Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun grew up in Lanett, Alabama with her family who all valued education. From her grandmother Bessie to her parents, she was able to learn different literacies. Growing up, one of her literacies was that of learning the bible and learning about God. It could have been called religious literacy in which she learned from attending church. Because, Dr. House-Soremekun grew up in quite a large family, she was able to learn not only from her parents but from her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. She points out how storytelling was a big part of how she learned. Her grandmother would give her knowledge of other literacies that her father learned as a slave. It was interesting that the most important literacy that he learned was that of knowing how to use eating utensils since he was not able to eat with them as a slave. Another literacy that she learned from her grandmother was that of succeeding in life. This is very important. Because blacks were being oppressed, there was a lot that we were not able to do. We were inferior to whites, and they wanted to keep it that way. No matter what, whites tried everything to keep the blacks from gaining any type of knowledge because like Dr. House-Soremekun said “knowledge is power”. They allowed blacks to learn with books, but those books were the ones with missing information and were outdated. Blacks were addressed by their first names while they had to say “Mr. and Mrs.” to whites.
Reading about Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun’s life and her learning of different literacies shows how blacks have definitely come along way. She took what she learned from her grandmother’s life and her owns and succeeded in life. Although she was always being categorized, she showed how powerful and strong black people and black women are. She is a great model of how we as black women should be no matter how many times people try to bring us down. This is a very inspirational story.
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