Sept. 22, 2025
Marguerite Cartwright
Dr. Marguerite Phillips Dorsey Cartwright, born May 17, 1910, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a journalist, sociologist, educator, and actress, who served as a correspondent for the United Nations, attended and wrote about both the Bandung Conference and the All-African People's Conference, and was appointed to the Provisional Council of the University of Nigeria, where she became one of five trustees. Joining me in this episode to discuss both Marguerite Cartwright and Black women’s leadership in the fight for human rights is Dr. Keisha N. Blain, Professor of History and Africana Studies at Brown University and author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Down South blues,” written by Fletcher Henderson, Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Waters, and performed by The Virginians, in New York City, on September 25, 1923; the audio is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox and is in the public domain. The episode image is “Portrait of Marguerite Cartwright wearing a dashiki, undated,” by John Schiff; the photograph is courtesy Leo Baeck Institute and is used under fair use guidelines.
Additional Sources:
- “Marguerite Cartwright and African-American Internationalism [video],” Society of Southwest Archivists, August 13, 2021.
- “M. P. CARTWRIGHT,” The New York Times, May 9, 1986, Section D, Page 22.
- “Introducing Marguerite Cartwright,” Amistad Research Center.
- “Cartwright, Marguerite, 1910-1986,” Biographical Note, Marguerite Cartwright papers, Amistad Research Center.
- “Bandung Conference (Asian-African Conference), 1955,” Office of the Historian, United States Department of State.
- “AAPC Background,” Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_02]: This is Unsung History, the podcast where we discuss people and events in American history that haven't always received a lot of attention.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Margret Phillips Dorsey was born on May 17, 1910.
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[SPEAKER_02]: The only child of Joseph A and Mary Louise Ross
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[SPEAKER_02]: A bright child, Margaret finished high school at the age of 15, after which she enrolled in Boston University, earning both her bachelor's and master's degrees by the age of 19.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Her master's thesis was on the African Origins of Drama.
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[SPEAKER_02]: At Boston University, Marguerite met her future husband, Leonard Carl Cartwright, a white man who became a chemical engineer.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Interracial marriage was legal in New York in December 1930 when they wed.
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[SPEAKER_02]: After briefly working as a school teacher, Cartwright turned to show business, dancing
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[SPEAKER_02]: and appearing on Broadway in Paul Greene's Rolls Suite chariot and in six Hollywood films, including The Green Pastors in 1936, a film with an all-black cast that depicted stories from the Bible.
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[SPEAKER_02]: In the 1930s, Cartwright worked in the well fair department in New York.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She was not allowed to continue her work when she chose to campaign for FDR, so she enrolled in doctoral work at New York University, where in 1948 she earned her doctorate of education in social studies.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Her dissertation focused on anti-discrimination legislation, and she followed that with postdoctoral research at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research.
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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1955, Cartwright began writing for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the leading black newspapers of the day,
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[SPEAKER_02]: A prolific writer, Cartwrights, and limit her contributions to the courier, writing as well for the New York Amsterdam News, Negro History Bulletin, Fylon, and other publications.
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[SPEAKER_02]: From 1955 to 1957, Cartwright wrote a weekly column called, Around the United Nations.
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[SPEAKER_02]: as a member of the UN Correspondence Association.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright aimed to inform black Americans about the work of the UN, and sought to convince them of the importance of paying attention to an organization that worked on, quote, such matters of universal concern as lasting peace, human rights, world reconstruction, food distribution, world wealth, the welfare of the world's children, world literacy,
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[SPEAKER_02]: conservation and others, unquote.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright also traveled widely and wrote about global black struggles.
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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1955, she traveled to West Java, Indonesia, to attend the Bendung Conference, where representatives from the governments of 29, Asian and African nations gathered.
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[SPEAKER_02]: The conference resulted in a resolution outlining goals including economic and cultural cooperation, protection of human rights, and an end to racial discrimination.
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[SPEAKER_02]: as Cartwright wrote, quote, the conference at Bandung introduced the people of Asia and Africa to international politics and made known to the world their determination to have their voices heard, unquote.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright supported African self-determination and criticized the UN for its 1956 article and self-determination because it had not acted sooner to address apartheid.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Throughout the 1950s, Cartwright traveled to Africa repeatedly, taking over 25 trips, interviewing leaders and lecturing colleges in Liberia and Kenya,
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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1957, Qualmene Kruma, the first prime minister of independent Ghana, invited Cartwright to Ghana's independent celebrations.
