Local Women: the Public Lives of Black Middle Class Women in Kentucky Before the “Modern Civil Rights Movement"
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--History History 2013 LOCAL WOMEN: THE PUBLIC LIVES OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN IN KENTUCKY BEFORE THE “MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT" Karen Cotton McDaniel University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation McDaniel, Karen Cotton, "LOCAL WOMEN: THE PUBLIC LIVES OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN IN KENTUCKY BEFORE THE “MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT"" (2013). Theses and Dissertations-- History. 22. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/history_etds/22 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the History at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--History by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained and attached hereto needed written permission statements(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine). I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I agree that the document mentioned above may be made available immediately for worldwide access unless a preapproved embargo applies. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of my work. I understand that I am free to register the copyright to my work. REVIEW, APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student’s advisor, on behalf of the advisory committee, and by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), on behalf of the program; we verify that this is the final, approved version of the student’s dissertation including all changes required by the advisory committee. The undersigned agree to abide by the statements above. Karen Cotton McDaniel, Student Dr. Joanne P. Melish, Major Professor Dr. David Hamilton, Director of Graduate Studies LOCAL WOMEN: THE PUBLIC LIVES OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN IN KENTUCKY BEFORE THE “MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT" ____________________________________ DISSERTATION ____________________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Karen Cotton McDaniel Frankfort, Kentucky Director: Dr. Joanne P. Melish, Professor of History Lexington, Kentucky 2013 Copyright © Karen Cotton McDaniel 2013 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION LOCAL WOMEN: THE PUBLIC LIVES OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN IN KENTUCKY BEFORE THE “MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT" This dissertation looks at the responses of African American club women to the challenging racial environment of Kentucky from the late 1800s through the early decades of the 20th century. It explores their efforts to negotiate the dialectical relationship between local circumstances and national movements. While most discussions of club women argue that their work merely enabled respectability, this dissertation argues that its real significance lies in the way black club women established support systems and communication systems for other forms of activism. The black women's club movement is the communication arena which establishes networks for advancing the direct action protests of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Keywords: Kentucky African American women, African American women’s organizations, Social activism, Early Civil Rights Movements, Race relations Karen Cotton McDaniel Student’s Signature December 5, 2013 Date LOCAL WOMEN: THE PUBLIC LIVES OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN IN KENTUCKY BEFORE THE “MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT" By Karen Cotton McDaniel Dr. Joanne P. Melish__________________ Director of Dissertation Dr. David Hamilton __________________ Director of Graduate Studies November 18, 2013___________________ In loving memory of my mother, Maude Smoot Cotton Bledsoe, as I promised TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction …………………………………………….…………….…1 Chapter Two: Kentucky Legislation: Building the Foundation for Injustice……….....27 Chapter Three: On this Rock I will Build my Nation: Community Work among Black Church Women ……………………………………………….…72 Chapter Four: The Black Women’s Club Movement in Kentucky: Shaping National Issues……………………………………………………………114 Chapter Five: Knowledge’s Uplifting Power: Educating the Masses through KACW………………………………………………………….170 Chapter Six: We too are Kentucky: Club Women Transforming Public Policy……..204 Chapter Seven: Conclusion………………………………………………………….....263 Appendices Appendix A: KACW Charter Clubs and Presidents…………………………...273 Appendix B: KACW Club List by City…………..…………………………....275 Bibliography …………………………..…………….…………………………………286 Vita……………………………………………………………………….……………..315 iii Chapter One: Introduction “[T]he colored race possesses many women of brain, nerve, and energy who, when left to wage hand-to-hand combat with adversity, fight along bravely and well; and in the end come off victorious.”1 Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer are some of the well-known female activists of the modern Civil Rights Movement and their stories have been told many times. However, these women did not achieve their success alone. Women like Ida B. Wells Barnett and countless nameless African American women before them created a stalwart foundation of activist engagement which stabilized the black community and supported the community’s common goals and strategies of resistance. By studying the public activism of the African American middle class women prior to the 1950s, we can develop a broader picture of the long civil rights struggle as this study bridges the gap between the Civil War and the modern Civil Rights Movement. Black women’s activism includes a broad spectrum of public and private venues. They sought opportunities to change and remove all vestiges of slavery in their lives, not only the private family roles, but also more specifically the public policies that placed limitations on every aspect of their worlds. Women challenged patriarchal and hierarchical policies and practices by both whites and blacks that limited their new freedom and equality while they forged a new black community. This dissertation deals with black women in Kentucky who became activists and spokeswomen in a variety of important local, social, cultural, and political arenas that mirrored and sometimes intersected with national organizations and movements, but whose efforts reflected the particular racial landscape of Kentucky and the obstacles it 1 I. Garland Penn, Afro-American Press, and its Editors. (Springfield, MA: Willery & Co. Publishers, 1891), 419. 1 presented to African Americans. These Kentucky African American women joined forces to enact their various agendas of uplift and empowerment in a host of local women’s clubs that united as the Kentucky Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (KACW) in 1903, which in turn affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1906. The activities of these women, working through their more than 200 local clubs, the KACW, and the NACW, had an enormous impact on the lives of African Americans in Kentucky. Women of the Kentucky Association of Colored Women’s Clubs are among those early civil rights pioneers. Following the Civil War, Kentucky’s black women recognized the changing needs for specific services in their communities and sought ways to provide those services. As in slavery days, black women of all classes established their own networks which came together to address race, class, gender, self-definition, economic, political and sexuality issues. Interdependence among black women strengthened the black community by providing a shared consciousness through a common effort. Fulfilling their traditional roles as nurturers, black women assumed the responsibility for meeting the needs of their people and sought ways of helping those less fortunate than themselves by developing charitable and self-help programs through church and benevolent clubs and societies. Darlene Clark Hine maintains that black women played a significant role in establishing the black communal infrastructures, “religious, educational, health-care, philanthropic, political, familial institutions and professional organizations that enabled our people to survive.” African American women reinvented themselves through self- determination and the aid of extended families of kinships and friendships whose mutual 2 goals promoted the upward evolvement of the black community. They acquired self- defining agency as they transformed their lives and communities by taking control of their working conditions, social structures, church activities and personal spheres while attempting to uplift their entire race through benevolent programs. Hine sums up black female agency in this way, “It was through ‘making community’ that Black women were able to redefine themselves, project sexual respectability, reshape morality, and define a new aesthetic.”2 Kentucky Association of Colored Women Clubs members