Gallery of Authentically Magnificent Women

Pleasure of their company

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

North American Women Leaders of African Descent: 19th-20th centuries

Shadd

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

“When Mary Ann Shadd Cary died in 1893, her commitment to justice remained. Her legacy, however, would not be fully appreciated until feminist and anti-racist scholars began her overdue recovery at the close of the 20th century.” Mary Ann Shadd Cary’s “insistence that ‘We should do more, and talk less’ (Cimbala, 19) [still rings] true, as [does] her hopes for progressive alliances.” [Canadian historian Veronica Strong-Boag]

Wells

Ida B. Wells

This prominent 20th century U.S. rights activist, educator and journalist is also often absent from history texts. Ida B. Wells (Barnett) investigated, decried and published material about lynching in the USA; and during the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, she insisted on being visibly present, daring to march despite objections among the ranks of Anglo women suffragists, and thus cracking the door into integrating not only the Woman’s Suffrage Movement but the larger movement for women’s rights in America.  [Mocha Memoirs Press]

Baker

Ella Baker

“I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight. . .  In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.” [Ella Baker]

 

Shirley Chisholm

Chisholm

“…Politics as practiced in the United States is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years; its practitioners exchange gilded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own, their votes; and the lawyers benefit most.… Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power. Their first rule is ‘don’t rock the boat.’ If someone makes trouble and you can get him, do it; if you can’t get him, bring him in: Give him some of the action, let him have a taste of power. Power is all anyone wants, and if he has a promise of it as a reward for being good, he’ll be good. Anyone who does not play by those rules is incomprehensible to most politicians. …Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism; and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed [to] the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.”  [Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed]

Hamer

“We don’t have anything to be ashamed of. … You can pray until you faint, but if you don’t get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.… [T]he time now is to stand up. Stand up for your constitutional right and one day, if we keep on standing up, we won’t have to take this literacy test—to copy a section of the constitution of Mississippi that we had never seen, and interpret it too. … One day we won’t have all of this to do. We’ll keep right on walking, and we’ll keep right on talking, and we’ll keep right on marching.” [Fannie Lou Hamer “We’re On Our Way”]

Unquestionable Magnificence

African American women (women of African descent) have contributed “significantly and magnificently to the survival, liberation and well-being of families, communities and nations, and to the elevation of the whole of society and humanity.” [Visions & Victories: Voices from the World Africa Community]

Sources and notes

Ida B.Wells-Barnett née Ida Bell Wells (journalist, educator, women’s/civil rights activist/leader) born July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Mississippi; died March 25, 1931, Chicago, Illinois

Fannie Lou Hamer née Townsend (voting rights/civil rights activist/leader/campaigner) born October 6, 1917, Ruleville, Mississippi; died March 14, 1977, Mound Bayou, Mississippi

Shirley Chisholm née Shirley Anita St. Hill (pioneering politician) born November 30, 1924, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.; died January 1, 2005, Ormond Beach, Florida

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (American-Canadian anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher and lawyer) born October 9, 1823, Wilmington, Delaware; died June 5, 1893, Washington, D.C.

Ella Josephine Baker (community organizer, political activist/civil rights leader) born December 13, 1903, Norfolk, Virginia; died December 13, 1986, New York City

Biographical briefs, Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica

“For Racial and Women’s Equality: the Politics of Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893), January 24, 2014, posted by Strong-Boag, Veronica in Biographical, North America, http://womensuffrage.org/?p=22346

Dr. Veronica Strong-Boag is Women’s History Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia

“Ida B. Wells-Barnett – Feminist Threat,” April 15, 2013,

http://mochamemoirspress.blogspot.com/2013/04/ida-b-wells-barnett-feminist-threat.html

“Truth, Beauty, Wisdom & Courage in Women of African Descent,” posted on March 7, 2011

http://hcvoice.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/405/

Visions & Victories: Voices from the World Africa Community, http://hcvoice.wordpress.com

A roll call of sorts: Queen Tiye, Ahmose-Nefertari, Queen Hatshepsut, Queen Istnofret, Queen Nefertari, Makeda (Queen of Sheba), Queen Nzingha, Lucy Terry, Phyllis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Edmonia Lewis, Queen Mother Moore, Fannie Lou Hamer, Barbara Jordan, Marian Anderson, Jane Matilda Bolin, Lorraine Hansberry

Rebecca Cole, Hallie Quinn Brown, Harriet Jacobs, Mary Jane Patterson, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Susie King Taylor, Mary Church Terrell, Mary Murray Washington, Madam C.J. Walker, Elizabeth Keckley, Susan McKinney Stewart, Mary Eliza Mahoney, A’Lelia Walker, Sarah Goode, Emma Frances Grayson Merritt, Octavia Albert, Janie Porter Barrett, Shirley Chisholm, Mary McLeod Bethune  Mary Jane Patterson, Sadie M. Alexander, Eva B. Dykes, Georgianna R. Simpson, Charlotte E. Ray

