Alabama's Colored Women's Club

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The first African American women’s club in Alabama, the "Ten Times One is Ten Club" was established in 1888 (Perry and Maye, 2007). The other African American clubs were the Tuskegee Women’s Club established in 1895 and the Anna M. Ducan Club of Montgomery in 1892 (Thompson, 1963). Several of the early clubs united and created the Alabama Federation of Colored Women’s Club in 1899. Afterwards by 1904, there were more than 26 clubs through out Alabama and the most active ones were the Bimoingham, Selma, Mobile, Tuskegee, Tuscaloosa, Eufaula, Greensboro, and Mt. Megis (Thomas, 1992).

Tuskegee Women’s Club: Under the leadership of Margaret Murray Washington the Tuskegee Women Club was formed with female faculty and the wives of male faculty members of the Tuskegee Institute. Thirteen women took part at the first meeting of the club in 1895, which was designed to enlighten the members morally, spiritually and intellectually (Thomas 1992). Meetings were held twice a month and new teachers were encouraged to join. Since the members were part of the academic arena the services were related to learning and education. The Tuskegee Women’s Club actually helped to form new communities and construct social services. One of its pioneer actions was to create a community out of plantation settlement by providing educational and social services to the poor inhabitant of the rural area.

Tuskegee Mother's Club: One of the most successful projects of the Tuskegee Woman’s Club was the sponsoring of the mother’s meeting or mother’s club (Rouse 1996). The idea of this project came up when Margaret Washington was attending the first Tuskegee Negro Conference in 1892. At the conference her husband Booker T. Washington discussed the problems that the black male faced and trying to give solutions. He inspired the farmers by giving new ideas and new hopes. This made Margaret Washington realize for once again that how women were neglected and thought to be unworthy. They were considered to be an unimportant human being outside the house. Additionally, the women themselves did not realize how unimportant they were thought of by their husbands and sons. Probably this is a common feature of a patriarchal society and women of that society are brought up in that fashion. Margaret Washington thought of working with the women in Tuskegee and the surrounding areas.

The Tuskegee Mother’s Club meetings managed to improve the lives of he women in great deal. The women learned how to be well groomed. Many of them did not know about their age and they were helped recall some incident, which took place around the time of their birth and figure out their age. The women who had no other option of leaving their child at home to attend these meetings brought their children along. The children were soon provided educational support and they were taught simple lessons and they received skills on good behavior. According Margaret Washington the black women had the proper training to look after their homes. They were occupied working in the white families and looking after white children and families. As a result the black children were deprived from the proper care and were very much neglected. Which is considered to be an abuse.

Alabama Federation of Colored Women's Club: Margaret Murray Washington was the organizer and the first president of the Alabama Federation of Colored Women’s Club, which was established on December 29, 1899. During the preliminary meeting of the club it was discussed on how to address the mounting reform problem and one of the pressing needs was to establish a reformatory for African American youths (Perry and Maye 2007). The most extensive work of the club was in prison reform. It can only be assumed how the black juvenile delinquent were treated being with other criminal population. The federation was successful in getting the young black prisoners released into the custody of its boys’ school built at Mt. Meigs (Rouse, 1996). The young lives were saved from prisons by the supervision Margaret Washington. This corrective school got less support from the state as opposed to the white boys’ reform school. The club members also supported the older prisoners with personal care and religious services. The state eventually assumed the responsibility for the boys’ reformatory school and the clubwomen started to raise funds to build homes for young girls at Mt. Meigs. Prison reform being a national issue the national office of NACW eventually joined the program.

The African American women in the Progressive Era struggled enormously to survive with honor, which they seldom achieved. They were not only discriminated by another race but also the same sex, the white women. Ironically they even experienced revulsion by the opposite sex of the same race, the black male. It can only be imagine what these women went through. In a lot of cases the women did not even have the wisdom to understand that it was unjust. To many it was normal; they thought this was meant to be like this. Not till the educated middle class women of the Era who establish the women’s clubs and arranged all the services, the black women understood what value they had in the society. The members of the clubs also had an opportunity to work as role models for young girls and young women. Thus, the women who got various services probably felt encouraged being served by women from the same race. The African American women perhaps knows the art of respecting women of the same race the best than any other women and the women’s club of the Progressive Era helped them achieve it.

References:

Perry, T.E. and Maye, D.D. (2007). Bein’ womanish: Womanist efforts in child saving during the Progressive Era. Affilia: Journal of women and social work. 22, No 2, 209- 219.

Rouse, J. A. (1996). Out of the shadow of Tuskegee: Margaret Murray Washington, social activism, and race vindication. The journal of Negro history, 81, 31- 46.

Thomas, M.M. (1992). The new woman in Alabama: Social reforms and suffrage, 1890- 1920. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama press.

Thompson, B. S. (1963). A century of Negro progress in Montgomery city and county. Alabama: Southern publishing Co.