Nine Black Women brings together for the first time work by some of the earliest black women writers from the Eastern and Western Caribbean, Bermuda, Canada, and the United States. The writings here represent a variety of genres, regions, professions, and political perspectives and provide a glimpse into the lives of women, slave and free, who coped with extreme racism and sexism.

With an introduction that contains copious biographical details about each writer and a brief chronology preceding each text, Nine Black Women is a unique collection of original works.