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[SPEAKER_02]: When the University of Nigeria was established with a grant $14 million and $10,000 from the Eastern Nigeria government, Nigerian President, Namedi Aziki Wei, and the Eastern Nigeria Parliament,
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[SPEAKER_02]: a pointed cart right to the University's Provisional Council.
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[SPEAKER_02]: A street in Nassuka Nigeria is named in Cartwrights' honor.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright was a special guest of his EQA's at Nigeria's Independent Celebrations in 1960, and she was instrumental in ensuring the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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[SPEAKER_02]: attended as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That was only one of the times that Cartwright forged connections between Africans and African-Americans.
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[SPEAKER_02]: When Nigeria's Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Akoti Ebo attended meetings at the UN in New York in 1958.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright introduced him to the black community in Harlem for which he was very grateful.
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[SPEAKER_02]: In December of 1958,
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright traveled to Akra Ghana to attend the first all African people's conference.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Over 300 people participated in the conference from the independent states of Africa, including Egypt, Ethiopia, and Liberia, as well as from the then African territories, like Angola, Cameroon, Kenya, Rhodesia, and Uganda.
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[SPEAKER_02]: and delegates from Canada, China, the UK, the United States and other countries outside Africa.
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[SPEAKER_02]: There they discussed encouraging independence movements and unity within Africa.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright described the conference as a place to talk about, quote, ideals of human dignity, mutual respect, and the complete espousal of the objectives, of the UN Charter and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, unquote.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Activist Shirley Du Poise, and Estlanda Robison, attended the conference as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright belonged to a number of organizations throughout her life, including the National Council of Negro Women, the NAACP, the Harlem Fashion Institute, the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, the Peace Corps, the American Council on Race Relations, and the American Committee on Africa.
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[SPEAKER_02]: along with professional organizations, like the American Association of University Women and the Public Education Association.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Margarit Cartwright died in May 1986 at the age of 76.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Joining me in this episode to discuss both Margarit Cartwright and Black women's leadership.
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[SPEAKER_02]: in the fight for human rights, is Dr. Kisha and Blaine, professor of history and to africanist studies at Brown University, and author of, without fear, black women and the making of human rights.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Hi Kisha.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for joining me today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, this is an incredible book and I'm excited to talk to you about it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I want to start by asking just how you got started.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You've written several other books.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, why why this book?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Why now?
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[SPEAKER_01]: multiple reasons.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was in the process of finishing up a book on Fannie Lou Hamer until I am free.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, I was actually a fellow at the Car Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that happened during my time there is that I spent a lot of time thinking about Fannie Lou Hamer as
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[SPEAKER_01]: not only a civil rights activist and grappling with her significance as it relates to the expansion of Black voting rights, but I spent a lot of time thinking about her as a human rights activist and specifically grappling with the global dimensions of her political activism, which is an aspect that has not received as much attention in the scholarly literature.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up writing a chapter,
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[SPEAKER_01]: about Hamer's internationalism in until I'm free, but it was in the process of writing that particular chapter, as I was finishing up in manuscript, I thought it would be important to really think broadly about black women's contributions to the struggle for human rights.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think 2020 was a particular moment
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[SPEAKER_01]: that emphasized the need for a book on this topic and I'm specifically thinking about the political and social movement really rose to the surface in 2020.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So many things happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The one of the things that did happen was we saw a I think fierce national and global response to the police killing of George Floyd and
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the particular characteristics of the movements that we're taking place at a time is the prominence of black women leaders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, multiple journalists reached out to me to ask my thoughts on what it meant to see so many black women in a very visible way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: speaking certainly to diverse audiences, speaking publicly about stay sanctioned violence, thinking about a range of urgent topics and drawing actions transnationalies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All of that was happening, and I was speaking constantly about what it meant to have these women in these roles.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for some people, it appeared that this was a new development, something that they had not seen before, but I knew as someone who had written so much on black women's history, both a national and global context, is that this was very much not new, but these women were certainly building on a rich history of black women's political engagement.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I offered commentary in various spaces, I ended up writing a piece in foreign affairs, in which I spoke specifically emphasized black women's roles in the historical context.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And as I was doing that, I thought, okay, I really have a lot more to say here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's important for me to write a book on this subject.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I set out to write a book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: in earnest in 2020 started pulling the pieces together, building on some material that I had collected even years before, I didn't quite know what to do with the material I was able to return to many of these texts in this new book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think in a nutshell, the political moment, the developments taking place nationally and globally emphasized the need for a book that would
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[SPEAKER_02]: Let's check then a little bit about what is human rights?
