childhood and inspiration
Ntozake Shange was born Paulette Williams in Trenton, New Jersey on October 18th, 1948. She was the oldest of four children. Her father, Paul Williams, was an Air Force surgeon, and her mother, Eloise was a professor of social work. Both parents were politically and culturally active. Friends of her family that would frequent her home were W.E.B Dubois, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Josephine Baker and Chuck Berry. She recalls her childhood as "involved in all kinds of Third World Culture. We used to go hear Latin music, jazz and symphonies, to see ballets...." It would be this exposure to multiculturalism and various forms of performance art that would come to define her works. She and her upper middle class family moved to segregated St. Louis in 1953 when she was five years old. Shange became one of the first black students to attend an integrated school in Missouri, which she despised. Her family moved back to New Jersey when she was thirteen.
In 1966, she was accepted into Barnard College in Manhattan. Her activist work included teaming up with the Young Lords at age nineteen, a Latinx group based out of the South Bronx that tackled both housing and other social justice issues. Her joining the Young Lords rather than the Black Panthers, since the Young Lords included equality for women on their platform. While attending Barnard College, she married her first husband, a fellow law student. They quickly divorced. However, she was left hurt and frustrated from both heartbreak and from the limitations placed on her as a black woman in a racist and sexist society. She reportedly attempted suicide four times, not as a means of desperation but as "way to take back control". She elaborates,"I was acting out of the terror. I wanted to see how far I could go in destroying myself. I drank Drano, I took alcohol and Valium; I drove my Volvo into the Pacific- all dramatic acts, but ridiculous and humorous even at the time." She was thoroughly free to explore her true self with out the obligations of marriage looming over her.
In 1966, she was accepted into Barnard College in Manhattan. Her activist work included teaming up with the Young Lords at age nineteen, a Latinx group based out of the South Bronx that tackled both housing and other social justice issues. Her joining the Young Lords rather than the Black Panthers, since the Young Lords included equality for women on their platform. While attending Barnard College, she married her first husband, a fellow law student. They quickly divorced. However, she was left hurt and frustrated from both heartbreak and from the limitations placed on her as a black woman in a racist and sexist society. She reportedly attempted suicide four times, not as a means of desperation but as "way to take back control". She elaborates,"I was acting out of the terror. I wanted to see how far I could go in destroying myself. I drank Drano, I took alcohol and Valium; I drove my Volvo into the Pacific- all dramatic acts, but ridiculous and humorous even at the time." She was thoroughly free to explore her true self with out the obligations of marriage looming over her.
rebirth
She graduated from Barnard in 1970. She threw herself into her restoration wholeheartedly. She struggled with how her growing up as a melancholic young black girl would lead her to growing up feeling alienated with her own personal struggles with race and class amid the the feminist movements of the 70's spearheaded by mainly white women. Reaffirming her own power and independence, a spiritual cleansing was necessary. In the early 1970’s she was baptized in the Pacific by two friends exiled from the Xhosa tribe. She was rechristened a Zulu name, Ntozake Shange, which means “she who comes with her own things” and “she who walks like a lion”, respectively. She states, "I had a violent, violent resentment of carrying a slave name; poems and music come from the pit of myself and the pit of myself was not a slave.”
Shange moved to California to pursue her Master's degree at the University of Southern California. It is here she met artists, writers and performers. She also read voraciously, her voice emerging from a blend of what she heard, imagined and read. Amiri Baraka, a black poet was a huge impact on her work, particularly for transcribing "the screams, the laughter, the agony and struggle of our lives as African people who were transplanted over here...". After completing her Master's, 24 year old Shange moved to Oakland, teaching women's studies classes at colleges like Sonoma state. She met Jesica Hagedorn at Third World Communications, a woman as artist collective. It was here she would later meet choreographer Paula Moss, who, among others, would help her develop for colored girls into its final form.
After the success of for colored girls, Shange felt overwhelmed with the influx of people, praise. She left the show as a cast member after about a year. She began a lecture series at universities across the country while
Shange moved to California to pursue her Master's degree at the University of Southern California. It is here she met artists, writers and performers. She also read voraciously, her voice emerging from a blend of what she heard, imagined and read. Amiri Baraka, a black poet was a huge impact on her work, particularly for transcribing "the screams, the laughter, the agony and struggle of our lives as African people who were transplanted over here...". After completing her Master's, 24 year old Shange moved to Oakland, teaching women's studies classes at colleges like Sonoma state. She met Jesica Hagedorn at Third World Communications, a woman as artist collective. It was here she would later meet choreographer Paula Moss, who, among others, would help her develop for colored girls into its final form.
After the success of for colored girls, Shange felt overwhelmed with the influx of people, praise. She left the show as a cast member after about a year. She began a lecture series at universities across the country while