Great Women in the Struggle

by Toyomi Igus, Venorica Freeman Ellis, Valerie Wilson Wesley

More than 80 historical and contemporary women of African descent are spotlighted in this volume of the Black Heroes series.

112 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

About the author

Toyomi Igus has had a rich and varied writing and communications career. Born Toyomi Lynn Gibson in Iowa City, Iowa, the first child of four from her African American father and Japanese mother, she grew up in Buffalo, New York, and went on to college at Barnard College, Columbia University. After college Igus dove into consumer and trade magazine publishing as an acquiring editor and managing editor, and then on into academic book publishing, revamping and managing the publications unit of the Center for African American Studies at UCLA. Under her editorship, the press produced several books on the African diaspora, including Wilfred Cartey’s Whispers from the Caribbean, Trevor Purcells’ Banana Fallout: Class, Color and Culture Among West Indians in Costa Rica, and the final volume of St. Clair Drake’s Black Folk Here and There. While at UCLA, Igus co-wrote, edited and curated Life in a Day of Black L.A., a collection of photographs of contemporary African-American life by Southern Californian black photographers, a traveling exhibition and book.

Igus published her first children’s book in 1991. To date she has authored six children books, including When I Was Little and Great Women in the Struggle (Just Us Books); Going Back Home (Childrens’ Book Press), winner of the American Book Award and the Skipping Stones Honor, and I See the Rhythm (Childrens’ Book Press), winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, Multicultural Children�s Book Award, and the Jane Addams Picture Book Award, and her very personal Two Mrs. Gibsons (Childrens’ Book Press), which remains on educational recommended book lists around the country.

Reviews

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was one of many various books on African-American history and culture that I was given to read by my mother as a child. This book was published 1991-92 and it served to feature famous and not so famous, but still important Black Women. A lot of women from diverse fields are given the spotlight in this book which gives a page description highlighting the achievements of the particular woman being spotlighted. Man I read a few of these books as a kid. This book was meant for children and I believe that the hope was that it inspired the reader to do more researcher on a particular person featured in this book. Also given the Reading Rainbow official seal of approval on the bottom left-hand page--which I never noticed in the 18 years I had this book damn!

[Andrea Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an informational book about different categories of professions of women. It educates readers on a short biographical review of the african american women in the book. I would use this with middle school students to teach them about the influence of african american women in the world. This dates back to pre-civil war influences to a couple years ago.
I rated this book 5 stars because you can't go wrong with a book like this. It comes in handy to focus on one of the women featured or even to focus on a specific time period or an area of profession. It canteach children categories as well as history.