Fannie Barrier Williams, the New Negro, and Black Feminist Pragmatism, 1893–1926

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-77
Author(s):  
Mary Jo Deegan
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
New Woman ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
New Negro ◽  
American Women ◽  
The New Woman

Fannie Barrier Williams brilliantly analyzed and participated in the tumultuous changes in black Chicago from 1887-1926. She specialized in essays and political advocacy for African American women. She compared them to “the new woman” and “the New Negro,” and by 1895, she had defined African American women as uniquely combining the characteristics of both groups. She also employed the concepts and ideas of pragmatists and feminist pragmatists and brought black women’s ideas and experiences to this social theory.

Race Women

2019 ◽  
pp. 70-100
Author(s):  
Jelani M. Favors
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
New Negro ◽  
American Women ◽  
Single Sex ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the fascinating history of Bennett College – one of only two single sex colleges dedicated to educating African American women. Although Bennett would not make that transition until 1926, the institution played a vital role in educating African American women in Greensboro, North Carolina from the betrayal of the Nadir to the promises of a New Negro Era. The latter period witnessed Bennett, under the leadership of David Dallas Jones, mold scores of young girls into politically conscious race women who were encouraged to resist Jim Crow policies and reject the false principals of white supremacy. Their politicization led to a massive boycott of a theatre in downtown Greensboro and helped to set the tone for Greensboro’s evolution into a critical launching point for the modern civil rights movement.

The character of womanhood: How African American women’s perceptions of womanhood influence marriage and motherhood

Ethnicities ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 512-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra Chaney
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Black Women ◽  
African American Women ◽  
White Women ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
American Women ◽  
Written Responses ◽  
The Family ◽  
Women’S Perceptions

This qualitative paper will focus on how black women understand and perceive womanhood, and will explore how black women’s perceptions regarding womanhood shape their attitudes and behaviours toward marriage and motherhood. Using a black feminist approach, I assert that black women’s perceptions of womanhood are not based on European notions as the family structure and experiences of African American women is characteristically different from that of white women. Further, I assert that African American women create a modified version of womanhood based on their education, social class and economic position in relation to black men, and which may, in turn, inform their decisions regarding marriage and motherhood. Specifically, I examine the written responses of fifteen African American women between the ages of 18 and 55 (mean age of 32.6 years) regarding what is expected of them as women. Qualitative analyses of the data revealed that womanhood was defined in terms of feminine attitudes (strength, sensitivity and sensuality) and feminine behaviours (familial care, their own physical appearance and self-respect). In addition, womanhood was demonstrated through a woman’s ability to care for her home and to take the lead in the absence of male leadership. Supporting qualitative data are presented in connection with each theme. Recommendations for future research are also provided.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treva B. Lindsey
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
New Negro ◽  
American Women ◽  
Gender Specific

In search of greater educational, employment, social, political, and cultural opportunities, many African American women migrated to Washington with formerly unimaginable aspirations and expectations for themselves. Colored No More establishes this search as formative to a New Negro ethos.The introductory chapter defines “New Negro” and constructs a gender-specific understanding of this historical era and identity, while introducing Washington as both a unique and a representative site for the emergence of New Negro womanhood. Challenging the temporal primacy on the Interwar period in New Negro studies, the introduction asserts the importance of examining the lives of African American women to revisit how we conceptualize the “New Negro.” This chapter also deconstructs our understanding of “colored” as simply a racial marker- gender mattered in how Blackness was experienced during the New Negro era. In search of greater educational, employment, social, political, and cultural opportunities, many African American women migrated to Washington with formerly unimaginable aspirations and expectations for themselves.

"Let's Do This!"

2003 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne D. Dixson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Elementary School Teachers ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
African American Teachers ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
American Women ◽  
Material Conditions

Historically, African American teachers have been actively involved in political movements that sought to improve the material conditions of African Americans. More contemporary examinations of African American teachers' pedagogy and, in particular, African American women's pedagogy, have found that these teachers have a decidedly political mission to their teaching. Some researchers have described these teachers' pedagogy as culturally relevant. Notwithstanding, there is a growing body of research that seeks to highlight how Black women, in various contexts, have participated in political activities and how their participation is part of a Black feminist activist tradition. This article examines how contemporary African American women teachers continue the tradition of political involvement and situates their activities in a Black feminist activist tradition. The data are taken from a qualitative study of two African American women elementary school teachers. The findings reveal that among other things, the teachers' pedagogy was inherently political.