Zora Neale Hurston, Ariel Williams Holloway, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Ella Baker, Susan McKinney,  Rebecca Lee,    Merlie   Evers-Williams, Rosa Parks, Amy Jacques Garvey, Daisy Bates, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lena Horne, Frances Elliot Davis, Pearl Bailey, Bessie Coleman, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Coretta Scott King, Althea Gibson, Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone, Augusta Savage, Nina Simone, Barbara Jordan, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Patricia R. Harris, Hazel Johnson

http://hcvoice.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/405/

Ella Baker quotes, http://www.quote-coyote.com/quotes/authors/b/ella-baker/

Shirley Chisholm quotes from Unbought and Unbossed, http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1255337-unbought-and-unbossed

“We’re On Our Way,” Fannie Lou Hamer Speech Text: Speech before a Mass Meeting held at the Negro Baptist School in Indianola, Mississippi (September 1964)

___________________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

Women’s March salutes Reconstruction-era activist

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

Edited by Carolyn Bennett

Mary Ann Shadd Cary “enjoyed the sport of debate and banter,” Jane Rhodes writes in a biography of this pioneering woman, “and she rarely hesitated to strike back at rivals and enemies” — qualities admired in men and scorned in women, thus making Mary Ann Shadd Cary a controversial figure.

She was a quintessential dissident. A woman whose life was marked by transgressions of the boundaries of sex, color and class; and the price she paid for her audacity.

Part of a remarkable family of freeborn African Americans, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, an activist, integrationist, educator, journalist and attorney, devoted her life to fighting racism and inequality in North America. Her ancestry is a narrative of American racial history traced to the founding of the nation, a story of the early meeting of black and white. The results, a mixed racial family heritage contradicting ideologies of racial purity that underpin legally sanctioned segregation and discrimination.

By the end of the 1840s, Mary Ann Shadd had carved a path that directed her activities for a lifetime. “Teaching was always an important part of her identity and the way she earned her living, but writing and public expression became increasingly important as a means of having a political voice.”

Contempt for clergy, churches

“‘Aside from their caste character, their influence on colored people is fatal,’” Rhodes quotes Shadd Cary. “‘The character of the exclusive church in Canada tends to perpetuate ignorance, both in their true positions as British subjects, and of the Christian religion in its purity.’”   

Questioning philanthropy

Is it “‘really a benevolent act to send old almanacs, old novels, and all manner of obsolete books’ to the fugitives?” she challenged.

Is it not “vanity [that] motivates benefactors to empty ‘useless contents of old libraries’ so that they [benefactors] might congratulate themselves for their selfishness. ‘Why not give, when gifts are needed, that which is useful.’

Appreciation for free press

Mary Ann Shadd Cary developed a great appreciation for the power of the press. The day after she closed her school in Windsor, Ontario, March 24, 1853, she began publishing the Provincial Freeman newspaper.

Fervent feminist

Mary Ann Shadd Cary developed a political ideology that bridged her early nationalism with an increasingly militant feminism.

Her politics during the latter part of her life took root in dual quests for racial and gender justice. Mary Ann Shadd Cary called for a gender-inclusive racial politics, a platform on which women’s rights were in the foreground of racial discrimination.

Sources and notes

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was a North American who resided for considerable periods in the United States and Canada. She was a nineteenth century political activist, educator, lawyer, integrationist, and writer, journalist. (b.1823, d. 1893)

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and at age ten, she moved with her family to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and attended Quaker schools. After teaching school in Wilmington then New York City and Norristown, Pennsylvania, she emigrated from the United States to Canada.

In Windsor, she established an integrated school at Canada West and from there began writing and publishing her ideas on self-reliance.

In 1842, she published “Notes on Canada West,” a 44-page pamphlet promoting Black immigration to Canada. After writing, publishing and teaching in Canada, Shadd Cary returned to the United States. Settling in Washington, D.C., in 1863, she founded another school, studied law and graduated with a degree in law from Howard University.

She opened her law practice in Washington and resumed political activism, once challenging the House Judiciary Committee for voting rights, winning her case, and becoming one of the few women who voted in federal elections during Reconstruction.

Through the Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise Association she founded in 1880, Mary Ann Shadd Cary campaigned for women’s rights and encouraged Black women to address their specific political and economic condition and to fight for equal rights and opportunities.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and protest in the nineteenth century (Jane Rhodes), Indiana University Press, 1998

Black Women in America: An historical encyclopedia (eds. Hine, Brown, Terborg-Penn), Indiana University Press, 1993

____________________________________________


Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]


____________________________________________