Exposing the Racial Illogics of Jim Crow Segregation: Mary Church Terrell's Situational Resistance

Abstract: One of the most prolific Black women intellectuals in the late-nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, Mary Church Terrell is most known for her organizational work in the women's rights movement and the Black clubwomen's movement. In recent years, increasing scholarly attention to Terrell's work and legacy has placed her in conversation with fellow Black women intellectuals Anna Julia Cooper and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, expanding the scope of Black women's writing and activism at the turn of the twentieth century. This article argues that throughout her published and unpublished writings, Terrell exposes the perils of travel for Black women and devises strategies to assert their embodied presence onboard Jim-Crow segregated trains, placing her within a tradition of Black women's resistance practices. It also encourages further scholarly engagement with her work, accounting for her contributions to Black feminist thought and civil rights activism.