"Hush My Mouth"

1986 Elgin, Suzette Haden (1936-2015). “Hush My Mouth.” Alternate Histories: Eleven Stories of the World As it Might Have Been. Ed. Charles G. Waugh and Martin H[arry] Greenberg (New York: Garland, 1986), 231-37. Rpt. in Women of Other Worlds: Excursions Through Fiction and Feminism. Ed. Helen Merrick and Tess Williams (Perth, WA, Australia: University of Western Australia Press, 1999), 311-18. PSt

Alternate history in which during the U.S. Civil War both North and South refuse to allow Blacks to serve and the war ends in a stalemate with neither side winning. The depleted southern forces return home riddled with disease and all whites die or, in a few cases, are killed. New Africa, the old South, was populated by people divided by their place of origin, without a common language, and unwilling to work together. A sect of Silents, who vow never to speak, arise to remind people of the sin of Pride. Female author. The female author held a doctorate in linguistics from the University of California, San Diego and wrote extensively on the subject. Her birth name was Patricia Anne Suzette Wilkins​.