Introduction

Brown Beauty ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Laila Haidarali
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Class Membership ◽  
New Negro ◽  
American Women ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Prominent Response

This book interrogates the multiple meanings of brown as reference to physical complexion in the representation of African American womanhood during the interwar years. It questions how and why color in general and brownness in particular came to intimate race, class, gender, and sex identity as one prominent response to modernity and urbanization. This book shows that throughout the interwar years, diverse sets of African American women and men, all of whom can be defined as middle class within this constituency’s widely varying class membership, privileged brown complexions in their reworking of ideas, images, and expressions to identify the representative bodies of women as modern New Negro women.

Rearticulating the Leadership Experiences of African American Women in Midlevel Student Affairs Administration

NASPA Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah L Clayborne ◽  
Florence Hamrick
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Black Women ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Student Affairs Administration ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Administrative Positions ◽  
American Women ◽  
Resistance Strategies ◽  
Leadership Experiences ◽  
Relational Qualities

This qualitative study of African American women holding midlevel administrative positions sought to broaden and challenge conceptualizations of leadership by focusing on respondents’ descriptions of their leadership experiences. Findings centered principally on the intensely relational qualities associated with leadership and leading, mentoring and supervising, and the off-campus nature of most sources for professional support and validation. Tenets of Black feminist thought (Collins, 2000) were used to analyze aspects of respondents’ experiences in light of controlling images of Black women, resistance strategies, and empowerment for activism. Implications for research and practice include further explorations of culturally informed meanings of leadership and leading, as well as coming to broader understandings of professionals’ myriad definitions and fulfillment of leadership.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treva B. Lindsey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Negro ◽  
Exclusionary Practices ◽  
American Women ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Upper South

This book focuses on African American women, and more specifically, African American womanhood to complicate a masculinist conceptualization of “New Negro,” both historically and historiographically. The usage of a feminist historical approach to the New Negro era and to the early twentieth century urban upper south uncovers a new history of African American struggles for freedom and equality through exploring Jim and Jane Crow exclusionary practices. Applying this approach to explorations of historically marginalized communities can reveal untold stories. Moreover, African American women’s expressivity and creation of counterpublics remain ripe sites for critical interventions for women’s historians and feminist scholars. By challenging and expanding how we think about expressivity, we enrich our understandings of the historical experiences and the distinct political and cultural contributions of African American women in the shaping the United States.

Climbing the Hilltop

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treva B. Lindsey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
New Negro ◽  
American Women ◽  
Howard University ◽  
Dean Of Women

By the first decade of the twentieth century, Howard University emerged as the premier institution for higher learning for African Americans. Using the life of Lucy Diggs Slowe, a Howard alumnus and the first Dean of Women at Howard, this chapter discusses the experiences of African American women at Howard during the early twentieth century to illustrate how New Negro women negotiated intra-racial gender ideologies and conventions as well as Jim Crow racial politics. Although women could attend and work at Howard, extant African American gender ideologies often limited African American women’s opportunities as students, faculty, and staff. Slowe was arguably the most vocal advocate for African American women at Howard. She demanded that African American women be prepared for the “modern world,” and that African American women be full and equal participants in public culture. Her thirty-plus years affiliation with Howard makes her an ideal subject with which to map the emergence of New Negro womanhood at this prestigious university. This chapter presents Howard as an elite and exclusive site for the actualization of New Negro womanhood while simultaneously asserting the symbolic significance of Howard University for African American women living in and moving to Washington. Although most African American women in Washington could not and did not attend or work at Howard, this institution was foundational to an emergent sense of possibility and aspiration that propelled the intellectual and cultural strivings of African American women in New Negro era Washington.

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