African American Women and the Vote, 1837–1965 - Hardcover

Collier-Thomas, Bettye; Bracey, John H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1558490582 ISBN 13: 9781558490581

Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016

Synopsis

Written by leading scholars of African American and women's history, the essays in this volume seek to reconceptualize the political history of black women in the United States by placing them "at the center of our thinking." The book explores how slavery, racial discrimination, and gender shaped the goals that African American women set for themselves, their families, and their race and looks at the political tools at their disposal. By identifying key turning points for black women, the essays create a new chronology and a new paradigm for historical analysis. The chronology begins in 1837 with the interracial meeting of antislavery women in New York City and concludes with the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The contributors focus on specific examples of women pursuing a dual ambition: to gain full civil and political rights and to improve the social conditions of African Americans. Together, the essays challenge us to rethink common generalizations that govern much of our historical thinking about the experience of African American women.

Contributors include Bettina Aptheker, Elsa Barkley Brown, Willi Coleman, Gerald R. Gill, Ann D. Gordon, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, Martha Prescod Norman, Janice Sumler-Edmond, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, and Bettye Collier-Thomas.

About this title

About the Author:

Ann D. Hordon is editor of the papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony at Rutgers University.

Arlene Voski Avakian (women's studies), Joyce Avrech Berkman (history), and John H. Bracey (Afro-American studies) are professors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Founder and former director for the Mary McLeod Bethune Museum and Archives, Bettye Collier-Thomas is director of the Center for African American History and Culture at Temple University.

Review:

This is an exciting and pathbreaking collection containing many exceptionally well-written, thought-provoking, insightful essays on a subject that has never before received this concentrated attention. I foresee widespread course adoptions for this text.

(Darlene Clark Hine, coeditor of Black Women in America: An Historical Encylopedia)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1558490582
• ISBN 13: 9781558490581
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Gordon Ann