Intergenerational Conflict and Collaboration among African American Women's Rights Activists in the US, 1880-1920

My comments will place black girls’ US citizenship in an intergenerational frame, arguing that we cannot fully understand the political significance of youth without also looking at constructions of middle and old age.  Many historians have noted how African American activists at the turn of the twentieth century looked to black girls as the future of the race.  In my comments, I will explore how this construction of futurity relied upon contrasting evocations of old women as representatives of the past and middle-aged women as embodiments of present authority. 

Drawing on concrete examples from the political rhetoric and organizational strategies of black club women, I will examine how activists used age to define distinct rights and obligations for different generations of black women and also how they demanded that governments provide particular forms of recognition and social welfare to girls, middle-aged and old women.  In particular, I will focus on the writings of Frances Harper and Anna Julia Cooper, two women who in the 1890s used age difference to carve out distinct forms of citizenship for old women and girls.  I will then show how this ideological focus on intergenerational relations shaped Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and Victoria Earle Matthews' efforts to foster bonds between girls, middle-aged and old women in the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs.  My comments will encourage historians to pay greater attention to age and generational difference as categories that intersect with race and gender to define citizenship.