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Fannie Barrier Williams: Crossing the Borders of Region and Race

Online ISBN:
9780252095870
Print ISBN:
9780252038112
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
Book

Fannie Barrier Williams: Crossing the Borders of Region and Race

Wanda A. Hendricks
Wanda A. Hendricks
University of South Carolina
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Published online:
20 April 2017
Published in print:
15 December 2013
Online ISBN:
9780252095870
Print ISBN:
9780252038112
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press

Abstract

Born shortly before the Civil War, activist and reformer Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944) became one of the most prominent educated black women of her generation. This book shows how Williams became “raced” for the first time in early adulthood, when she became a teacher in Missouri and Washington, D.C., and faced the injustices of racism and the stark contrast between the lives of freed slaves and her own privileged upbringing in a western New York village. She carried this new awareness to Chicago, where she joined forces with black and predominantly white women's clubs, the Unitarian church, and various other interracial social justice organizations to become a prominent spokesperson for progressive economic, racial, and gender reforms during the transformative period of industrialization. The book focuses on the critical role geography and social position played in Williams' life, illustrating how the reform activism of Williams and other black women was bound up with place and space. By highlighting how Williams experienced a set of freedoms in the North that were not imaginable in the South, the book expands how we understand intellectual possibilities, economic success, and social mobility in post-Reconstruction America.

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