Library of Congress circa 1905
BY: CECELIA KAUFMANN, FALL 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE
Through our Time Capsule project, Power in Place has been working to highlight not just women of color in positions of power in the present and future, but also women of color from the past. These are the women who have paved the way for women now, the women who have fought for their seat at the table, for the rights of not just women, but for all, and inspired all of us to continue to press on, no matter what it takes. Instead of using my words to describe these women of color and their profound effects on history, let’s take a look at their words, philosophies, and see what we can learn from their fight as we continue our own. Here I will highlight five of the many women who we featured in our Time Capsule. Their words are important, must be heard, and cannot be forgotten.
Library of Congress, circa 1880
Hallie Quinn Brown (1849-1949):
“It is the cultivation of our own natures that is aimed at and not the imitation of the nature of another. The powers of our own mind are to be drawn out” - Hallie Quinn Brown (n.d).
“Said a Spartan father to his son who complained that his sword was too short — ‘And step to it!’ Women, step forward! Grasp your opportunity, grapple at short range and the victory is yours.” - Hallie Quinn Brown (Our Women: Past, Present, and Future, 1925).
Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin (1863-1952):
Library of Congress, 1914
“The trouble in this Indian question which I meet again and again is that it is not the Indian who needs to be educated so constantly up to the white man, but that the white man needs to be educated to the Indian.” - Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin in “Indian Women the First Suffragists and Used Recall, Chippewa Avers,” (Washington Times, August 3, 1914).
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911):
“One hundred years ago and Africa was the privileged hunting-ground of Europe and America, and the flag of different nations hung a sign of death on the coasts of Congo and Guinea, and for years unbroken silence had hung around the horrors of the African slave-trade.” - France Ellen Watkins Harper An Address Delivered at the Centennial Anniversary of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia (April 14, 1875).
Library of Congress, 1898
“We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul…You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man’s hand against me…While there exists this brutal element in society which tramples upon the feeble and treads down the weak, I tell you that if there is any class of people who need to be lifted out of their airy nothings and selfishness, it is the white women of America.” - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (from a speech at the National Women’s Rights Convention, 1866).
Mabel Lee (1897-1966):
Library of Congress, n.d.
“[True feminism] is nothing more than the extension of democracy or social justice and equality of opportunities to women” Mabel Lee (1913).
“The welfare of China and possibly its very existence as an independent nation depend on rendering tardy justice to its womankind. For no nation can ever make real and lasting progress in civilization unless its women are following close to its men if not actually abreast with them” - Mabel Lee (China’s Submerged Half, 1915).
“We believe in the idea of democracy; woman suffrage or the feminist movement is the application of democracy to women. ... The fundamental principle of democracy is equality of opportunity ... It means an equal chance for each man to show what his merits are. ... the feminists want nothing more than the equality of opportunity for women to prove their merits and what they are best suited to do"- Mabel Lee (The Meaning of Woman Suffrage, n.d.)
Sofia Reyes de Veyra (1876-1953):
Library of Congress, 1921
“At the Pan Am Conference of Women in Baltimore to which she was a delegate, she emphasized the Filipino wife’s role as equal partner: “No man transacts business in the Philippines without consulting his wife and every day he hands over his earnings to her and she gives him an allowance”- Sophia Reyes de Veyra (Pan Am Conference speaking on the Filipino wife’s role as an equal partner).
““In life, woman is man's partner, sharing with him the joys and sorrows, helping him to solve life's problems. Why can she not also take part in shaping the destiny of the nation?”- Sofia Reyes de Veyra (First Independence Congress, 1930).
I leave you with this, the words of our past have profound effects on our future. Whether we wish it or not, we are immensely intertwined with our history. We must listen to these words, take note of the struggles of the past, and fight for our future, because our generation, and later generations depend on us.