Pearl S. Buck

by Jewde

I was in High School when her book, "The Good Earth", was mandatory reading. Since then I have read everything she has written many times over. She gave me my first glimpse of the common demoninators of humanity. As a person of faith, I began to understand the soul searches of each of us as humans and could relate to the daily struggles of people a continent apart. Far ahead of any of us in the "Feminist Movement", yet not labeled as such. A woman of depth, strength and so aware of the struggles not only in relationships but the storms of life we all face.

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892 in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents were missionaries in China where she spent most of the first forty years of her life. In 1910 enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman's College, graduated 1914. Married John Lossing Buck in 1915 and lived in an impoverished province in China where she gathered the material she would later use in her novels and writings.

Her first child, Carol, born in 1921 was profoundly retarded. She taught in universities in both China and the U.S. There is now a Foundation in her name to celebrate her life and works and children from underdeveloped countries are still being helped. Following are excerpts from two speechs she made.

From "Equality," a commencement address she delivered at Howard University in 1942:

"Discrimination in our country must go, because until it does, we will not have won the war. We cannot fight for freedom unless we fight for freedom for all...........

"Do not yield then for one moment to anything in our national life which denies democracy. Press steadily for human equality, not only for yourselves, but for all those groups who are not given equality... It is the principle that must be established for all of us, or none of us will have it."

From "Of Men and Women," 1941:

"When woman appears in history she is either a queen, of little practical use, or a rebel smashing up furniture or praying in saloons. The truth has never been told about women in history: that everywhere man has gone woman has gone too. Whatever man has done woman has done too....

"Women need not be anxious to prove themselves to men, nor eager to prove all women inferior to men because they fear they themselves are inferior. And men need not be anxious to prove themselves superior to all women out of the fear that they are not. It will be taken for granted that such superiorities and inferiorities are to be found only in individuals and that no one is doomed by sex.....

"If women are as ignorant as this of themselves they can scarcely expect men to know more. ......History must be taught truthfully about both, and truthfully re-written..."