Kate Dosset
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813031408
- eISBN:
- 9780813039282
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813031408.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
High-profile rivalries between black male leaders in the early twentieth century have contributed to the view that integrationism and black nationalism were diametrically opposed philosophies shaped ...
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High-profile rivalries between black male leaders in the early twentieth century have contributed to the view that integrationism and black nationalism were diametrically opposed philosophies shaped primarily by men. Ideas of authenticity and respectability were central to the construction of black identities within black cultural and political resistance movements of the early twentieth century. Unfortunately both concepts have also been used to demonize black middle-class women whose endeavors towards racial uplift are too frequently dismissed as assimilationist and whose class status has apparently disqualified them from performing “authentic” blackness and exhibiting race pride. This book challenges these conceptualizations in an examination of prominent black women leaders' political thought and cultural production in the years between the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. Through an analysis of black women's political activism, entrepreneurship and literary endeavor, the book argues that black women made significant contributions toward the development of a black feminist tradition which enabled them to challenge the apparent dichotomy between Black Nationalism and integrationism. By exploring the connections between women like the pioneering black hairdresser Madam C. J. Walker and her daughter, A'Lelia, as well as clubwoman Mary McLeod Bethune and United Negro Improvement Association activist Amy Jacques Garvey, the book also makes a contribution to the field of women's history by positioning black women at the forefront of both intellectual and practical endeavors in the struggle for black autonomy.Less
High-profile rivalries between black male leaders in the early twentieth century have contributed to the view that integrationism and black nationalism were diametrically opposed philosophies shaped primarily by men. Ideas of authenticity and respectability were central to the construction of black identities within black cultural and political resistance movements of the early twentieth century. Unfortunately both concepts have also been used to demonize black middle-class women whose endeavors towards racial uplift are too frequently dismissed as assimilationist and whose class status has apparently disqualified them from performing “authentic” blackness and exhibiting race pride. This book challenges these conceptualizations in an examination of prominent black women leaders' political thought and cultural production in the years between the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. Through an analysis of black women's political activism, entrepreneurship and literary endeavor, the book argues that black women made significant contributions toward the development of a black feminist tradition which enabled them to challenge the apparent dichotomy between Black Nationalism and integrationism. By exploring the connections between women like the pioneering black hairdresser Madam C. J. Walker and her daughter, A'Lelia, as well as clubwoman Mary McLeod Bethune and United Negro Improvement Association activist Amy Jacques Garvey, the book also makes a contribution to the field of women's history by positioning black women at the forefront of both intellectual and practical endeavors in the struggle for black autonomy.
Susan D. Carle
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199945740
- eISBN:
- 9780199369843
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945740.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century, Social History
This chapter argues that the role of the National Association of Colored Women in early law-related civil rights activism should be reconceptualized to emphasize the importance of African American ...
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This chapter argues that the role of the National Association of Colored Women in early law-related civil rights activism should be reconceptualized to emphasize the importance of African American club women's work in pushing the boundaries of the public/private divide. These activists built private social welfare institutions to serve African Americans' communities excluded from the benefits of the emerging social welfare state—as a first step that utilized the avenues for agency presented by the political conditions of the times—and then often followed up these efforts with requests that the public institutions of the state take over or fund institutions built through private, voluntarist efforts.Less
This chapter argues that the role of the National Association of Colored Women in early law-related civil rights activism should be reconceptualized to emphasize the importance of African American club women's work in pushing the boundaries of the public/private divide. These activists built private social welfare institutions to serve African Americans' communities excluded from the benefits of the emerging social welfare state—as a first step that utilized the avenues for agency presented by the political conditions of the times—and then often followed up these efforts with requests that the public institutions of the state take over or fund institutions built through private, voluntarist efforts.
Lynn Dumenil
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469631219
- eISBN:
- 9781469631233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631219.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines women's voluntary associations' role in mobilization. It examining the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Woman's ...
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This chapter examines women's voluntary associations' role in mobilization. It examining the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the National Association of Colored Women, and the American Red Cross, it analyzes the way in which women activists conjoined the war emergency to their own goals of staking their claim to full citizenship, and continuing their reform agendas begun in the Progressive reform era. As they did so, white women invoked “maternalism” and emphasized the instrumental role that women played in protecting the family. African American activists similarly focused on the centrality of women citizens, but did so in the specific context of racial uplift. Their engagement in meaningful war work encouraged them to view the war – over optimistically as it turned out – as an opportunity to achieve both long-standing reform goals and an enhanced role for women in public life.Less
This chapter examines women's voluntary associations' role in mobilization. It examining the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the National Association of Colored Women, and the American Red Cross, it analyzes the way in which women activists conjoined the war emergency to their own goals of staking their claim to full citizenship, and continuing their reform agendas begun in the Progressive reform era. As they did so, white women invoked “maternalism” and emphasized the instrumental role that women played in protecting the family. African American activists similarly focused on the centrality of women citizens, but did so in the specific context of racial uplift. Their engagement in meaningful war work encouraged them to view the war – over optimistically as it turned out – as an opportunity to achieve both long-standing reform goals and an enhanced role for women in public life.
Brittney C. Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040993
- eISBN:
- 9780252099540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040993.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter expands the intellectual geography mapped in Beyond Respectability by examining the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) as a site of Black female knowledge production. In ...
