ABSTRACT
Biographical information and the estimated number of letters are provided in Farah Jasmine Griffin's introduction to Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends, and Karen Hansen's No Kisses Is Like Youres. In Griffin's introduction to the collection, she notes that Rebecca Primus's and Addie Brown's letters reveal stories about their lives, ambitions, struggles, and dignity; their politics, reading, and community; their commitment to black equality and to each other. The primary value of Beloved Sisters, Griffin contends, is the way in which the 'extraordinary ordinary women' whose letters we read broaden our understanding of black women's history and inspire future research projects. Letters create presence out of absence, nearness out of distance. Griffin wants Brown's and Primus's letters to appease the sorrow of black women's historical absence just as previous generations hoped that their letters would ease the ache created by separation from loved ones.
