The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America
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When and Where I Enter The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America Paula Giddings For Virginia I. GiddingsÐmy mother, my friend, my support Only the BLACK WOMAN can say ªwhen and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole¼race enters with me.º ÐANNA JULIA COOPER, 1892 Contents Epigraph iii Preface 7 Part I: Inventing Themselves 11 Chapter I: ªTo Sell My Life as Dearly as Possibleº: Ida B. Wells and the First Antilynching Campaign 13 Chapter II: Casting of the Die: Morality, Slavery, and Resistance 29 Chapter III: To Choose Again, Freely 53 Chapter IV: Prelude to a Movement 71 Chapter V: Defending Our Name 81 Chapter VI: ªTo Be a Woman, Sublimeº: The Ideas of the National Black Women's Club Movement (to 1917) 91 Chapter VII: The Quest for Woman Suffrage (Before World War I) 115 Part II: A World War and After: The ªNew Negroº Woman 129 Chapter VIII: Cusp of a New Era 131 Chapter IX: The Radical Interracialists 149 Chapter X: A New Era: Toward Interracial Cooperation 167 Chapter XI: A Search for Self 179 Chapter XII: Enter Mary McLeod Bethune 195 Chapter XIII: Black Braintruster: Mary McLeod Bethune and the Roosevelt Administration 213 Chapter XIV: A Second World War and After 227 Part III: The Unfinished Revolution 255 Chapter XV: Dress Rehearsal for the Sixties 257 Chapter XVI: SNCC: Coming Full Circle 273 Chapter XVII: The Women's Movement and Black Discontent 295 Chapter XVIII: Strong Women and Strutting Men: The Moynihan Report 321 Chapter XIX: A Failure of Consensus 333 Chapter XX: Outlook 345 Source Notes 355 Selected Bibliography 383 Index 387 Acknowledgments About the Author Other Books by Paula Giddings Cover Copyright About the Publisher Preface A History of Our Own The occasion of a new edition of When and Where I Enter, first published in 1984, has made me think about the uses of history in different periods: how we plumb the past for inspiration; for evidence of things seen but unacknowledged. During segregation we celebrated our ªcontributions to civilization,º or, in other words, our ability to land on our feet after being thrown from great heights. In the sixties and seventies, we embraced our resistance and agency; and in the eighties, we uncovered our canonical presence in the full scheme of American history and cultureÐhigh and low. An indomitable belief in the continuing progress of each succeeding generation was, like a brightly colored thread, woven throughout the record of our experience. This, of course, is a very American notion. But for black womenÐmany of whom, like myself, are inscribed with the image of a great-great-grandmother who, though born a slave, was able, when the time came, to turn a raised head toward freedom; or of a grandmother who trekked north and, with savings from domestic work, sent my mother to collegeÐthis belief was an extraordinary article of faith. Surely it was at the heart of the economic, social, and political convictions that drove the women's and black rights movements of the sixties and seventies. In an important way that faith was borne out in the eighties and nineties for African Americans in general and women in particular. In that period, the voice of black women, the living narrative of our experience, not only emerged but began to define the literature, arts, and scholarship that were informed by it. In another measure of progress, access was gained to newly desegregated institutions and occupations to the extent that though still 8 / Paula Giddings earning less than all men (including black men), we have reached parity and in some instances surpass the earnings of white women. These gains in turn contributed to the significant increase in the median income of dual- income black families, from $26,686 in 1983 to $39,601 in 1990. There have been other gains, black women as elected officials, for example, including the first black woman elected a U.S. senator. But a new cycle has eclipsed the old, and these gains are no longer seenÐor feltÐin the context of the social movement optimism of the last three decades. One reason is increasing black povertyÐespecially of female- headed households; another is the onset of an antilabor economy; a third, and most defining, is an at-first predictable conservative reaction that turned into a crimson backlash of considerable ferocity. In its midst, al- though reactionaries were unable to undermine the social movement ideals of equality and opportunity for all, they nonetheless managed to reinterpret the meaning and the valence of those principles as they applied to people of color, to the poor, and to women. In this way, they twisted welfare safety nets into nooses; made the level playing field of affirmative action into re- verse discrimination, recast poverty as a function of morality rather than economic policy. And as for feminism, they charged that it didn't save women's lives, but ruined themÐand family and daddy, too. If the countertide had come from just one direction, it would not have been so brutal, but it also included conservative elements of the black community as wellÐparticularly regarding the achievements of women. This is at variance with the abiding faith of our progress, our legacy as agents of change, even our survival. When I think about how torn and ambivalent black women become in the face of such developments, it leads me to think that in this new era, we must search history for a new element, something that in a way is less fa- miliar to usÐourselves. For, I think, even when we possess a breathtaking sense of agency, when we have heroically resisted, when we have proven our worth and the wealth of our presence, we have seen ourselves primarily in the context of othersÐof men, of community, of family, of employers. This has made us indispensableЪthose who don't know our history, don't know their own,º Toni Morrison saysÐbut that When and Where I Enter / 9 idea has also pulled us back against our own interests when our winds should be pushing us in another direction. So we become indispensable to everyone but ourselves. In the nineties and beyond, we might ask then, who are we as ourselves? What would we say to Anita Hill outside the earshot of whites or men or our mothers and fathers? What do we feel about a Million Man March, not withstanding the participation of our sons and brothers and husbands? Who are we when no one yearns for us, or when we are in full possession of our sexuality? Who are we when we are not someone's mother, or daughter, or sister, or aunt, or church elder, or first black woman to be this or that? In the next century, we should search our history for the answers to these questions, which I believe will evoke the extraordinary will, spirit, and transformative vision that can reconnect us to loved ones, communities, and reform movements in revolutionary ways. For what I have learned in the eighties and nineties is that the faith in progress our forebears taught was not only in terms of our status in society, but in our ability to gain in- creasing control of our own lives. ÐPAULA GIDDINGS Part I INVENTING THEMSELVES ¼she had nothing to fall back on; not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may well have invented herself. ÐTONI MORRISON I ªTo Sell My Life as Dearly as Possibleº: Ida B. Wells and the First Antilynching Campaign Before they took his life, they asked Thomas Moss if he had anything to say. ªTell my people to go west,º he told his abductors. ªThere is no justice for them here.º1 With those final words, Thomas Moss and two of his friends, Calvin McDowell and Henry Stewart, were lynched a mile outside of Memphis, Tennessee. A newspaper account of the mob-murder pointed out that the men did not die without a struggle. McDowell had tried to wrestle a gun from the hands of one of the killers. When the Black man's body was recovered, the fingers of his right hand had been shot to pieces; his eyes were gouged out. The lynching of March 9, 1892, was the climax of ugly events in Memphis. From the time the three Black men had gone into business for themselves, their People's Grocery, as it was called, had been the target of White resent- ment. The store, which sold food and miscellaneous items and became a gathering place for Memphis Blacks, represented, after all, a desire for economic independence. The start-up capital for the grocery had been provided by Moss, a postman who was the city's first Black to hold a fed- eral position. He worked in the store evenings, while his partners worked there during the day. For Whites the most galling thing about the People's Grocery was that it took away business from a White store owner who had long been used to a monopoly of Black trade. The White proprietor initiated against the Black businessmen a series of provocations that culminated in an attack of armed thugs sent to raze the grocery. The attack came on a Saturday night, when the store was full of Black menÐarmed Black menÐwho repelled the invaders and shot three Whites in the process. In short order Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were arrested along with one hundred other Blacks charged with conspiracy.