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This chapter expands the intellectual geography mapped in Beyond Respectability by examining the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) as a site of Black female knowledge production. In particular, this chapter uses the work of Fannie Barrier Williams, a Chicago based clubwoman, to map many of the key intellectual interventions of the NACW as a school of social thought. Drawing on Williams’ theorization of what she calls organized anxiety, Brittney Cooper takes up and critically examines her claim that the NACW was responsible for creating “race public opinion” and, by extension, giving shape and form to an emergent Black public sphere. As a concept, organized anxiety politicizes the emotional lives of Black women and constitutes one more iteration of the ways that race women invoked embodied discourse in their public intellectual work. The chapter also examines Williams’s invocation of a discourse the author terms American peculiarity, a kind of oppositional discourse challenging claims of American exceptionalism. Finally, the chapter interrogates her concept of racial sociality, a sophisticated way to think about ideas of racial unity and social connections between African Americans of different geographic and class backgrounds. Williams was a formidable political theorist, who, through her work in the NACW, introduced a rich conceptual milieu through which to think about Black politics, Black organizations, and gender politics in the late nineteenth century.Less
This chapter expands the intellectual geography mapped in Beyond Respectability by examining the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) as a site of Black female knowledge production. In particular, this chapter uses the work of Fannie Barrier Williams, a Chicago based clubwoman, to map many of the key intellectual interventions of the NACW as a school of social thought. Drawing on Williams’ theorization of what she calls organized anxiety, Brittney Cooper takes up and critically examines her claim that the NACW was responsible for creating “race public opinion” and, by extension, giving shape and form to an emergent Black public sphere. As a concept, organized anxiety politicizes the emotional lives of Black women and constitutes one more iteration of the ways that race women invoked embodied discourse in their public intellectual work. The chapter also examines Williams’s invocation of a discourse the author terms American peculiarity, a kind of oppositional discourse challenging claims of American exceptionalism. Finally, the chapter interrogates her concept of racial sociality, a sophisticated way to think about ideas of racial unity and social connections between African Americans of different geographic and class backgrounds. Williams was a formidable political theorist, who, through her work in the NACW, introduced a rich conceptual milieu through which to think about Black politics, Black organizations, and gender politics in the late nineteenth century.
Sarah Haley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469627595
- eISBN:
- 9781469627618
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627595.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter three provides a detailed study of black and white clubwomen’s efforts to eliminate convict leasing. Central to the comparative analysis of the National Association of Colored Women and the ...
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Chapter three provides a detailed study of black and white clubwomen’s efforts to eliminate convict leasing. Central to the comparative analysis of the National Association of Colored Women and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is their divergent approaches to the rape of black women by prison guards. This chapter engages the complexities of reform and respectability in southern women’s organizational politics in the early twentieth century.Less
Chapter three provides a detailed study of black and white clubwomen’s efforts to eliminate convict leasing. Central to the comparative analysis of the National Association of Colored Women and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is their divergent approaches to the rape of black women by prison guards. This chapter engages the complexities of reform and respectability in southern women’s organizational politics in the early twentieth century.
Kate Dossett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813031408
- eISBN:
- 9780813039282
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813031408.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book examines the involvement of women in the fight against racism and segregation which was prevalent in the United States during the early twentieth century. While criticisms on the perceived ...
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This book examines the involvement of women in the fight against racism and segregation which was prevalent in the United States during the early twentieth century. While criticisms on the perceived dichotomy of the stand on racism and segregation of African Americans from the Caucasians existed, this book does not provide any suggestion of the advantage of integrationalism or black nationalism over one another, rather it looks on these two perceived different stands on race divide as a complex, rather than dichotomous, and multiple, rather that a singular, strategy; and it sees interdependent, rather than mutually exclusive, philosophies against racial discrimination. In this book, the involvement of prominent black women, their contributions and their strategies that helped define black feminist thought and curb the racial issue, is examined and analyzed. This book focuses on the political thought and activism exhibited by black women between the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. Evaluation of the literary endeavors, the activism, and entrepreneurship of some of the prominent women showed that black women challenged the existing dichotomy on the stand against racial discrimination, developed the black feminist tradition, and shaped black nationalism within the feminist framework. Among the studied black women include clubwomen Margaret Murray Washington, Nannie hellen Burroughs and Mary McLeod Bethune; black women leaders Eva Bowles and Cecilia Cabaniss; entrepreneurs Madam J. Walker and A'Lelia Walker; and writers such as Amy Jacques Garvey and Jessie Fauset.Less
This book examines the involvement of women in the fight against racism and segregation which was prevalent in the United States during the early twentieth century. While criticisms on the perceived dichotomy of the stand on racism and segregation of African Americans from the Caucasians existed, this book does not provide any suggestion of the advantage of integrationalism or black nationalism over one another, rather it looks on these two perceived different stands on race divide as a complex, rather than dichotomous, and multiple, rather that a singular, strategy; and it sees interdependent, rather than mutually exclusive, philosophies against racial discrimination. In this book, the involvement of prominent black women, their contributions and their strategies that helped define black feminist thought and curb the racial issue, is examined and analyzed. This book focuses on the political thought and activism exhibited by black women between the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. Evaluation of the literary endeavors, the activism, and entrepreneurship of some of the prominent women showed that black women challenged the existing dichotomy on the stand against racial discrimination, developed the black feminist tradition, and shaped black nationalism within the feminist framework. Among the studied black women include clubwomen Margaret Murray Washington, Nannie hellen Burroughs and Mary McLeod Bethune; black women leaders Eva Bowles and Cecilia Cabaniss; entrepreneurs Madam J. Walker and A'Lelia Walker; and writers such as Amy Jacques Garvey and Jessie Fauset.
