Black Women's History- HIST 4320/WMST 4100

Angela's Exodus out of Africa

Angela is considered one of the first named African Women arriving in Jamestown (Angela was of Angolan descent). Angela was aboard the ship the the San Juan Baptista as it sailed from Luanda in mid 1619 to Veracruz, Mexico. Angela was from the Ndongo Kingdom and one of 207 slaves that survived the horrific Atlantic Crossing. The ship was seized by English privateers and captives were divided among the White Lion and the Treasurer (the ship Angela was put on) to sell. Slaves like Angela came at an important time to colony where the need for skilled laborers to cultivate goods was vital. Captives like Angela helped the settlement grow furthering the economic expansion of the United States.

For more information:

Jamestown: The Angela Site

Angela: The "Eve" of Enslaved Africans

Economics of Slavery 

Hard labor of slaves in places like Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi helped america's economy grow. In fact, more than half of the nation’s exports in the first six decades of the 19th century consisted of raw cotton, almost all of it grown by slaves (Dr. Rockman, Brown University)

Belinda Sutton formerly known as Belinda Royall  

Belinda was a slave in the Royall House in Massachusetts in 1783.Belinda requested an income from her former slave owner Isaac Royall, In her petition Belinda reflected on her childhood in eastern Ghana (Akosombo and Ho areas) in the Volta Region. The area is associated with the Ewe speaking and Akan peoples. in 1783, Belinda was awarded pension and it has been regarded that it is possibly the very first case of reparation for slavery. For more information: 

The Petition of Belinda (Royall) Sutton

Royall House Slave Quarters: Belinda

Millie and Christine McKoy

Millie- Christine McKoy (referring to themselves as one person) was born into slavery in Columbus County, North Carolina in 1851. Due to their physical abnormality they were stolen at least three times throughout their life span and exploited - appearing in Carnivals as the "Two-Headed Nightingale" , "The Carolina Twins", and the "Eighth Wonder of the World". Their mother Monemia and Father Jacob, ending up tracking them upon their abduction over several years, from the south of the United States to Europe. Often their were subjected to their bodies and genitals being examined by spectators which caused much anguish to the twins. For more information: 

Millie-Christine

Examining Millie and Christine McKoy: Where Enslavement and Enfreakment Meet

Conjoined Twins in Black and White : The Lives of Millie-Christine McKoy and Daisy and Violet Hilton

Mary's Apron and the Demise of Slavery

Mary Colbert was born into slavery in Athens, Georgia. She was 10 years old when the civil war began, She was interviewed by Sadie B. Hornsby for the WPA Project and the original transcription of her slave account can be found here: Mary Colbert Slave Narrative

(NOTE: This is the first story we have had in which the client did not use any dialect. Mary Colbert’s grammar was excellent. Her skin was almost white, and her hair was quite straight.

None of us know what a “deep” slave was. It may have the same meaning as outlandish Negro. The “outlandish Negroes” were those newly arrived Negroes who had just come in from any country outside of the United States of America, and were untrained. They were usually just from Africa.

Sarah H. Hall)

Frances Thompson

Survivor of the Memphis Massacre of 1866.Thompson testified to a congressional investigating committee headed by Elihu Washburne about her sexual assault in late May. A decade later, in July of 1876, based on vague “suspicions,” Thompson was arrested and fined $50 for being a man dressed as a woman, with her biological sex being confirmed as male by four physicians.^[1] Thompson could not pay the fine, so the judge assigned her to the city’s chain-gang and kept imprisoned for 100 days. Newspapers across the country published articles on the scandal, ranging from moderately neutral recitations of fact to outraged editorials decrying Thompson’s “utter depravity” and loss of credibility as a witness to the Memphis riots.^[2] The newspapers who wrote about Thompson saw her as being doubly guilty—of being black, and of transgressing gender norms.

