Mary Ann Shadd Cary Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Black Radical Feminist

This volume compiles writings by and about Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a nineteenth-century Black radical feminist, an abolitionist, suffragist, and one of the first Black woman newspaper editors in North America. Mary Ann Shadd Cary includes letters, newspaper articles, organizational records, and never-before-published handwritten notes and essay drafts that illustrate how Shadd Cary participated in major Africana philosophical debates during the nineteenth century. Racial uplift, women's rights, and emigration first emerged as central themes in Shadd Cary's intellectual thought during the 1850s as she grappled with slavery's effects on African Americans. She was frequently mired in controversy during this era, both for her ideas and for outspokenness as a woman. Shadd Cary's support for emigration dissipated in the 1860s. During and after Reconstruction, she advocated for citizenship and economic self-determination for Black people in general and Black women in particular. By the 1880s, Shadd Cary's writings and activism prioritized Black women's needs. Shadd Cary shaped Black radical theory and praxis throughout her lifetime. She is one of many nineteenth-century Black women theorists whose intellectual contributions are often overlooked. By interrogating Shadd Cary's Black radical ethic of care, this book reveals the philosophies that have shaped Black women's centuries-long struggle for rights and freedom.

Nneka D. Dennie is Assistant Professor of History, core faculty in Africana Studies, and affiliate faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington and Lee University. She is also co-founder and president of the Black Women's Studies Association. Dr. Dennie's research examines Black feminism and Black intellectual thought with an emphasis on nineteenth-century African American women thinkers. Her work has been published in Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International; Feminist Studies; Atlantic Studies: Global Currents; The Routledge Companion to Black Women's Social and Cultural Histories; The Oxford Handbook of W.E.B. Du Bois, and more.