Fighting Words: Black Women & the Search for Justice (review)

340 Rhetoric & Public Affairs 7. Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her, Volume 1,177. 8. See, e.g., Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her, Volume 1,14-15; Dow, "The Womanhood Rationale in die Woman Suffrage Rhetoric of Frances E. Willard," 298; Aileen Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920 (1965; reprint, New York: Norton, 1981), Chapter 3. 9. In MCSFH, for instance, Campbell's attention to these decades consists of chapters analyzing Antiiony's defense of her right to vote and the rhetorical appeal of Frances Willard. She then jumps to Stanton's 1892 "Solitude of Self" speech. Although she offers some analysis of the failed Colorado referendum campaigns of 1876 and 1877, Marilley is somewhat similar, moving from a chapter on the Reconstruction amendments to one treating the rise of die WCTU, to one focusing on an 1893 referendum campaign. 10. Aileen Kraditor, one of the first historians to provide sustained discussion of the "Southern Question" in woman suffrage, also does so from the perspective of white leaders. See chapter 7 in The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement. 11. Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her, Volume 1,146. 12. I must point out that I believe Campbell's choices of these texts to be eminentÃ-y defensible on rhetorical grounds. Both are eloquent and inventive rhetorical acts, and Campbell's analysis of them is insightful. I simply do not know if Wells or Terrell produced rhetoric of the same quality on behalf of woman suffrage. My point is that Campbell's narrative says little about the extent of black women's suffrage activism. 13. In addition to Goldsmidi, two other recent biographies are Mary Gabriel, Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored (New York: Algonquin, 1998) and Lois Beachy Underhill, The Woman Who Ran For President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Bridge Works Publishing, 1995). 14. See Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her, Volume 1,106, 107-08. Fighting Words: Black Women & the Search for Justice. By Patricia Hill Collins. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1998; pp. vii + 304. $47.95 cloth; $18.95 paper. African American feminist thinker Patricia Hill Collins develops her call for a new paradigm of social thought and action in her work Fighting Words: Black Women & the Search for Justice. Collins urges thinking black women to utilize their unique vantage point as "outsiders within" to reject the burdensome yoke society has placed upon their shoulders in favor of new social roles which are self-defined and self-determined. For Collins, the role of African American women throughout American history has afforded them a broader perspective on society than that of any other demographic group. As a servant, whether as a house slave or later as a domestic, the black woman was made privy to the most intimate details and nuances of white society. Yet no matter how prized a servant, no matter how much "like family" she became in certain white households, she remained an outsider. Book Reviews 341 Collins defines this role as "the outsider within." This experience, as expressed by the author, is where black women gained a unique perspective which made them so instrumental in sustaining their own culture. Armed with a thorough knowledge of the inner workings of the dominant culture, she was uniquely equipped to lead in her own community. The black male, emasculated by oppression and the fear of reprisal, was in no position to lead in any event. So, it fell to the black matriarch to lead in the churches, in the civic and social clubs, in the family, and eventually to take the lead and become the backbone of the civil rights movement. Growing out of this matriarchal tradition, however, are a set of unhealthy expectations of black women. The dominant societal role of the black woman is that she will be the all-bearing, all-wise, all-enduring matriarch who will cheerfully and with seeming ease maintain and nurture the family unit. Black women are "designed" and predisposed to bear the superhuman loads and the incredible stresses they entail without complaint, according to the stereotype. Collins asserts that African American women face a cultural expectation that...