African American Women

The role of individual personalities in a social movement is often recorded in disproportion to the individual's achievement. Minorities have received short shrift in the past. Women in particular are apt to be slighted by historians who, until recently, were generally composed of educated white males viewing the past through a perspective that was sorely limited by lack of imagination and empathy. Needless to say, women of African-American heritage have been more likely lost in the shuffle of such opinion than white women and black men. As Arican-Americans in America moved from slavery to freedom, from segregated minority to still-being-attempted integration into the mainstream society, there has been a none-too-subtle discount of the black woman's accomplishments in the field of social reform. Nevertheless, there has been a strong spine of African-American female participation running through the civil rights, women's rights and human rights movements that has been consistently strong and inspirational from the earliest days. It is a roll call including such deserving-renown names as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Possible the most famous of the early black civil rights pioneers was Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883). Born a slave in Ulster County, New York, Sojourner was originally named "Isabella Baumfree" by her Dutch master. She saw her brothers and sisters sold off and was herself sold with some sheep to a Yankee fa

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he "never lost a single passenger" (Lerner 65). Tubman always carried a pistol - with which she spurred on laggard and despairing fugitives with the pointed remark, "You'll be free or die" (Lerner 65) - it was a technique that earned her the sobriquet "the Moses of her people" (Millstein and Bodin 101). Harriet Tubman was a militant revolutionist. She fully supported John Brown's plans for his ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry - he consulted her on the planning of it - but was prevented by illness from joining him. During the Civil War she worked as a nurse, spy and scout. She was unique in that she commanded troops on scouting raids behind Confederate lines. Among her various war exploits, the most spectacular was the engagement on the Combahee River, in which she piloted a white colonel and his black troops up the river, lifting mines and rescuing over 700 slaves without the loss of a single Union soldier. During her three years of service, Harriet Tubman received only $200 from the U.S. government - which she used to build a washhouse for freedwomen. She supported herself - and her soldiering activities - by baking pies and making root beer, which she sold to the soldiers. The Civil War's end did not bring an end to

Category: History - A