Mary Eliza Church Terrell 

African American activist who championed racial equality and women's suffrage in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. An Oberlin College graduate, Terrell was part of the rising black middle and upper class who used their position to fight racial discrimination. For More Information:

Unpublished papers of Mary Church Terrell by Mary Eliza Church Terrell.

Mary Church Terrell

Nannie Helen Burroughs 

Nannie Helen Burroughs was born to a formerly enslaved couple in Orange, Virginia around the 1800s. Her father died while she was a child and her mother relocated to Washington, DC. Burroughs excelled in academia and in adulthood became an Educator and Activist. Burroughs started a school training women in addition fight for the civil rights of African Americans and Women. For more information:

Nannie Helen Burroughs

Library of Congress: Nannie Helen Burroughs

Woman Glorified: Nannie Helen Burroughs

Alice Coachman

• Born: November 9, 1923
• Birthplace: Albany, Georgia
• Died: July 14, 2014
• Place of death: Albany, Georgia

Coachman was the first African American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, inspiring both African American and female athletes. A high jumper and sprinter, she demonstrated an athleticism that proved neither race nor gender impedes athletes’ ability to attain record-setting speed and distance in track and field.

Significance

At a time of entrenched racial segregation and discrimination, Coachman contributed to the civil rights movement with her outstanding athletic achievements, which caused people of all races to recognize her abilities and to consider accepting new roles for African Americans. Her athleticism affected how people perceived women competing in sports. Coachman’s successes inspired and enabled more female and African American athletes, both in immediate and later generations, to pursue their sporting goals and to challenge attitudes and restrictions based on gender and race. Coachman’s pioneering status as the first black female gold medalist and her remarkable athleticism resulted in her being inducted in the US Olympic Hall of Fame and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

For more information:

Alice Coachman

Aurelia Browder

On April 29, 1955, Aurelia Browder, like so many other black residents of Montgomery, was mistreated on a city bus. According to her testimony in the civil case, she was forced by the bus driver “to get up and stand to let a white man and a white lady sit down.” Three other plaintiffs, Mary Louise Smith, Claudette Colvin and Susie McDonald, had reported similar mistreatment. The cumulative effect of these “demeaning, wretched, intolerable impositions and conditions,” as boycott organizer Jo Ann Robinson referred to them, inspired Montgomery’s black community to begin developing plans for a boycott that eventually began after the arrest of Rosa Parks (Civil Rights Digital Library). 

For more information:

Aurelia Browder

Browder vs. Gayle

Shirley Chisolm

Born Shirley Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn, New York, on November 30, 1924, Chisholm spent her early childhood in Barbados, her parents' country of origin, returning to Brooklyn when she was ten. Chisholm earned a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Brooklyn College and a master's degree in early childhood education from Columbia University. She married Conrad Chisholm in 1949. They divorced in 1977, and she married businessman Arthur Hardwick, Jr., later that year. While serving as a teacher and school administrator in New York City, she organized and campaigned on behalf of black political candidates in the Democratic Party. In 1964 Chisholm ran for the New York State Assembly, winning by a significant margin. Her adherence to principle rather than party lines contributed to her growing reputation as an effective and independent legislator. Running for Congress in New York's Twelfth District in 1968, Chisholm overcame racist and sexist opposition to win her party's nomination and ultimately the election to the Ninety-first Congress, where she served on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and the Committee on Agriculture (Passage courtesy of Credo Reference).

For more information:

Shirley Chisolm

Patricia Okoumou

On July 4, 2018, Patricia Okoumou shocked the world by climbing the Statue of Liberty to protest the detention of migrant children. She remained on the base for more than three hours, and Liberty Island was evacuated. One year later, as migrant children continue to be housed in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities in conditions that have been described as unsanitary, Okoumou says she has struggled to find support and is now considering stepping back from her activism.

In the year since her Statue of Liberty protest made international news, Okoumou climbed the Eiffel Tower, was arrested for protesting at a school for immigrant children in Texas while out on bail and put on home detention, was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and five years probation for her Fourth of July climb (Time, 2019).

For more information:

Fighting Immigrant Family Separation