Biographical Database of Black Women Suffragists
Biography of Irene Moorman (Blackstone), 1875-?
Susan Goodier, History Lecturer, SUNY Oneonta
Irene L. Moorman was born, the daughter of Johanna Moorman, in Virginia in 1875. Her mother was recorded as a married servant in the 1880 census for Charlottesville, but there is no record for Irene. They moved to New York by 1900 and Irene worked for the Metropolitan Mercantile and Realty Company. By September 1908 she was the superintendent of the company's Brooklyn office. In the 1940 census she reported that she had completed two years of college. In 1910 Irene and Johanna Moorman lived together on Willow Street in Queens and Irene worked as a representative for a public restaurant. In November 1911 she married James Blackstone, but the couple never appear together in censuses. He may well have died in the 1910s, because Irene Moorman Blackstone was recorded as a widow according to New York censuses between 1920 and 1940.
Irene continued to live with her mother, now on Lenox Ave. in Harlem, and in 1913 was said to be working as a servant. In the 1920 census she lived with her mother and was listed as a newsdealer, working on her own account. Her mother died in 1928 and Irene continued to live on Lenox Ave in 1930, but now by herself. She was listed as a political organizer, consistent with her support of woman suffrage. She was employed as a clerk in government work in 1940, when she was a lodger at Mt. Morris Park West in Harlem.
Moorman served as president of the Negro Women's Business League and represented the Metropolitan Business Women's Club, which eventually affiliated with the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. In connection with the Metropolitan Business Women's Club she organized a mass meeting at the Fleet Street AME Zion Church in Brooklyn in December 1908 to discuss plans for "building a hall for the use of Negroes." She also served as treasurer for the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs and on the board of the Young Women's Christian Association. Moorman's activism included supporting both the Lincoln and the White Rose Settlement Houses. Prominent activists such as Fannie Barrier Williams, Mary Church Terrell, and Margaret Murray Washington met with Moorman in her office, an indication of her reputation as a reformer.
Moorman became involved in woman suffrage when she joined Sarah J. S. Garnet's Colored Women's Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn in December 1907. She participated in a tribute to the radical abolitionist John Brown at that meeting. Moorman and Garnet, both representing the Colored Women's Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn, met with wealthy white suffragist Alva Vanderbilt Belmont at her Political Equality Association office in January 1910. Belmont hoped to draw on black women's activist networks to expand the membership of her suffrage association. They scheduled a February meeting at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church on West Fifty-Third Street in New York City. Although two hundred women and men attended the meeting, few black women felt much enthusiasm for Belmont's plan, even when Belmont
Moorman Blackstone had to stand trial in June 1912, charged with using the mail to defraud several well-known white people. The verdict is unclear, but she was likely to have been found innocent, because she did not give up her social justice activism. Like many other black women activists, Moorman Blackstone belonged to many organizations. She attended meetings of the People's Forum and Advocate, St. Mark's Lyceum, the Literary League, the New York City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, the League for Democracy, and the United Colored Democracy. She served as president of the Women's National Fraternal Business Association in 1919. She often sang solos at meetings and at churches, including at the Rush Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. A 1906 account noted, "There also appeared at this recital a new soprano soloist, Miss I.L. Moorman who has a strong voice of wide range. Miss Moorman sang several selections and received an encore and a beautiful bouquet of roses."
A "well-known socialist," she attended Marcus Garvey's first public appearance in New York City in 1916. She served as president of the ladies' division of the New York Branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founded by Garvey to promote "racial pride, economic self-sufficiency, and the formation of an independent black nation in Africa." Moorman Blackstone bought stock in the Black Star Line steamship venture when it was launched in spring 1919, one of the first to do so.
Irene Moorman Blackstone earned a living by selling newspapers in Harlem. She continued her political efforts after women won the right to vote, affiliating with the Democratic Party. She is described in a 1923 article in the Negro World (the UNIA newspaper) as "an unusually bold and race-loving character, who is not happy unless doing something to promote the interests of her race." In May 1930, the United Colored Democracy honored her with a dinner party for her work as its Commissioner on Organization for the Tammany Hall Study Club. She continued her activism for racial uplift at least until 1944, when she served as second vice-president on the board of the Ethiopian World Federation. It is not clear when she died.
Sources: "Afro-American Notes," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 26, 1907, 6; "Afro-American Notes," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 6, 1907, 7; and "Business Women's Clubs," New
Brief information about the United Colored Democracy can be found at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, the New York Public Library, digitized at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c56824b0-80d2-0133-62be-00505686a51c#/?uuid=c56824b0-80d2-0133-62be-00505686a51c
Census listings are available for Moorman and then Blackstone in New York City, 1910-1940. Accessible online via HeritageQuest.com.
Irene L. Moorman-James Blackston[e] marriage record, November 29, 1911, online in Ancestry Library Edition.
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