Eva Carter Buckner

Biographical Database of Black Women Suffragists

Biography of Eva Carter Buckner 1861-1946

By Sode Smith, student at Sacred Heart Preparatory High School, Atherton, California

Eva Carter Buckner was born in 1861 in Washington, Iowa. Both of her parents were from Pennsylvania, but moved to Washington, Iowa before her birth. Her parents moved to Des Moines when she was young, then to Colorado Springs, where she was educated in public schools. While living in Colorado Springs, she won a contest for poetry.

Eva Carter Buckner was a poet and songwriter for the African American and suffrage causes and through her work she uplifted her race and called for the recognition of the black man. She was extremely popular and is recognized as one of the most successful black poets. She was a prominent black suffragist, since she inspired many club songs for the Colorado and California Federations of Colored Women's Clubs. She was also an advocate for the NAACP and worked for her local branch on the NAACP school committee for Los Angeles. This school committee investigated incidents of reported prejudice and racial discrimination in public schools. Around 1910, Buckner moved to California and while living in Los Angeles, Carter joined the Los Angeles Forum of Colored Women. In 1916, Buckner also worked with Delilah Beasley on her book, The Negro Trail Blazers of California, which details the pioneering work of many African American men and women in California. Buckner was also an esteemed author, published in all of the states she lived in including Colorado, New Mexico, and California. Her verse appeared in the Denver Post, Colorado Springs Sun, and the Western Enterprise. In New Mexico, she was published in both white and black newspapers, and in California, she was published in the Daily Tribune, the California Eagle, The Advocate, and New Age. Her musical composition, 'City of Sunshine' (1905) was also published in a poetry book called the Gems of Poesy (1907).

There is conflicting information Eva Carter Buckner's personal life. Eva and Edward Buckner had three children: Mabel, Eugenia, and Garrie. Garrie Buckner was born in 1886 in Colorado, and was recorded as living in Los Angeles with his mother and father in the 1910 US census. He worked in an auto-shop as a wage-earner. Mabel Buckner, was born in 1908. Eugenia Buckner, was born in 1911, and married in 1932 to Melvin Strong, a school teacher from Kentucky. In 1905, the United States City Directory for Los Angeles recorded Eva Carter Buckner as being the spouse of painter, Edward H. Buckner. In both the 1930 and 1940 US Censuses Eva Carter Buckner is listed as widowed, but in 1938, there is a Los Angeles city directory listing the pair as living together. Eva Carter Buckner loved to share her talents with others: she would often read her poetry at political and church gatherings. Her work is very deeply moving and brings attention to the issue that race played within both the suffrage movement and politics in the United States. She died February 15, 1946 in Los Angeles, California.

 

A political poem written by Eva Carter Buckner from Delilah L. Beasley's The Negro Trail Blazers of California, p. 270.

If Lincoln Could Return Today

If Lincoln could return today,
I wonder what he'd think and say
About this great and glorious land
O'er which he once had full command;
With all the progress he would see,
I know he would astonished be.

The highlighting speed of which we boast,
A touch, a sound from coast to coast;
The clearly. Distinct spoken words,
Ships sailing through the air like birds;
Numerous inventions, small and great,
Too many to enumerate.

With all these things so strange and new,
I'm sure he'd scarce how what to do.
And, like a wanderer on the stand,
A stranger in his own homeland-
Until he look around and see
That same old flag of liberty.