'Unjust and Unholy Charges': Race and Nation in Black Feminist Discourse during the 1890s

Abstract: With a focus on the 1890s, this article examines the rhetorical responses of Black women activists to the rise of propagandistic discourses that sought to disparage all African Americans and the progress gained during Reconstruction. It attends to the formal, collective, and public response of four Black women activists who spoke at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893—Fannie Barrier Williams, Anna Julia Cooper, Fannie Jackson Coppin, and Sarah J. Early. The ideas and analysis of the Black Freedom Struggle in these speeches reveal the specific ways that Black women activists sought to construct an inclusive and expansive interpretation of the legacy of emancipation and the gains of Reconstruction.