Words of Fire (16 page)

-AMY JACQUES GARVEY,
Negro World

INTRODUCTION

 

T
he period between 1920 and 1960 has frequently been interpreted as the “nadir” of feminist activity. With the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, which granted women the right to vote, and the decline of major women's organizations, scholars argue that the feminist movement went into hibernation. Among African American women there is a different narrative. The New Negro Movement, to use Alain Locke's terminology, or the Harlem Renaissance (1917—1935), was characterized by an unprecedented outpouring of black women's creative energies. Zora Neale Hurston's feminist classic T
heir Eyes Were Watching God
(1937) underscored the importance of black women's finding their own voices and liberating themselves from narrow conceptions of womanhood. A host of other women writers—Jessie Faucet, Nella Larsen, Angelina Weld Grimke, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Anne Spencer, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Dorothy West, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Helene Johnson—joined the chorus and made visible the triumphs and tribulations of black women.

Elise Johnson McDougald captured the dualities of the black female experience in 1925—it seemed to have been both the best and worst of times. Professional women lived better lives while the masses of working
women struggled to earn a decent living. While World War I had lured thousands of black women away from the kitchens of the South into better jobs in the industrial North, they were still relegated to the most menial, lowest-paying jobs. After the war ended in 1918, unemployment plagued them.

Black women's activism centered around passing a federal anti-lynching bill, unionizing themselves as workers, achieving economic independence, securing birth control, enhancing their educational status, and improving the working condition of domestics. Club women were also concerned about the global plight of women of color and infusing black history into school curricula. Educated women were aware of organized struggles for women's liberation worldwide after World War II and the reawakening of feminism as a rally cry. The publication of Simone de Beauvoir's
The Second Sex
(1949), in which she attempted to define the nature of womanhood, would energize feminists for generations. Her argument that “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman” through cultural conditioning impacted at least one African American feminist, Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote a long analysis which appears here in print for the first time.

The civil rights activism of women in the 1950s such as Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Jo Ann Robinson, Modjeska Simkins, and Daisy Bates generated a climate of discontent which anticipated the full-blown and transformative black liberation struggle of the 1960s, out of which emerged the “second-wave” women's movement.

E
lise Johnson McDougald, journalist and teacher, wrote about the diverse lives of black women during the Harlem Renaissance in “The Double Task: The Struggle of Women for Sex and Race Emancipation,” which appeared in
Survey Graphic,
Alain Locke's magazine, in 1925. Her delineation of four distinct categories of women reveals her sensitivity to class and to the oppression that plagues certain groups. This is also the first essay that names the double burden of racism and sexism that African American women face in the United States, though she indicates that they are more concerned with racial equality. She also discusses sexism within certain black families, and efforts on the part of black women in organizations to achieve racial empowerment despite the many obstacles they face.

T
hroughout the long years of history, woman has been the weathervane, the indicator, showing in which direction the wind of destiny blows. Her status and development have augured now calm and stability, now swift currents of progress. What then is to be said of the Negro woman today?

In Harlem, more than anywhere else, the Negro woman is free from the cruder handicaps of primitive household hardships and the grosser forms of sex and race subjugation. Here she has considerable opportunity to measure her powers in the intellectual and industrial fields of the great city. Here the questions naturally arise: “What are her problems?” and “How is she solving them?”

To answer these questions, one must have in mind not any one Negro woman, but rather a colorful pageant of individuals, each differently endowed. Like the red and yellow of the tiger-lily, the skin of one is brilliant against the star-lit darkness of a racial sister. From grace to strength, they vary in infinite degree, with traces of the race's history left in physical and mental outline on each. With a discerning mind, one catches the multiform charm, beauty, and character of Negro women; and grasps the fact that their problem cannot be thought of in mass.

Because only a few have caught this vision, the attitude of mind of most New Yorkers causes the Negro woman serious difficulty. She is conscious that what is left of chivalry is not directed toward her. She realizes that the ideals of beauty, built up in the fine arts, exclude her almost entirely. Instead, the grotesque Aunt Jemimas of the street-car advertisements proclaim only an ability to serve, without grace or loveliness. Nor does the drama catch her finest spirit. She is most often used to provoke the mirthless laugh of ridicule; or to portray feminine viciousness or vulgarity not peculiar to Negroes. This is the shadow over her. To a race naturally sunny comes the twilight of self-doubt and a sense of personal inferiority. It cannot be denied that these are potent and detrimental influences, though
not generally recognized because they are in the realm of the mental and spiritual. More apparent are the economic handicaps which follow her recent entrance into industry. It is conceded that she has special difficulties because of the poor working conditions and low wages of her men. It is not surprising that only the determined women forge ahead to results other than mere survival. The few who do prove their mettle stimulate one to a closer study of how this achievement is won in Harlem.

Better to visualize the Negro woman at her job, our vision of a host of individuals must once more resolve itself into groups on the basis of activity. First, comes a very small leisure group—the wives and daughters of men who are in business, in the professions and a few well-paid personal service occupations. Second, a most active and progressive group, the women in business and the professions. Third, the many women in the trades and industry. Fourth, a group weighty in numbers struggling on in domestic service, with an even less fortunate fringe of casual workers, fluctuating with the economic temper of the times.

