1. What is Walker telling us in her essay?
a. Does Walker agree with Toomer's calling these courageous black women "Saints" or does she title them something less strongly tied to Christian religious beliefs? If so, what is she claiming for them?
b. Who "lit candles to celebrate the emptiness that remained"? What are the implications of this statement?
c. What does Walker see as the result of the brutality of the overseers and the neglect of the legislators?
d. Freewrite: What are some of the forms taken by these women's "living creativity" in their own lifetimes? Are these regarded as high culture?
e. What did they leave their daughters as a legacy?
f. What is the most important message in the essay?

2. Read Lady Gregory's play aloud.