Full Description
From Black clubwomen to members of preservation organizations, African American women have made commemoration a central part of Black life and culture. Alexandria Russell illuminates the process of memorialization while placing African American women at the center of memorials they brought into being and others constructed in their honor. Their often undocumented and unheralded work reveals the importance of the memorializers and public memory crafters in establishing a culture of recognition. Forced to strategize with limited resources, the women operated with a resourcefulness and savvy that had to meet challenges raised by racism, gender and class discrimination, and specific regional difficulties. Yet their efforts from the 1890s to the 2020s shaped and honed practices that became indispensable to the everyday life and culture of Black Americans. Intersectional and original, Black Women Legacies explores the memorialization of African American women and its distinctive impact on physical and cultural landscapes throughout the United States.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction.
Part One. Creating Their Own World: Named Memorials of African American Women during Jim Crow
Chapter 1. The Phillis Wheatley Brand
Chapter 2. Commemorating Freedom: Named Memorials of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman
Chapter 3. The Three Marys: Living Named Memorials of African American Women
Chapter 4. Claiming Public Space: The Landscape of Named Memorials
Part Two. The National, State, and Local Stages: Ushering in the Golden Age of African American Women's Memorialization
Chapter 5. Mary McLeod Bethune and a New Era of Commemoration
Chapter 6. From Murdering Voodoo Madame to the Mother of Civil Rights
Chapter 7. The Madam Walker Theatre: From Urban Life to Legacy Center
Chapter 8. The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Site: State-Funded Memorialization
Chapter 9. Celia Mann, Modjeska Simkins, and Historic Columbia: Re-imagining House Museums in the Twenty-First Century
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
