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Nana Pouissant -- The first and the last

© Dorothy Harris

Daughters of the Dust is Black Feminist Thought on film. Through this film, the filmwriter and producer Julie Dash exemplifies many of the tenets of Black Feminist theory. Dash shows, in this film, how African American women's lives are intrinsically connected with issues of race, gender, and class that are specific to their era. Daughters of the Dust, which is set at the turn of the century, includes a several issues that were significant to southern African Americans from women's perspective. These issues are also significant to African American women whose lives were not restricted to the island.

"I am the first and the last. I am the virgin and the whore. I am the married one and the barren one. I am the utterance of my name." The film starts out with this statement of self definition from Nana. However, Nana isn't just defining herself for the viewers, but she is defining all of the women in the film, all of the women in her family, those who came before her, those who came after her, and those who are unborn.

Self definition is significant in African American women's survival and empowerment. The film, starting out with Nana Pouissant identifying herself, and the women of her lineage, lets the viewer know from the onset that it is a self defined film. No one outside of Nana's experience or community has the opportunity to define who Nana is, or what the film will be. We are not given the opportunity to construct our definitions of these characters, they are given to us. The images that we will see from the very beginning are self defined images -- those by an African American woman and about African American women.

The women in the film are dark skinned women who wear various meticulously braided hair and white dresses that are accented by perfectly blue/green water and white sandy beaches. Dash creates visual images that are different from those that are normally seen of black women on film. The women are self secured, self assured, self sustaining, and although they are making plans to leave the island on which they have lived all of their lives, they are clearly not particularly concerned about themselves with relation to those outside of their island.

Patricia Hill Collins writes that Black Feminist Theory is by Black women, about Black women and for Black women. Daughters of the Dust fits this definition as it is certainly a film by, for and about Black women. The characters, male and female, are developed from an African American woman's perspective. They do not uphold stereotypes that were created of us by other people.

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