Private Politics and Public Voices: Black Women's Activism from World War I to the New Deal

Introduction

Introduction The following story of black women and World War I began with a brief note by Willie Mae King in an article about the war’s impact on black women. In the July 1918 issue of the A.M.E. Church Review, King provocatively wrote, “This World War is destined to solve the problems of colored women just as it will solve other problems. . . . We colored women are in this great fight too, and we must prove our worth and ability because through this achievement over hate and oppression lies equal rights and opportunities not only for the colored men of America but colored women as well.” King alluded to a national political agenda that revolved around key questions. How soon after the World War for Democracy could African Americans expect democracy in America? Might black participation in the war result in long overdue civil rights legislation? How much could African American patriotism counteract the institutionalized racism endemic throughout the country? Could the World War fulfill the promise of full citizenship for African American men and women, a promise made at the end of the Civil War? Clearly, King thought so. Their individual writings were indicative of a larger trend among black clubwomen, who played crucial roles in African American enlistment in World War I. Similar to the efforts of middle-class white women supporting their doughboys, middle-class black clubwomen held fundraisers at local auxiliaries, knitted sweaters and mittens, petitioned their neighbors for donations, and encouraged the conservation of foodstuffs and household wares. In the course of researching the NACW and black clubwomen, I found that the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) embedded within its fundraising efforts the elements of an important political debate about the future of black America, and within black middle-class women’s war work was a political discussion that went beyond the NACW’s constituency of 50,000 women. In fact, if the NACW’s volunteer work had not contained the political elements of a civil rights agenda, there would have been no need to expand on the story. World War I also played a pivotal role in shaping the black female experience in the twentieth century, and the story of black women’s politics, in the wake of the war, needs to be told. The black woman’s experience has existed interdependently to the black man’s experience; that is, they are x Introduction linked symbiotically by race and racism yet divided by gender and sexism. In terms of national questions, such as the right to vote and the spread of Jim Crow, and in terms of individual experiences, such as work and the family, the black woman’s experience has navigated complex political terrain by skillfully employing their private politics and public voices. Black women’s politics prior to the outbreak of war were driven by the notions of uplift and service, evident in the structure of black women’s organizations prior to the war. Still another theme within black women’s political expressions was black identity and black representation, particularly important at the dawn of the New Negro Movement and the Harlem cultural renaissance . Thus, understanding World War I and its aftermath is essential to recognizing the singularity of the black female experience in a time period dominated by masculine narratives and viewpoints. First off, the most important impact of World War I on African Americans was its stimulation of the Great Migration. The estimated numbers of migrants range from 250,000 to 500,000, but the numbers of migrants in the early years of the war are not as important as the geographical shift, as 90 percent of the nation ’s black residents lived in the southern states and 80 percent of those lived in the Deep South. From the southern states to the northern and Midwestern states, the Great Migration determined the type of work black women were most likely to be engaged in. For example, domestic work and agricultural labor were the most common types of jobs for black women, both married and single, prior to 1920. During the World War, the call of the North drew a small yet important population of black women northward into industrial jobs. But for most black women, the World War granted women more control over their work, working conditions, and pay. The empowerment of controlling one’s future in work naturally evolved along political terms. As working-class black women formed labor unions and labor leagues to study the...