To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker

On the Sacredness of the Black Woman and the Measure of a People’s Soul

In the deep river of human struggle, there rises a voice — fierce, tender, and filled with sorrow — the voice of Alice Walker, who declared: “To me, the Black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is, and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.” These words carry the gravity of prophecy and the ache of a wound that has never fully healed. They are not only the cry of a writer, but the lament of a civilization that has forgotten its origin, its root, its mother.

In these words, Alice Walker speaks of the Black woman as the wellspring of her people — the living embodiment of their endurance, their beauty, their survival. To her, the Black woman is not merely an individual but a symbol, the “essential mother”, the one through whom a culture, a race, and a spirit are born and sustained. When she says, “the blacker she is, the more us she is,” she calls forth the truth that within the deepest hue lies the deepest connection to identity, to heritage, to the original self before the world’s distortions took hold. In the blackness, she sees not shadow, but sacredness — the unbroken line to ancestors, to Africa, to the soil and the sky.

And yet, Walker’s words tremble with despair — for she witnesses a cruel paradox: that the very being who should be revered as the mother of all strength is often the one most despised. The hatred turned on her is not only the hatred of racism, but of a world that fears power cloaked in gentleness, and beauty that refuses to bow. It is the hatred of those who have forgotten how to love what gave them life. And so Walker despairs — for how can a people rise when they despise the root that bore them? How can a future bloom when its seed is trampled underfoot?

Let us remember the story of Sojourner Truth, born into chains yet born also with an unbreakable fire. She who stood before crowds of men and thundered, “Ain’t I a Woman?” She was both question and answer — both the proof of divinity in flesh and the rebuke of all who dared to deny it. Her blackness, her womanhood, her defiance — these were her crown. Yet even she, revered now as a legend, was scorned in her own time, mocked for her appearance, dismissed for her gender. Still, she rose. Still, she spoke. Still, she mothered the conscience of a nation that sought to forget her.

Throughout history, the Black woman has borne the burdens of all — the labor, the loss, the love — and yet has been told she is unworthy. She has nursed nations that enslaved her. She has built empires that erased her. And through it all, she has remained the “essential mother,” holding the line when all others fell away. To see her hated is to see humanity hate its own reflection. For she is not apart from the human story — she is the story. In her skin lies the record of the sun and the memory of survival.

Alice Walker’s despair is righteous, but it is also a warning. It is not a despair to paralyze, but to awaken. For a people’s destiny can be measured by how they treat their mothers — not only those who birthed them in body, but those who birthed them in spirit. To despise the Black woman is to despise creation itself, to spit upon the well that quenches the thirst of generations. Only when she is seen, honored, and loved for all that she is can a nation claim to be whole.

The lesson, then, is clear and sacred: Honor the mother. Honor the Black woman. Not in words alone, but in action — in protection, in respect, in restoration. Listen when she speaks, for her voice carries the wisdom of centuries. Lift her when she is weary, for she has lifted the world. Teach your children not to fear her color, but to recognize in it the first dawn of humanity. Let every artist, every leader, every heart remember that no people rise higher than the women who carry them.

So let these words echo like an ancient chant across time: the Black woman is the beginning. She is the earth beneath the feet of kings and the song that survives every storm. To love her is to love ourselves. To despise her is to dig our own grave. For as Alice Walker foresaw, if we cannot honor the mother, we have no future — for we have slain the source from which all futures flow.