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.
By:
Alexandria Russell
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780252046292
ISBN 10: 0252046293
Series: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 10 December 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
ELT Advanced
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
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
Alexandria Russell is a W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, and the Interim Vice President of Education and External Engagement at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Reviews for Black Women Legacies: Public History Sites Seen and Unseen
“I was fully captivated by this story about women’s efforts to tell their own history. Russell’s engaging narrative reminds readers that public commemorations of Black women’s history are a product of Black women’s history itself--a history of labor, fundraising, intellectual work, and local politics.”--Lynn M. Hudson, author of West of Jim Crow: The Fight Against California's Color Line
