americans' growing conscription into U.S. imperial exploits in their fiction, poetry, and film.
For this discussion Josh talks to Professor Gill-Sadler about how Bambara and Naylor navigated the academy, spaces of cultural production, while maintaining anti-imperialist politics, and putting their skills to work for local movements and causes, while also connecting the local to the international.
Just a quick note that on the video side of things, due to a pipe leak my studio has been out of commission and will continue to be for about the next month. That’s why we haven’t been hosting livestreams recently. We hope to have that resolved by sometime in January and have plans to continue using the video form. But in the meantime we’ll be releasing audio episodes. You can catch up on the 139 livestreams we hosted there over the past year at YouTube.com/@MAKCapitalism
If you appreciate the work that we do, please consider becoming a patron of the show. You can do so for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism
This episode is edited & produced by Aidan Elias. Music, as always, is by Televangel
Links:
"
Taking Over, Living In: Black Feminist Geometry and the Radical Politics of Repair" by R. Gill-Sadler and Erica R. Edwards "
The Minister of Mercy is a Homegirl" "
Toward a Radical Cinematic Horizon: The Unrealized Works of Toni Cade Bambara and Gloria Naylor"
For another conversation on the Atlanta Missing & Kidnapped Children’s Case (in the context of the context of the moral panic about kidnapping in the late 70's and 1980's), see our conversation with Paul Renfro on his book Stranger Danger.
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism 
