Chicken--both the bird and the food--has played multiple roles in
the lives of African American women from the slavery era to the
present. It has provided food and a source of income for their
families, shaped a distinctive culture, and helped women define and
exert themselves in racist and hostile environments. Psyche A.
Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies
using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the
negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken
imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black
women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to
the "gospel bird."
Exploring material ranging from personal interviews to the comedy
of Chris Rock, from commercial advertisements to the art of Kara
Walker, and from cookbooks to literature, Williams-Forson considers
how black women arrive at degrees of self-definition and
self-reliance using certain foods. She demonstrates how they defy
conventional representations of blackness and exercise influence
through food preparation and distribution. Understanding these
complex relationships clarifies how present associations of blacks
and chicken are rooted in a past that is fraught with both racism
and agency. The traditions and practices of feminism,
Williams-Forson argues, are inherent in the foods women prepare and
serve.