I command the right to go places: Twentieth-Century American Girls Demand Bodily Protection from the State

This paper focuses on the history of American girls mobilizing their gendered and sexualized identities when having “difficult conversations” about race. I analyze the under-utilized writings of girls themselves during the second half of the twentieth century, including speeches, poetry, and letters to public figures, especially presidents, to untangle the different and often opposing arguments girls made about race and equality during these years. I show that white girls were crucial to the entrenchment and reproduction of racist hierarchies across generations, with many white girls using their writings to demand that the state protect what they presented as their vulnerable, valuable bodies. They argued that the increased freedom of black men and boys would encourage sexual violence targeting white women and girls. By employing this centuries-old racial and sexualized trope, white girls were key participants in the demarcation of racial boundaries in the United States and in the enshrinement of whiteness as valued and threatened property. However, black and Latina girls pushed against historical hierarchies and also demanded the protection of their bodies, arguing that the state and society needed to value them too. For these girls, the concern was over state-sanctioned authorities that both contributed to restrictions on the freedom of the girls’ physical and political selves and endangered them. By examining American girls’ conversations about race, this paper brings the “difficulties” of talking about race to the fore, contextualizing both lasting systemic inequality in the United States and recent attacks on black girls’ bodies by state-sanctioned authorities.