Negro women are of a race which is free neither economically, socially, nor spiritually. Like women in general, but more particularly like those of other oppressed minorities, the Negro woman has been forced to submit to over-powering conditions. Pressure has been exerted upon her, both from without and within her group. Her emotional and sex life is a reflex of her economic station. The women of the working class will react, emotionally and sexually, similarly to the working-class women of other races. The Negro woman does not maintain any moral standard which may be assigned chiefly to qualities of race, any more than a white woman does. Yet she has been singled out and advertised as having lower sex standards. Superficial critics who have had contact only with the lower grades of Negro women, claim that they are more immoral than other groups of women. This I deny. This is the sort of criticism which predicates of one race, to its detriment, that which is common to all races. Sex irregularities are not a matter of race, but of socio-economic conditions. Research shows that most of the African tribes from which the Negro sprang have strict codes for sex relations. There is no proof of inherent weakness in the ethnic group.

Gradually overcoming the habitual limits imposed upon her by slave masters, she increasingly seeks legal sanction for the consummation and dissolution of sex contracts. Contrary to popular belief, illegitimacy among Negroes is cause for shame and grief. When economic, social, and biological forces combined bring about unwed motherhood, the reaction is much the same as in families of other racial groups. Secrecy is maintained if possible. Generally the married aunt, or even the mother, claims that the illegitimate child is her own. The foundling asylum is seldom sought. Schooled in this kind of suffering in the days of slavery, Negro women often temper scorn
with sympathy for weakness. Stigma does fall upon the unmarried mother, but perhaps in this matter the Negroes' attitude is nearer the modern enlightened ideal for the social treatment of the unfortunate. May this not be considered another contribution to America?

With all these forces at work, true sex equality has not been approximated. The ratio of opportunity in the sex, social, economic, and political spheres is about that which exists between white men and women. In the large, I would say that the Negro woman is the cultural equal of her man because she is generally kept in school longer. Negro boys, like white boys, are usually put to work to subsidize the family income. The growing economic independence of Negro working women is causing her to rebel against the domineering family attitude of the cruder working-class Negro man. The masses of Negro men are engaged in menial occupations throughout the working day. Their baffled and suppressed desires to determine their economic life are manifested in over-bearing domination at home. Working mothers are unable to instill different ideals in their sons. Conditions change slowly. Nevertheless, education and opportunity are modifying the spirit of the younger Negro men. Trained in modern schools of thought, they begin to show a wholesome attitude of fellowship and freedom for their women. The challenge to young Negro womanhood is to see clearly this trend and grasp the preferred comradeship with sincerity. In this matter of sex equality, Negro women have contributed few outstanding militants. Their feminist efforts are directed chiefly toward the realization of the equality of the races, the sex struggle assuming a subordinate place.

Obsessed with difficulties that might well compel individualism, the Negro woman has engaged in a considerable amount of organized action to meet group needs. She has evolved a federation of her clubs, embracing between eight and ten thousand women throughout the state of New York. Its chief function is to crystallize programs, prevent duplication of effort, and to sustain a member organization whose cause might otherwise fail. It is now firmly established, and is about to strive for conspicuous goals. In New York City, one association makes child welfare its name and special concern. Others, like the Utility Club, Utopia Neighborhood, Debutante's League, Sempre Fidelius, etc., raise money for old folks' homes, a shelter for delinquent girls, and fresh air camps for children. The Colored Branch of the Y.W.C.A. and the womens' organizations in the many churches, as well as in the beneficial lodges and associations, care for the needs of their members.

On the other hand, the educational welfare of the coming generation has become the chief concern of the national sororities of Negro college women. The first to be organized in the country, Alpha Kappa Alpha, has a systematized and continuous program of educational and vocational guidance for
students of the high schools and colleges. The work of Lambda Chapter, which covers New York City and its suburbs, is outstanding. Its recent campaign gathered together nearly one hundred and fifty such students at a meeting to gain inspiration from the life-stories of successful Negro women in eight fields of endeavor. From the trained nurse, who began in the same schools as they, these girls drank in the tale of her rise to the executive position in the Harlem Health Information Bureau. A commercial artist showed how real talent had overcome the color line. The graduate physician was a living example of the modern opportunities in the newer fields of medicine open to women. The vocations as outlets for the creative instinct became attractive under the persuasion of the musician, the dressmaker, and the decorator. Similarly, Alpha Beta Chapter of the national Delta Sigma Theta Sorority recently devoted a week to work along similar lines. In such ways as these are the progressive and privileged groups of Negro women expressing their community and race consciousness.

We find the Negro woman, figuratively, struck in the face daily by contempt from the world about her. Within her soul, she knows little of peace and happiness. Through it all, she is courageously standing erect, developing within herself the moral strength to rise above and conquer false attitudes. She is maintaining her natural beauty and charm and improving her mind and opportunity. She is measuring up to the needs and demands of her family, community, and race, and radiating from Harlem a hope that is cherished by her sisters in less propitious circumstances throughout the land. The wind of the race's destiny stirs more briskly because of her striving.

A
lice Dunbar-Nelson, born in New Orleans, was a teacher, club woman, journalist, and writer, publishing her first book,
Violets and Other Tales,
in 1895. She is perhaps best known as a Harlem Renaissance poet and the wife (briefly) of poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, with whom she had a stormy relationship. See Andrew Alexander's “The Dunbar Letters: The Tragic Love Affair of One of America's Greatest Poets,”
Washington Post Magazine
, 28 June 1981. Dunbar's diary
Give Us Each Day
(1984), edited by literary critic Gloria T. Hull, is one of only two extant diaries by a nineteenth-century black woman and reveals an active black lesbian network, of which she was a part during the 1920s. Active in the black women's club movement and the national political arena, she was, in 1915, secretary of the National Association of Colored Women and field organizer for the Middle Atlantic states in the battle for woman suffrage. In 1920, she was also chair of the League of Colored Republican Women and, in 1922, was head of the Anti-Lynching Crusaders in Delaware, which fought for the passage of the Dyer federal Anti-Lynching Bill.