#NNPA BlackPress

Suffragist Coralie Franklin Cook: First Descendant of Monticello Slave to Graduate College

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “No woman and no class of women can be degraded, and all womankind not suffer thereby … and so Miss Anthony,” Coralie Franklin Cook said, addressing Susan B. Anthony directly in a speech at the Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, in 1902. “In behalf of the hundreds of colored women who wait and hope with you for the day when the ballot shall be in the hands of every intelligent woman; and also in behalf of the thousands who sit in darkness and whose condition we shall expect those ballots to better, whether they be in the hands of white women or Black, I offer you my warmest gratitude and congratulations.”

Published

4 years ago

November 27, 2019

Oakland Post

Coralie Franklin Cook, (Courtesy of Monticello)

By Stacy M. Brown, Special to The Washington Informer

This is part of an ongoing Washington Informer series about the Women’s Suffrage Movement and an initiative that includes Informer Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes that will use the lens of history, the fabric of art and culture and the venue of the public square to shine a light into dark places, equipping all with a compass to chart the way forward. The initiative lives in the institutional home of the Washington Informer Charities.

Get to know Coralie Franklin Cook, who taught elocution and English at Howard University.

Born into slavery in Lexington, Virginia, in 1829, Cook became the first descendant of a Thomas Jefferson Monticello slave known to have graduated from college. In 1880, she graduated from Storer College in West Virginia before becoming a teacher.

In 1898, she married Howard University professor George William Cook and served for more than 12 years as a member of the District of Columbia Board of Education. She founded the National Association of Colored Women but was mostly known as a committed suffragist.

Historians said she admired Susan B. Anthony, but eventually was turned off by the women’s suffrage movement because it ignored the plight of black women.

“No woman and no class of women can be degraded, and all womankind not suffer thereby … and so Miss Anthony,” Cook said, addressing Anthony directly in a speech at the Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, in 1902. “In behalf of the hundreds of colored women who wait and hope with you for the day when the ballot shall be in the hands of every intelligent woman; and also in behalf of the thousands who sit in darkness and whose condition we shall expect those ballots to better, whether they be in the hands of white women or Black, I offer you my warmest gratitude and congratulations.”

The 19th Amendment granting the women the right to vote in 1918 was certainly a victory. However, as noted in a publication published by the League of Women Voters, for women who were not white, wealthy, or educated, it remained an incomplete one.

“Black men had been granted the right to vote in 1870 with the 15th Amendment, yet actual attempts to exercise that right had been repeatedly met with mob violence and lynching,” according to the article written by Kathryn S. Gardiner. “Black women now faced those same obstacles to their rights, and women like Cook who had carried the suffrage banner found themselves standing alone in facing them. Seemingly, as far as white women were concerned, the battle was over.”

In 1915, Cook continued her crusade for women’s and equal rights. She published “Votes for Mothers” in the NAACP magazine The Crisis:

“I wonder if anybody in all this great world ever thought to consider man’s rights as an individual, by his status as a father? yet you ask me to say something about ‘Votes for Mothers,’ as if mothers were a separate and peculiar people. After all, I think you are not so far wrong. Mothers are different, or ought to be different, from other folk. The woman who smilingly goes out, willing to meet the Death Angel, that a child may be born, comes back from that journey, not only the mother of her own adored babe, but a near-mother to all other children. As she serves that little one, there grows within her a passion to serve humanity; not race, not class, not sex, but God’s creatures as he has sent them to earth.

“It is not strange that enlightened womanhood has so far broken its chains as to be able to know that to perform such service, woman should help both to make and to administer the laws under which she lives, should feel responsible for the conduct of educational systems, charitable and correctional institutions, public sanitation and municipal ordinances in general.

“Who should be more competent to control the presence of bar rooms and ‘red-light districts’ than mothers whose sons they are meant to lure to degradation and death?

“Who knows better than the girl’s mother at what age the girl may legally barter her own body? Surely not the men who have put upon our statute books, 16, 14, 12, aye be it to their eternal shame, even 10 and 8 years, as ‘the age of consent!’

