how many of these early black feminists do you know?

[niyad]

How Many of These Early Black Feminists Do You Know?

Though black feminists have wielded social media to make willful strides into public consciousness, black feminism is nothing new. The challenge of being doubly oppressed as a black woman has always colored feminist conversations, and minority women rarely have the luxury of fighting solely on behalf of their gender. The question of intersectionality predates hashtags and Twitter feminism and goes all the way back to impasses such as the one between black journalist Ida B. Wells and white suffragist Frances Willard. Wells implored Willard to acknowledge the evil of lynching, while Willard, blinded by her race and class privileges, believed black men to be deserving targets.

Though not always recognized, black women have always made forays into the feminist dialogue to ensure black women and girls don’t remain an afterthought. In celebration of Black History Month, here are 11 early black feminists, in no particular order—some you’ve learned about and some you probably haven’t.


Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964)



One of the most prominent black scholars in American history, Cooper was the fourth African American woman to earn a PhD when she graduated from University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1924. Having been born in slavery in Raleigh, N.C., Cooper used both her lived experience with racism and her scholastic ability to pen her first book in 1892, A Voice from the South: By a Woman from the South. The book, in which Cooper argued for the self-determination of black women, is considered the first volume of black feminist thought in the U.S.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)



An abolitionist and women’s rights activist, Truth was also born into slavery, but escaped with her young daughter. She later went to court to obtain freedom for her son, becoming the first black woman to win such a case. Her famous speech on gender inequity, “Ain’t I a Woman” was delivered in 1851 at a women’s rights convention in Akron, OH, and has endured as a raw and powerful utterance of the tribulations and burdens black women shoulder.
Amy Jacques Garvey


Amy Jacques Garvey (1895-1973)



Garvey, the second wife of black nationalist Marcus Garvey, was a daunting intellectual and social activist in her own right. A gifted journalist, she worked as a columnist for Negro World in Harlem and often discussed the intersectionality of race, gender and class as it pertained to black women. She wrote once in an essay, “The will more readily sing the praises of white women than their own; yet who is more deserving of admiration than the black woman, she who has borne the rigors of slavery, the deprivations consequent on a pauperized race, and the indignities heaped upon a weak and defenseless people? Yet she has suffered all with fortitude, and stands ever ready to help in the onward march to freedom and power.”

Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954)

An activist for civil rights and suffrage, Terrell was one of the first African American women to earn a college degree when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1884. A close of acquaintance of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, she campaigned for racial equality, becoming a well-known activist in Washington, D.C. A writer and the first president of of the National Association of Colored Women, many of her works, including “A Plea for the White South by a Colored Woman” and “A Colored Woman in a White World,” focused on the status of black women in society. Terrell was also a founding member of the NAACP and helped organize the black sorority Delta Sigma Theta.

. . . .

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/02/19/how-many-of-these-early-black-feminists-do-you-know/

[shenmue]

1. The library at my first college (SUNY New Paltz) is named for Sojourner Truth

Love her.

[kcr]

2. Filing and winning a desegregation lawsuit in 1866

Pretty amazing. And I love this quote from Jarena Lee “If the man may preach, because the Saviour died for him, why not the woman? Seeing he died for her also. Is he not a whole Saviour, instead of a half one?”

[MadrasT]

3. Thank you for this, I love seeing these glimpses of these brave women from the past

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

[redqueen]

4. Only five from that list... so glad to see this.

Wonderful OP, niyad. Thank you so much for posting this.

[niyad]

6. you are most welcome.

[hlthe2b]

5. Only three, I'm afraid...

Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and, because of Oprah, Zora Neale Hurston.

I'd like to think I'd do better on those who came a bit later.

[niyad]

10. at least you knew three!!

[Skittles]

7. I know them all now

[niyad]

8. it was my pleasure to introduce them to you.

[BainsBane]

9. Four

Of course I know Marcus Garvey, but not Amy Jacques.

Not nearly enough. Thanks for posting.

[niyad]

11. you are most welcome.

[sufrommich]

12. Niyad -the finder of cool women's history stuff

on the internets.

I only knew 4 of them but now I know them all.

[niyad]

13. it is my pleasure to do this.

[ismnotwasm]

14. Four

What an awesome thread

[niyad]

15. . . .