In Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis analyzes songs from the 1920s by which artists?

• A. Ella Fitzgerald
• B. Ethel Waters
• C. Billie Holiday
• D. Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith

Answer: (D)

Angela Davis centers the analysis on how the blues gave Black women a space to speak about autonomy, labor, and resistance in the 1920s. The songs she examines come from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, two pivotal figures whose performances and lyrics embody early Black feminist perspectives—expressing both the constraints of racism and sexism and a determined, vocal claim to agency. By looking closely at their voices, delivery, and the social world they sang into—including the rise of the recording industry and the realities of Black working women—Davis shows how these artists use the blues to challenge domestic expectations and illuminate economic and sexual power dynamics. That focus on Rainey and Smith’s 1920s repertoire is what makes this choice the best fit for the question.