“If men could choose their own mothers, would they choose free women or bondwomen? Disfranchisement because of sex is curiously like disfranchisement because of color. It cripples the individual, it handicaps progress, it sets a limitation upon mental and spiritual development.

“I grow in breadth, in vision, in the power to do, just in proportion as I use the capacities with which Nature, the All-Mother, has endowed me.

“I transmit to the child who is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh and thought of my thought; somewhat of my own power or weakness. Is not the voice which is crying out for ‘Votes for Mothers’ the Spirit of the Age crying out for the Rights of Children?”

Information from The Crisis Magazine, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and the League of Women Voters of Delaware County (Indiana), was used in this story.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

BlackWoman Start-Up: Working to Close Significant Revenue Gap of Black Woman-Owned Businesses

Don't Miss

NNPA NEWSWIRE EXCLUSIVE: Bill Cosby Speaks from Prison

Oakland Post

Click to comment

#NNPA BlackPress

IN MEMORIAM: Ramona Edelin, Influential Activist and Education Advocate, Dies at 78

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Born on September 4, 1945, in Los Angeles, California, activist Ramona Edelin’s early years were marked by a commitment to education and social justice. According to her HistoryMakers biography, after graduating from Fisk University with a Bachelor’s degree in 1967, she pursued further studies at the University of East Anglia in England. She earned her master’s degree before completing her Ph.D. at Boston University in 1981.
The post IN MEMORIAM: Ramona Edelin, Influential Activist and Education Advocate, Dies at 78 first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 weeks ago

April 3, 2024

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Once upon a time, Black Americans were simply known as colored people, or Negroes. That is until Ramona Edelin came along. The activist, renowned for her pivotal roles in advancing civil rights, education reform, and community empowerment, died at her D.C. residence last month at the age of 78. Her death, finally confirmed this week by Barnaby Towns, a communications strategist who collaborated with Dr. Edelin, was attributed to cancer.

Born on September 4, 1945, in Los Angeles, California, Edelin’s early years were marked by a commitment to education and social justice. According to her HistoryMakers biography, after graduating from Fisk University with a Bachelor’s degree in 1967, she pursued further studies at the University of East Anglia in England. She earned her master’s degree before completing her Ph.D. at Boston University in 1981.

Edelin’s contributions to academia and activism were manifold. She was pivotal in popularizing the term “African American” alongside Rev. Jesse L. Jackson in the late 1980s.

Jackson had announced the preference for “African American,” speaking for summit organizers that included Dr. Edelin. “Just as we were called Colored, but were not that, and then Negro, but not that, to be called Black is just as baseless,” he said, adding that “African American” “has cultural integrity” and “puts us in our proper historical context.”

Later, Edelin told Ebony magazine, “Calling ourselves African Americans is the first step in the cultural offensive,” while linking the name change to a “cultural renaissance” in which Black Americans reconnected with their history and heritage.

“Who are we if we don’t acknowledge our motherland?” she asked later. “When a child in a ghetto calls himself African American, immediately he’s international. You’ve taken him from the ghetto and put him on the globe.”

The HistoryMakers bio noted that Edelin’s academic pursuits led her to found and chair the Department of African American Studies at Northeastern University, where she established herself as a leading voice.

Transitioning from academia to advocacy, Edelin joined the National Urban Coalition in 1977, eventually ascending to president and CEO. During her tenure, she spearheaded initiatives such as the “Say Yes to a Youngster’s Future” program, which provided crucial support in math, science, and technology to youth and teachers of color in urban areas. Her biography noted that Edelin’s efforts extended nationwide through partnerships with organizations like the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Education.

President Bill Clinton recognized Edelin’s expertise by appointing her to the Presidential Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities in 1998. She also co-founded and served as treasurer of the Black Leadership Forum, solidifying her standing as a respected leader in African American communities.

