"Going Against the Grain" with the Force of a Boulder

“Hungered for knowledge” (pg 161)
“Inspired by material circumstances” (pg 140)
“Power of language and learning” (pg 108)
“Long-standing desires for freedom and agency” (pg 115)
After gaining a comprehension of “Going Against the Grain”: The Acquisition and Use of Literacy, I am balancing the weights of empowerment and disappointment. These emotions are also accompanied by inspiration and determination. This piece of literature summarizes the lives of amazing women in their acquisition of literature, and it calls for us, the reader, to take advantage of the opportunities allotted to us. Above, I noted a few quotes that embrace the fortitude of the women in this passage. We should be empowered by their great effort to gain literacy and break the bonds that held them back mentally, physically, and spiritually. I cannot help but find dissatisfaction in the movements and actions of our people today. While our foremothers took on the battle that our people be made free and considered as humans with the same apportioned rights and privileges as others, a critical amount of our people today lack the motivation to obtain benefit from their fight. Unfortunately, the rate of African Americans that do not finish high school is increasing at a critical rate. Less and less students are choosing to further their education at colleges and universities. We have to question two ideas. When did we lose interest in the succession of our people; how to we get that motivation back? It is our duty to hold close the significance of our literacy. We cannot allow the same rights and privileges that our foremothers fought for be snatched from right beneath us. Our ancestors embodied strength, resilience, perseverance, among other amazing characteristics that contributed to our success, but we cannot stop. We have to grip those same traits in the fight to keep our success. We were not handed our freedom, or our literacy. They were taken by force; we have to keep our freedom and literacy, forcefully. The great efforts that Spelman has taken to instill the importance of our literacy are a prime example. Who can teach us better than those who know who we are and where we came from? Our acquisition of literacy should not gather dust in the back of our mind after this class. The fight hasn’t stopped so neither should we. The women of this literature piece did not fight for just themselves; they fought for their people. We are their people. No matter what grains we are up against, we have to take them down with the strength and force of a boulder
-Sojourner Ballard