African American Women in History - Essay Example

African American Women in History Women in America, regardless of color or race, have often been regarded as inferior to men in almost every significant factor, whether by actual differences or by imposed restrictions, despite the new American colonies’ claims which boasted of a new ‘free’ life for all mankind. Colonial America, while it allowed for a more diverse religious makeup, did not differ significantly in its interpretation of women than the homelands from which these colonists arrived. Primarily, the woman was considered to be intellectually, physically, politically and emotionally inferior (in that they were more ruled by their emotions) than men. This was also in spite of the fact that female slaves in Colonial America were nevertheless expected to do a great deal of the same sorts of field work that the men were expected to carry out while still being depended upon to add to the plantation economy. Denied schooling, women were prevented from obtaining any legal rights or owning property as a separate entity from their father or husband. With a majority of her household work unconsidered in terms of the physical work she could accomplish, women had little opportunity to do anything other than be a menial worker, wife and mother. Against this backdrop, middle class women who found themselves in non-traditional situations – the widow, the businesswoman, the intellectual – continuously struggled to find a better balance between men and women that allowed women some of the freedoms afforded to men, while women who fell within the societal norms also found themselves being forced into a more dominant role. Roles for both white and African American women began shifting with the advent of the industrial revolution. While many middle class white women were retiring to roles of homebound domesticity, African American women were forging ahead and pursuing vocational careers and working together to bring about necessary social change, even while dealing with unique challenges not often recognized. Between 1880 and 1930, political rights and social privileges were changing dramatically in the United States. This age of increases for women’s access to education, wage labor and public activism eventually led to all women in this country gaining full suffrage in 1919. But even while African American women in urban settings were gaining access to full education and expanded opportunities in civic life, they also faced a lot of the same racial problems African Americans were facing throughout the country, particularly in the south, with lynching, Southern disenfranchisement and Jim Crow segregation. “In 1870, 60 percent of all female workers were engaged in some aspect of domestic service and another 25 percent earned their livings in factories and workshops. Except for janitorial work, factory jobs were off-limits to black women. As late as 1900, when the proportion of white women in domestic service had dropped below 50 percent, most women of color supported themselves and their families with various forms of domestic service. Others participated in the agricultural work that continued to sustain the majority of black families (Kessler-Harris n.d.). Coming out of the slave culture, Jacqueline Jones (1985) provides examples of how it was considered a part of an African American woman’s responsibilities to contribute to the economic stability of the home as a means of maintaining the independence of their families and communities. This provided them with a sense of racial pride and uplift. She is supported by additional evidence from Patricia Schechter (2001), who indicates in the introduction to her novel on Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “middle-class African American women of Wells-Barnett’s generation sustained their intense religious and political commitments at the same time they, like educated white women, moved into teaching, journalism, social work, nursing, and civil service.” Part of the reason why it had been perceived that the majority of African American women retired from the workforce was because of their shift from employment within the white sector to more service positions within the black community. Jones (1985) indicates a large part of the reason for this was to avoid some of the hostility and violence that had erupted following emancipation as well as the effects of the Jim Crow laws that required them to remain in the smaller community. Despite the ability for families to own land and their diligent work to pull everyone together following the abolition of slavery, African American women in the south frequently found themselves being forced to raise their children alone. Because their husbands were finding it more and more difficult to find work moving into the 1900s, there were soon entire migration patterns established as men followed the harvest season as one of the more consistent means of providing economic stability to the family. The wives and children left behind found it necessary to move in with family and friends to help support each other and to take on lower paying positions in menial labor positions to supplement their husband’s income. Jacqueline Jones (1985) discusses how African American men in the 1920s south would leave Georgia just after the cotton harvest to travel to Florida in time to work the bean harvest, often completing that job in just enough time to return to Georgia in time for the planting season. Even when families were able to find work within the general vicinity of the family, Jones indicates acceptable housing was usually far enough away from the workplace that the walk and the hours of business typically ensured the man used his house as little more than sleeping quarters. As the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s began to clamp down, these restrictions from the south were also being felt in the north, in the country as well as in the city. “Black men experienced even higher rates of joblessness, causing their wives to cling more desperately to the positions they already had, despite declining wages and deteriorating working conditions. During the Great Depression, most black women maintained only a precarious hold on gainful employment” (Jones 1985). With the great demand for work in a country glutted with an abundance of individuals of both races and genders seeking any kind of available employment, the types of work available to women of color again declined in number of jobs available, types of work black women could expect to attain, level of wages and types of working conditions. “Just as significantly, the relatively high rate of black females’ participation in the labor force obscures the highly temporary and degrading nature of their work experiences. Specifically, most of these women could find only seasonal or part-time employment; racial and sexual discrimination deprived them of a living wage no matter how hard they labored; and they endured a degree and type of workplace exploitation for which the mere fact of having a job could not compensate” (Jones 1985). Despite the problems that were faced, there were a great deal of accomplishments that had been made primarily because of the involvement of strong African American female leaders who worked diligently to bring about the necessary social change to give their children better opportunities. One of the most prominent of these was Ida B. Wells-Barnett. “Like African American women evangelicals Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, and Amanda Smith before her, Wells-Barnett was a well-known public speaker and trusted teacher in her community for quite a few years before she took to the podium to denounce lynching in the 1890s. She also kept up her work as a teacher and community organizer after the demand for her platform speeches tapered off in the 1920s” (Schechter 2001). Another prominent female leader was Lucy Parsons, who was a renowned orator that helped to organize the Chicago Working Womens Union and began publishing her own newspaper ‘Freedom’ in 1891. At the Women’s Conference of the World’s Colombian Exposition, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper demanded justice for her race and defined the work of middle-class black women in the coming era. Although the white community did everything it could to ensure that the African American community remained as the subservient culture, it was the necessity of the female to contribute to the family economy as well as the strength of family and community ties that enabled the woman of color to both maintain paying positions and to take natural leadership positions to bring about social change. This is not to say that the journey was easy, however. Just as women were beginning to enjoy a new freedom and recognition within the public sphere, the Great Depression made it more difficult for any individual to maintain a living wage, forcing African American women to once again accept lower wages and deplorable working conditions in an attempt to support their families. However, leaders such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Lucy Parsons and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper kept the issues facing women of color in the forefront, ensuring women’s organizations working for the betterment of women’s rights also extended these rights to include the rights of the African American woman. Works Cited Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow. New York: Vintage Press, 1985. Kessler-Harris, Alice. “Women and the Work Force.” The Reader’s Companion to American History. (n.d.). Houghton Mifflin Company. Retrieved February 28, 2006 from < http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/rc_093200_womenandthew.htm> Schechter, Patricia. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880-1930. University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Read More