Beyond her professional achievements, Edelin dedicated herself to numerous boards and committees, including chairing the District of Columbia Educational Goals 2000 Panel and contributing to the Federal Advisory Committee for the Black Community Crusade for Children.

Throughout her life, Edelin received widespread recognition for her contributions. Ebony magazine honored her as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans, and she received prestigious awards such as the Southern Christian Leadership Award for Progressive Leadership and the IBM Community Executive Program Award.

The post IN MEMORIAM: Ramona Edelin, Influential Activist and Education Advocate, Dies at 78 first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Stacy M. Brown

Posts by Stacy M. Brown

#NNPA BlackPress

Tennessee State University Board Disbanded by MAGA Loyalists as Assault on DE&I Continues

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Recent legislative actions in Tennessee, such as repealing police reform measures enacted after the killing of Tyre Nichols, underscore a troubling trend of undermining local control and perpetuating racist agendas. The new law preventing local governments from restricting police officers’ authority disregards community efforts to address systemic issues of police violence and racial profiling.
The post Tennessee State University Board Disbanded by MAGA Loyalists as Assault on DE&I Continues first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 weeks ago

April 3, 2024

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Tennessee State University (TSU), the state’s only public historically Black college and university (HBCU), faces a tumultuous future as Gov. Bill Lee dissolved its board, a move supported by racist conservatives and MAGA Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly, who follow the lead of the twice-impeached, four-times indicted, alleged sexual predator former President Donald Trump. Educators and others have denounced the move as an attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) and a grave setback for higher education.

Critics argue that TSU’s purported financial mismanagement is a manufactured crisis rooted in decades of underinvestment by the state government. They’ve noted that it continues a trend by conservatives and the racist MAGA movement to eliminate opportunities for Blacks in education, corporate America, and the public sector.

Gevin Reynolds, a former speechwriter for Vice President Kamala Harris, emphasizes in an op-ed that TSU’s financial difficulties are not the result of university leadership because a recent audit found no evidence of fraud or malfeasance.

Reynolds noted that the disbanding of TSU’s board is not an isolated incident but part of a broader assault on DE&I initiatives nationwide. Ten states, including Tennessee, have enacted laws banning DE&I policies on college campuses, while governors appointing MAGA loyalists to university trustee positions further undermine efforts to promote inclusivity and equality.

Moreover, recent legislative actions in Tennessee, such as repealing police reform measures enacted after the killing of Tyre Nichols, underscore a troubling trend of undermining local control and perpetuating racist agendas. The new law preventing local governments from restricting police officers’ authority disregards community efforts to address systemic issues of police violence and racial profiling.

The actions echo historical efforts to suppress Black progress, reminiscent of the violent backlash against gains made during the Reconstruction era. President Joe Biden warned during an appearance in New York last month that Trump desires to bring the nation back to the 18th and 19th centuries – in other words, to see, among other things, African Americans back in the chains of slavery, women subservient to men without any say over their bodies, and all voting rights restricted to white men.

The parallels are stark, with white supremacist ideologies used to justify attacks on Black institutions and disenfranchise marginalized communities, Reynolds argued.

In response to these challenges, advocates stress the urgency of collective action to defend democracy and combat systemic racism. Understanding that attacks on institutions like TSU are symptomatic of broader threats to democratic norms, they call for increased civic engagement and voting at all levels of government.

The actions of people dedicated to upholding the principles of inclusivity, equity, and justice for all will determine the outcome of the ongoing fight for democracy, Reynolds noted. “We are in a war for our democracy, one whose outcome will be determined by every line on every ballot at every precinct,” he stated.

The post Tennessee State University Board Disbanded by MAGA Loyalists as Assault on DE&I Continues first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Stacy M. Brown

Posts by Stacy M. Brown

#NNPA BlackPress

Braxton Haulcy and the Expansion of Walker|West Music Academy

May 24, 2023 – Walker West Music Academy gets an early start on expansion. Join us for a Wednesday episode of The …
The post Braxton Haulcy and the Expansion of Walker|West Music Academy first appeared on BlackPressUSA.