2. 外语
  3. My entry into Black women’s history was unexpected but agreeable. In the preface to Black Women in America: An Historical Encycl

My entry into Black women’s history was unexpected but agreeable. In the preface to Black Women in America: An Historical Encycl

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    My entry into Black women’s history was unexpected but agreeable. In the preface to Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia , I recount the story of exactly how Shirley Herd(who, in addition to teaching in the local school system, was also president of the Indianapolis chapter of the National Council of Negro Women)successfully provoked me into changing my research and writing focus. Although I dedicate this volume to her and to her best friend, fellow club woman and retired primary school teacher Virtea Downey, I still blush at the fact that I went to graduate school to become a historian in order to contribute to the Black Struggle for social justice and yet met her request to write a history of Black women in Indiana with reluctance. I had never even thought about Black women as historical subjects with their own relations to a state’s history, and I thought her invitation and phone call extraordinarily intrusive. Only later did I concede how straightforward and reasonable had been her request to redress a historical o-mission. Black women were conspicuous by their absence. None of the social studies texts or state histories that Herd and Downey had used to teach their students made mention of the contributions of Black women. Since historians had left them out, Herd reasoned, only a "real" historian could put them in, and since I was the only tenured Black woman historian in the state of Indiana at that time, the task was mine.
    Herd rejected my reservations and completely ignored my admonitions that she could not call up a historian and order a book the way you drive up to a fast-food restaurant and order a hamburger. In spite of my assertions of ignorance about the history of Black women in Indiana and my confession of having never studied the subject in any history course or examined any manuscript sources pertaining to their lives, Herd persevered. Black women, as historical subjects and agents, were as invisible to me as they had been to school textbook writers.

    Undaunted by my response, Herd demanded that I connect(thankfully without perfect symmetry)my biology and autobiography, my race and gender, my being a Black woman, to my skill as a historian, and write for her and for the local chapter members of the National Council a history of Black women in Indiana. I relented and wrote the book, When the Truth Is Told: Black Women’s Culture and Community in Indiana, 1875 - 1950, as requested. In the process, I was both humbled and astounded by the array of rich primary source materials Herd, and the other club women had spent two years collecting. There were diaries, club notes, church souvenir booklets, photographs, club minutes, birth, death, and marriage certificates, letters, and handwritten county and local histories. Collectively this material revealed a universe 1 never knew existed in spite of having lived with Black women all of my life ... and being one myself. Or perhaps more accurately, I knew a universe of Black women existed. I simply had not envisioned its historical meaning.
Why did the author initially respond to Herd’s request "with reluctance"?
选项 A、Because she knew that historians should avoid controversial subjects.
B、Because there were too many other projects requiring her attention.
C、Because she viewed Herd’s request as irrelevant and presumptuous.
D、Because she knew that Herd had not been to graduate school.
答案C
解析 该词组所在句指出Herd让作者来写一部关于印安纳州黑人女性的历史，而作者回应这一要求with reluctance，接着下一句指出了原因，即作者从未想过黑人女性与一个国家历史的关系是一个值得一写的历史话题，因而认为Herd的请求extraordinarilyintrusive(过分侵扰)。因此选项C(作者认为Herd的请求和自己的研究内容不相关，而且太自以为是了)与原文意思相符。
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本试题收录于： B类竞赛（英语专业本科专科）题库大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）分类
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B类竞赛（英语专业本科专科）

大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）

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