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[SPEAKER_02]: How is this distinct from civil rights, which people, of course, know a lot about the civil rights movement?
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[SPEAKER_02]: How are you defining human rights?
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[SPEAKER_02]: And what does that mean in the context of the Black women's leadership?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, as we know, the term human rights means many things to different people and then of course we understand that it's meaning in so many ways We'll shift across time and even across space, but in the broadest sense of what I emphasize in the book is a these women who I discuss
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[SPEAKER_01]: saw human rights as essentially God-given protections that they knew one they certainly made the case could not be taken away.
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[SPEAKER_01]: because they were divine-spired and protections that were owed to them simply because they are humans and that it didn't really matter their citizenship status, it didn't even matter their location at the end of the day what these women wanted to emphasize is that there were
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[SPEAKER_01]: draw on Lin Hunts' work to emphasize three values that these women in their own writings and speeches.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that is first universal rights that there are just certain protections that everyone should have everywhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and equal rights that each individual should have equal access to things like quality education, quality health care, that the plane field should be equal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, regardless of the location, and regardless of one's race and one's gender, and then
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[SPEAKER_01]: to the first point that I was making natural rights that these are rights that are inherent, rights that are specifically tied to one's humanity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you frame it that way, it's a very different kind of argument than say the kinds of arguments that, of course, someone like Ben Muhemer made in 1964.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's talking about the importance of recognizing
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[SPEAKER_01]: Citizenship rights of making the Black people have the right to cast a ballot because they are citizens of the United States and she's emphasizing the reconstruction amendments.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's just one example.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All of these statements certainly matter into history, but part of what I'm doing in this book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: is saying that black women were thinking beyond that, including humor herself, we're thinking beyond that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And they were trying to make a larger claim in order to effectively shame the United States on a global scale so that others would understand that the lack of protection that black people experienced in the United States wasn't just about them being treated at a second class citizens and certainly that was part of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but but more to to the point that they were not even being treated as humans.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it emphasized the urgency of the the mat and then I think it spurred them to forge transnational networks and solidarity because they understood the importance of drawing the connections between what's happening in the local level to what's happening nationally to what's happening globally.
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[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of studies of human rights of course look kind of top down at organizations and things that are are thinking about human rights or they're looking at state actors.
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[SPEAKER_02]: This of course is not that kind of study many of these women by virtue of being black women in the US in the 20th century or earlier didn't have that kind of power.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So what does it mean to look at this bottom up?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is absolutely what I intended to do from the very beginning, because I felt a sense of frustration that the focus is often on those who hold official positions, so we certainly talk about diplomats or we focus on key organizations like the United Nations, I'm a state international, and I'm not suggesting that we don't pay attention to that, but part of what I wanted to capture in this book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: was at the basic level and at the grassroots level, how did Black women in the United States as human rights, so that's one question, and how did they effectively make it their own?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So as people are using the term or talking about human rights on a global scale, how did Black women then take a hold of this idea
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[SPEAKER_01]: and make, and turn this concept into an active, organized, sensible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So in so many ways, I'm trying to capture what's happening within communities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I even more show what's happening with people who don't have access.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We talk a lot about this notion of having a seat at the table.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and for many of the women who I am discussing in this book, they simply, they don't have a seat at the table.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're not even in the room.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They just don't have that access that proximity by virtue of their race, by virtue of gender in different contexts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, it doesn't mean that they don't try to shape human rights discourse.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that they don't try to move things forward, not solely themselves, but for other marginalized groups.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so the book captures what that looks like.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that's so fascinating about it is leaders encounter, well certainly women they have not heard of before,
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[SPEAKER_01]: who may not have the resources, or may not have the ability to be part of the more formal conversation, still assert their political power, and still ensure that their voices are heard, and they do so through all these creative means.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Just as an example, I talk about someone like Madame CJ Walker.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I emphasize in the book is the role that she played in the establishment of the International League for darker peoples, the ILDP, a short-lived, but very significant political organization that ultimately focuses on making the connections between the struggle for
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[SPEAKER_01]: expanded rights for the Black people in the U.S.
