Tar Beach

Adapted from, and incorporating many elements of her series of painted quilts titled “Woman on a Bridge”, Faith Ringgold creates a wonderful piece of African American children’s literature titled Tar Beach. Tar Beach is narrated through the perspective of eight-year old, Cassie Louise Lightfoot, and is set in Harlem during the year of 1939. According to the Author’s Note, Ringgold’s artistic depiction of life during these times is roughly based on memories of her own childhood growing up in Harlem during the era of the Great Depression. Ringgold does an exceptional job of presenting issues of poverty from the angle of her young narrator Cassie. In this story, Cassie realizes that her family is not wealthy and that they are not as well off as most; however, the Lightfoots make the best of what they have in an attempt to overcome these hardships as they spend their evenings on the paved roof of their apartment building; the glorified “tar beach”. Through Cassie’s imagination she is able to travel to places that are otherwise denied to her as a result of the present segregation. Ringgold focuses on very real feelings that she experienced as a child, such as the desire to help out her family, specifically through the mention of Cassie’s father. Ringgold alludes to the denial of union jobs to colored people as a result of the “grandfather” rule and the present segregation, something that Cassie is very much aware of. As Cassie imagines flying over the Union building she explains how she will give the building to her father, resulting in her family being rich and they will then be able to eat “ice cream every night for dessert”. This element of flying over her city is one that specifically stood out to me as an element of African American literature. The concept of “flying” is one deeply rooted in African history as it was once symbolic of an escape from slavery and/or oppression; ultimately flight equals freedom. In this case it is an escape from the inequalities experienced by a young African American girl growing up in Great Depression Harlem. Cassie describes flying as the freedom “to go wherever [she] wants for the rest of her life”, a method of countering the issues of segregation and racism. Ringgold’s story highlights a very important part of both American and African American history by focusing on the hardships that African Americans faced throughout the past. It is important to inform children of such events as they actually happened and are responsible for where we are at today; socially, culturally, and economically.



Works Cited

Ringgold, Faith. Tar Beach. New York: Crown Books For Young Readers, 1991.