for the sake of our own dignity, the dignity of our race, and the future good name of our children, it is “mete, right, and our bounded duty” to stand forth and declare ourselves and our principles, to teach an ignorant and suspicious world that our aims and interests are identical with those of all good aspiring women. Too long have we been silent under unjust and unholy charges; we cannot expect to have them removed until we disprove them through ourselves. —JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN, The Women’s Era The Negro woman “totes” more water; grows more corn; picks more cotton; washes more clothes; cooks more meals; nurses more babies; mammies more Nordics; supports more churches; does more race uplifting; serves as mudsills for more climbers; takes more punishment; does more forgiving; gets less protection and appreciation than do the women in any other civilized group in the world. She has been the economic and social slave of mankind. —NANNIE BURROUGHS INTRODUCTION Like most students who attended public schools and colleges during the 1950s and 1960s, I learned very little about the involvement of African American women in struggles for the emancipation of blacks and women —so I did not read the words of any of the women who appear in this chapter as our feminist foremothers.
