WITHOUT FEAR

Eyes on the prize.

Though there is a rich bibliography about Black women in the United States, Blain asserts that this is the first overview profiling those engaged in the struggle for human rights, an area long associated with white men and institutions. A professor of Africana studies and history at Brown University, Blain argues that long before the term “human rights” became part of the public discourse, Black women were already advocating that all people should be granted rights and protection based on their humanity. In this rigorously documented history, the author illustrates how Black women from many walks of life made the link between racial violence at home and genocide and apartheid abroad, identifying the common roots of oppression in slavery and colonialism. Many names are well known, but Blain puts their work in a new context. Journalist Ida B. Wells campaigned vigorously against lynching as a crime against humanity not only in the United States but in Europe. Singer Lena Horne wrote a weekly column in the People’s Voice, condemning racism in the U.S. and supporting anti-colonial struggles and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The mothers of the Scottsboro Boys advocated for justice in the 1930s, as did the mother of Amadou Diallo seven decades later, “politicizing their roles as mothers, daughters, and sisters to call attention to the devaluation of Black lives.” Fannie Lou Hamer said, “I’ve passed equal rights and I’m fighting for human rights.” Less-known figures include Maria Stewart, a former indentured servant who wrote a pamphlet, published by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, advocating equality for all. Aretha B. McKinley, at the time the only Black female lobbyist on Capitol Hill, organized an “avalanche” of letters in 1960 to prove to skeptical lawmakers that Blacks supported civil rights legislation. And Mary Church Terrell, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, traveled to Zurich in 1919 for the International Congress of Women. Many of these women merit a book of their own.

A fresh look at the fight for human rights reveals the unsung leadership of Black women.