Black Women Intellectuals

📖 The Scoop

From 1880 to 1940, Hopkins, Fauset, and Bonner shaped an African American female response to national and global issues as they fought to rid the world of racism, restrictive gender roles, and oppression. Between 1880 and 1916, using traditional 19th-century literary genres spliced with modern techniques, Hopkins roused her peers to resist segregation and to end reconstruction and the objectification of black women. Serving as the editor forThe Colored American Magazinefrom 1900 to 1904 and writing novels, plays, short stories, anthropological pieces, and historical tributes, Hopkins evoked the fiery spirit of abolitionism, claiming that the battle had not yet been completed. From 1912 through 1932, Fauset wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, children's literature, travelogs, poetry, and editorials. While working as literary editor forThe Crisis,she wrote about her own special concern: the machinations of middle class black communities and the manner in which popular racistand sexist images bombarded and destroyed the integrity of the black self. Bonner composed 25 pieces between 1925 and 1949, examining the urban environment and exposed the triple threat of segregation, sexism, and ghettoization. (Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 1997; revised with new introduction, afterword)

Genre: Biography & Autobiography / General (fancy, right?)