"My education whatever shape it took would be a life-process and would become a tool with which I could do the necesary activist work in my community" Leonie Smith
Leonie Smith, deriving from a family with little education made it a life long goal to become educated. Being a black woman from Antigua and then travelling to the United States forced her to face the struggles of forming a literacy as a black American women, yet she did not get discouraged. Instead she worked hard to get to the point in her life were she felt her literacy was satisfactory to herself and at the potential she knew she possessed. The quote above not only reflects her transition from one form of education to another, but her willingness to view education as a process that has no boundaries. Viewing literacy as a life-long process creates a continuing and growing literacy of black women. If we all begin to think as Smith did when things were rough we can all come out on top. Your literacy does not end when you learn to read and write. It never ends. As long as you continue to learn new things and advance your knowlegde, your literacy is ongoing. I feel it is very important that although we must continue learning and become more literate as black women, we must remember our community. History shows that black women's literacy was important to the community. Women such as Maya Angelou were inspirational, literate black women. The ability to influence another black women to become more literate through your own literacy is a benefit the community deserves.
-Courtney Sykes
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