Gender and Jim Crow - Political Activism

Gender and Jim Crow - Political Activism by Middle Class, African-American Women

Conventional wisdom paints the period between the late 19th century to the 1950s as a time of racial discrimination and violence for African-Americans in the southern states. However, in Gender and Jim Crow, Glenda Gilmore presents an account of how white supremacist politics were also mediated by gender, and how this period of racial discrimination was also marked by political activism on the part of middle class African-American women.

In the early parts of the book, Gilmore illustrates how gender was used as a tool in Jim Crow segregation. White men in North Carolina, for example, justified white supremacy and disenfranchised black men by raising the specter of the black rapist and appealing for the safety of white women in their homes. This pushed black men into what Gilmore termed a "vortex of silence" (134).

Black women, on the other hand, found themselves cast in a different role, as "clients" to the state. This gave middle class African-American women a chance to act as "diplomats" to the white community, participating, albeit on a limited scale, in some areas of civic and political life.

Gilmore skillfully teases out how in a region where both race and gender were used as tools of social control, the ideal of vulnerable Southern womanhood that served to disenfranchise black men ironically helped black women affect public policy,

This was because African-American women were able to take advantage of the gap between white and black gender ideals. The ideology of white Southern womanhood itself was a very restrictive role, one that black women did not aspire to for several reasons. First, the realities of black women's lives made white ideal of womanhood impossible. There were substantial differences in their education, and economic need meant that unlike white women, African-American women had to work outside the home.

In addition, many middle class women found the idea of white gender ideals abhorrent. In the first chapter, Gilmore focuses in particular on Sarah Dudley Pettey, who found both white supremacy and patriarchy evil, as both grew from "a hierarchical mindset that violated Christian teachings" (19). This allowed women like Pettey to create the "idea of usefulness," a kind of "middle space" where their activities were uncensored.

Finally, Gilmore finds that black and white women had different ideas concerning marriage. While many outspoken white women were forced to choose between career and women, many black women already enjoyed marriage as a domestic partnership.

There was, however, an important point of commonality between black and white women, as seen in Gilmore's discussion of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in chapter two. Though there were tensions between the WCTU's black and white chapters, the organization was important because it created a legitimate public role for black women. It also served as a "model of Christian community which could serve as a model of interracial cooperation" (46). For many black middle class women, the organization was also a chance to build a class-based coalition.