A scrupulously researched examination of 20th-century black women's
organizations and leagues. White (History/Rutgers Univ.; Ar'n't I a
Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South, 1985) explores the
efforts of black women to unite on behalf of themselves and their
race. Most arresting here is her analysis of the conflicts that
have arisen within these women's leagues and in the
African-American community at large. Gender and class conflicts
have been the norm. At the turn of the century, the National
Association of Colored Women contended that by working for the
poor, they were working for their race, not just for black women.
But too many black men - perhaps feeling threatened - responded by
chastising these women for not confining their attempts to
uplifting their race to their homes and families. Conflicts arose
within black women's organizations, so much so that "by the end of
the Depression and war decades there was no viable national Black
woman's organization that was truly the 'Voice of Negro Womanhood.'
" The masses of black women regarded those females who put gender
consciousness ahead of race consciousness as elitist and selfish.
Nevertheless, black women's leagues did much to improve the
circumstances of black people throughout the century. In 1964, for
example, the National Council of Negro Women challenged the racist
white power structure in Mississippi by setting up freedom schools
and registering black voters, and also built understanding between
black and white women. By the late '60s, black women's
organizations had become more feminist in nature, once again
focusing on women's rights and needs. More recently, black women
have united to defend Joycelyn Elders after she was dismissed by
President Clinton. Documented with 25 photographs, this is a
rigorous examination of not only the struggles and strengths of
black women's leagues, but of class, race, and gender issues in
20th-century America. (Kirkus Reviews)
Too Heavy a Load celebrates this century's rich history of black
women defending themselves, from Ida B. Wells to Anita Hill.
Although most prominently a history of the century-long struggle
against racism and male chauvinism, Deborah Gray White also
movingly illuminates black women's painful struggle to hold their
racial and gender identities intact while feeling the inexorable
pull of the agendas of white women and black men. Finally, it tells
the larger and lamentable story of how Americans began this century
measuring racial progress by the status of black women but
gradually came to focus on the status of black men-the
masculinization of America's racial consciousness. Writing with the
same magisterial eye for historical detail as in her best-selling
Ar'n't I a Woman, Deborah Gray White has given us a moving and
definitive history of struggle and freedom. "Splendid . . . a broad
and sweeping history that becomes an intensely personal experience
for the reader. . . . An inspiring showcase of scholarship and
sistership." - Nell Irvin Painter, Raleigh News & Observer
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