Promote the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, 1918-1923?
Introduction
1. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign Against Lynching (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp. 165-66; and Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (New York: Vintage Books, 1972, reprint 1973), pp. 211-12. For more on the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, see "How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End Lynching, 1890-1942?" also on this website.
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2. Robert Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), pp. vii, 1.
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3. Crystal Nicole Feimester, "'Ladies and Lynching': The Gendered Discourse of Mob Violence in the New South, 1880-1930" (Phd Dissertation, Princeton Unviversity, Princeton, New Jersey, 2000), p. 1.
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4. Feimester, "Ladies and Lynching," pp. 1-2.
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5. Donald L. Grant, The Anti-Lynching Movement: 1883-1932 (San Francisco: R and E Research Associates, 1975), pp. 66-69.
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6. Senate Reports, 67th Congress, 2nd Session, 1921-1922, Volume 2, p. 35.
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7. For more on Mary B. Talbert, see her 1915 article, "Women and Colored Women," in the project "How Did the Views of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois toward Woman Suffrage Change between 1900 and 1915?" also on this website.
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8. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, p. vii.
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9. For more on the NACW, see the project "What Gender Perspectives Shaped the Emergence of the National Association of Colored Women, 1895-1920?" also on this website.
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10. Lerner, Black Women in White America, p. 215.
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11. Helen Curtis had worked for the YWCA among other organizations prior to the founding of the Crusaders. See Feimester, "Ladies and Lynching," pp. 226-27.
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12. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, p. 4.
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13. Lerner, Black Women in White America, p. 215.
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14. Feimester, "Ladies and Lynching," pp. 229-30. See document 6 in "How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End Lynching, 1890-1942?" also on this website.
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15. Grant, Anti-Lynching Movement, pp. 66-69.
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16. Grant, Anti-Lynching Movement, p. 67.
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17. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, pp. 84-85.
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18. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, p. 98.
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19. For more on this Association, see "How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End Lynching, 1890-1942?" also on this website.
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Document 1
20. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, pp. 43-44, 54.
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21. Edward T. James, et al., eds., Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 3: 533-35.
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22. For a fuller discussion of Mary B. Talbert's reform activities, see Lillian Serece Williams, Strangers in the Land of Paradise: The Creation of an African American Community, Buffalo, New York, 1900-1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). A good sketch of Talbert is offered on page 159, note 27.
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23. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, p. 53.
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Document 12
24. For more on the Herrin Massacre, please see "The Herrin Massacre" at the Southern Illinois University website.
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Document 18
25. Mary White Ovington (1865-1951) was born in Brooklyn, New York, where her parents instilled in her a passion for abolition and Unitarian social justice ideals. She was well-educated at private schools, and attended Radcliffe college beginning in 1891, but the 1893 economic depression forced her to leave school in order to work and help support her family. Back in New York City, she became active in the settlement movement, the Consumers' League, the women's rights movement, anti-imperialist activities, and the Socialist Party. In addition, she continued her work for racial justice by studying poverty conditions among African-American neighborhoods, resulting in her 1911 publication, Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York. She sustained a close friendship with prominent African-American leader and intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois, and became an active founding member of the NAACP, which she served for nearly forty years. For examples of correspondence by or about Mary White Ovington, please see documents 6, 7b, 8, 9, 10, and 13 in the project "How Did the National Woman's Party Address the Issue of the Enfranchisement of Black Women, 1919-1924?" on this website. For more on the life of Mary White Ovington, see Barbara Sicherman, et al., eds., Notable American Women, The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 517-19.
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Document 21
26. Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, p. 60.
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27. The American Fund for Public Service was a radical, anti-capitalist organization in the 1920s and 1930s. It was financed by Charles Garland and James Weldon Johnson served as one of the Fund's directors. For more on the Fund, see Gloria Garrett Samson, The American Fund for Public Service: Charles Garland and Radical Philanthropy, 1922-1941 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996).
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Document 23
28. James Weldon Johnson, "Address of James Weldon Johnson at the Annual Meeting of the N.A.A.C.P., January 3, 1923," NAACP Papers, Part 7: The Anti-Lynching Campaign, 1912-1955, Series B: Anti-Lynching Legislative and Publicity Files, 1916-1955, Library of Congress (Microfilm, Part 1, Reel 13, Document 394).
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