ABSTRACT
An African philosophical underpinning of the female body comes from traditional matriarchal narratives where women are the mothers who give and keep life. The proof of the truth of this statement is the contemporary challenge to Africans of how to allow women to claim true power through their lives as women. The disempowerment of African American women as to the possession of their own bodies matched the historical empowerment of the black women in some African societies. Imagine the disruption to the African female psyche as she saw her body and that of her female children without the sacred rites of passage that marked the entry into adulthood. Once the American Civil War ended, all Americans, both white and black, were forced to face their differences but this time African Americans wore the face of freedom. The first freedom for African Americans coming out of slavery was that of the body.
