A Black Woman's Identity Discovered in for Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf

Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf is a powerful choreopoem about black women learning to express themselves and find their identity. In this choreopoem, black women are portrayed by seven ladies identified by seven different colors. The ladies begin the choreopoem isolated from each other; they have no connection and little voice. The choreopoem “commends black women who refuse to despair in the face of loneliness, rejection, pain, and rape” (Bridges). These women are strong, black women. Through story-telling, chanting and dancing the ladies form a bond and find their identity as black women.






As the choreopoem begins, the ladies are distressed. The ladies have no voice, no identity. The lady in brown “comes to life” and tries to reach out to the other ladies, but gets no response (3). She begs for someone to speak about black girls’ life and experiences. She wants to know what other black women are like. She wants to be heard and able to hear herself. Her voice and her identity have been buried for so long. Her voice has been silenced; her pain has been overlooked. The lady in brown expresses what life is like being a black woman. A black women has to care for others, has to struggle through hard times. But somehow she is still beautiful. She has hidden her identity for many years, but the lady in brown pleads for someone to sing it to the world.

somebody/ anybody

sing a black girl's song

bring her out

to know herself

to know you

but sing her rhythms

carin/ struggle/ hard times

sing her song of life

she’s been dead so long

closed in silence so long

she doesn’t know the sound of her own voice

her infinite beauty

…

sing the song of her possibilities

…

let her be born

let her be born (Shange 4).

According to Lisa Gail Collins, the lady in brown begs for black women to be noticed. This plea “rests on the belief closely held by both black power advocates and women's