The New Woman of Color

by Williams, Fannie Barrier; Deegan, Mary Jo

• ISBN13: 9780875802930
• ISBN10: 0875802931
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Northern Illinois Univ Pr

Summary

Fannie Barrier Williams made history as a controversial African American reformer in an era fraught with racial discrimination and injustice. She first came to prominence during the 1893 Columbian Exposition, where her powerful arguments for African American women's rights launched her career as a nationally renowned writer and orator. In her speeches, essays, and articles, Williams incorporated the ideas of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois to create an interracial worldview dedicated to social equality and cultural harmony. Williams's writings illuminate the difficulties of African American women in the Progressive Era. She frankly denounced white men's sexual and economic victimization of black women and condemned the complicity of religious and political leaders in the immorality of segregation. Citing the discrimination that crushed the spirits of African American women, Williams called for educational and professional progress for African Americans through the transformation of white society. Committed to aiding and educating Chicago's urban poor, Williams played a central and continuous role in the development of the Frederick Douglass Center, which she called "the black Hull House." An active member of the NAACP and the National Urban League, she fought a long and successful battle to become the first African American admitted to the influential Chicago Women's Club. Her efforts to promote the well-being of African American women brought her into close contact with such influential women as Celia Parker Woolley, Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Accompanied by Deegan's introduction and detailed annotations, Williams's perceptive writings on race relations, women's rights, economic justice, and the role of African American women are as fresh and fascinating today as when they were written.

Author Biography

Mary Jo Deegan is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Table of Contents

Editor's Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
``Fannie Barrier Williams and Her Life as a New Woman of Color in Chicago, 1893-1918''	xiii
Mary Jo Deegan
Part I---AUTOBIOGRAPHY
A Northern Negro's Autobiography	5	(12)
Part II---AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation	17	(11)
Club Movement among Negro Women	28	(19)
The Club Movement among the Colored Women	47	(5)
The Problem of Employment for Negro Women	52	(6)
The Woman's Part in a Man's Business	58	(5)
The Colored Girl	63	(4)
Colored Women of Chicago	67	(6)
Part III---AFRICAN AMERICANS
Religious Duty to the Negro	73	(5)
Industrial Education---Will It Solve the Negro Problem?	78	(6)
Do We Need Another Name?	84	(3)
The Negro and Public Opinion	87	(3)
The Smaller Economies	90	(2)
An Extension of the Conference Spirit	92	(4)
Vacation Values	96	(4)
Refining Influence of Art	100	(7)
Part IV---SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS
The Need of Social Settlement Work for the City Negro	107	(6)
The Frederick Douglass Centre: A Question of Social Betterment an Not of Social Equality	113	(4)
Social Bonds in the ``Black Belt'' of Chicago: Negro Organizations and the New Spirit Pervading Them	117	(8)
The Frederick Douglass Center [: The Institutional Foundation]	125	(3)
A New Method of Dealing with the Race Problem	128	(7)
Part V---EULOGIES
[In Memory of Philip D. Armour]	135	(2)
[Eulogy of Susan B. Anthony]	137	(1)
Report of Memorial Service for Rev. Celia Parker Woolley	138	(3)
Notes	141	(6)
References	147	(10)
Index	157