The Illuminating Black Madonna by Sue Monk Kidd

National Cathedral - Washington, DC

www.cathedral.org/cathedral/video/kidd050413.shtml

Sue speaks before an audience of more than 800 at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. on the Black Madonna in The Secret Life of Bees.

Windows Media PlayerTime:

1:09:04

www.suemonkkidd.com/UpClose.aspx - Photo

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The South in the 1960s is the setting for a large number of plays, movies, novels, and stories. Southern writers who are old enough to have lived through that era have frequently attempted to come to terms with their experiences of racism and the progress and disappointments of the civil rights movement from both sides of the color line. Kidd’s book, The Secret Life of Bees, is set specifically during the aftermath of the signing of the Civil Rights Act in July 1964; a time marked by often brutal, racially motivated violence in the South and is alluded to in the novel.

The Secret Life of Bees demonstrates the irrationality of racism by not only portraying black and white characters with dignity and humanity, but by also showing how Lily, the main character, struggles with and ultimately overcomes her own racism. One theme in the book that is present in a large part of the novel is the struggle for equal rights. There are many difficulties that Rosaleen, the three sisters, Zach and other black characters face because of their color. Blacks are still looked at as the lesser minority and slaves to the white population. This is happening even after the Civil Rights Act. Blacks were facing racism every time they stepped out of their doors.

The Secret Life of Bees has sold more than 4.5 million copies, spent over two years on the New York Times bestseller list and has been published in more than 23 languages. It is taught widely now in college and high school classrooms and is fast becoming a modern classic. It has been produced on stage in New York by The American Place Theater and has been adapted into a movie. The movie is scheduled to be in theaters on October 17, 2008.

Photo by www.suemonkkidd.com

Sue Monk Kidd

•Sue Monk Kidd was born on August 12, 1948 in Sylvester, Georgia
•Married to Sanford Kidd and has 2 children
•Graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970
•She is a Registered Nurse and an Author
•Resides near Charleston, South Carolina and is currently writing a book with her daughter




Sue Monk Kidd was born on August 12, 1948, in Sylvester, Georgia and lived on a plot of land that had belonged to her family for more than 200 years. She spent all of her childhood in Sylvester, a safe, small, rural town she has called “endearing” and “Mayberry-esque” in interviews, even though the town was the site of racial injustices so prevalent in the South during that time. As a child Kidd observed the deeply ingrained segregation between white and black southerners. As a teenager in the mid 1960s, Kidd witnessed the beginnings of desegregation, and the injustices she encountered left a lasting impression on her. This would come to guide her early years as a writer.





Her first and most famous novel, The Secret Life of Bees, is set in South Carolina between 1964 and 1965. This occured when the President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, signs the Civil Rights Act into law. Kidd includes the Civil Rights Act and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. within her story to show the rise of deep-seated resentment, creating tension and an incredibly powerful and moving plot!


Photo by www.suemonkkidd.com