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[SPEAKER_01]: context and connecting it to global struggles in different spaces and one thing that Madam CJ Walker does is she utilizes her home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At a practical level, she allows activeists to come into her home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's where it read the Isleding P where they come together for their first meeting in 1919.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then she is giving financial resources to the group to be able to advance the mission.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, she helps to organize a meeting between ILDP members and Japanese delegates who are getting ready to attend the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the purpose of it is to, in a way, use them or attempt to use them as proxy to stand
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[SPEAKER_01]: for the group and broadly for the interest of African Americans, and certainly Madame C. Joe Walker and others, they're trying to push forward this idea of racial equality, and they're trying to make sure that as people are thinking about peace and the broadest terms, as they're thinking about stability, all of these ideas that they're not overlooking,
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[SPEAKER_01]: the experiences and the real concerns of people up African descent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's an attempt to shape human rights as we are at a level that I don't think so many people pay attention to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They might pay attention to the Paris Peace Conference, well that's a critical moment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's something we certainly know a lot about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But here you have an example of someone working behind the scenes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like a small thing, but it's not, and as I capture in the book, it really helps to build a kind of momentum as we move forward in the history, and you see how other women later would do similar kinds of things.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it is, as you say, a grassroots story, and which we're able to think about what people are doing on the ground, and how that connects to what is happening
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[SPEAKER_02]: You open chapter one with one of my very favorite historical actors, I to be welles.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Could you talk a little bit about I to be welles and her anti-lynching campaigns and her journalism as a human rights project?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I decided to open with Ivy Wells because one of the things that captured my attention in the process of doing the research was how much she thought broadly about human rights
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[SPEAKER_01]: But still emphasizing the core values that I appoint to thinking about universal rights, natural rights, and equal rights, I to be well as as we know go out very passionately against lynching that was taking place in the United States.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And
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[SPEAKER_01]: She called on the federal government on various instances called on the federal government to offer protection for black people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She spoke about citizens of rights to be sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She spoke about the fact that black people should expect the federal government to protect them should
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[SPEAKER_01]: in the 19th century, in the early 20th century, and one of the things that Attabi Wells does in the late 19th century is she travels to the UK.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And this particular trip is important because it provides a space for to talk about lynching for an international audience.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It provides a space for her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: to in fact draw them the argument and and it's clear in her speeches as it is clear in her writings during this period that she is making a claim that the problem with lynching is in solely that it's in violation of citizenship rights but but at the fundamental level
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is in fact a violation of human rights, it is in fact evidence of human rights abuses that are taking place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so she uses that as a way to shame the United States, she uses it as a way to get others outside the U.S.
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[SPEAKER_01]: to recognize the problem that's taking place on your soil and how it has broader implications.
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[SPEAKER_01]: try to focus specifically on that, think as a way to add some texture to the literature and the way we talk about her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the new other thing that I do in our chapter is draw a connection between what I would be also saying at the late 19th century and what another black woman.
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[SPEAKER_01]: riot steward is saying several years earlier in the 1830s out of Boston.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it is both an intellectual history in one sense and then thinking through the dynamics of a social and political perspective that I think will help readers see how out of ewells is in fact.
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[SPEAKER_01]: a key voice in early human rights history, we should know that at the same time, I think the scholarship on human rights history has not given out of ewells the attention that she certainly deserves.
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[SPEAKER_02]: people may have heard of I'd be well so hopefully she's got a Barbie doll.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But another journalist that you talk about that I had never heard of and I wish I had because her story is so important is that of Margarit Cartwright.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Do you talk a little bit about what Margarit Cartwright is doing in her journalism how she's thinking about the United Nations and connections with
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Margaret Cartwright is someone who I first learned about about 10 years ago and to have always been interested in writing about her, so it was wonderful to be able to have the chance to do that in this particular project as you note she's a journalist.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's also professor at the 1950s and 1960s.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's writing for primarily black newspaper, she's a columnist
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I find her story so remarkable because what she does is she uses the avenue of journalism as a way to advance human rights advocacy, as just one example.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's traveling across the globe, and she's attending very significant gatherings in order to observe, to listen, and report back to an American audience, specifically a Black American audience.
27:26.030 --> 27:51.499
[SPEAKER_01]: So, 1955, she attends the pivotal band-down conference, which we know as perhaps one of those significant gatherings for Afra-Asian political and social movements, and she goes to the gathering and returns to United States, writes about what she hears, what she sees, and then in a way translates all of that.
27:52.059 --> 28:04.424
[SPEAKER_01]: for black Americans to explain why it matters, why band-ong matters, and not solely in a general sense, but what it means for black people in the U.S.
28:04.464 --> 28:05.004
[SPEAKER_01]: context.
28:05.444 --> 28:11.267
[SPEAKER_01]: Her columns then provide a window for many readers, including as you can imagine.
28:12.147 --> 28:15.931
[SPEAKER_01]: those simply did not have the privilege to be able to travel abroad.
28:16.432 --> 28:28.485
[SPEAKER_01]: They now have a window into key historical developments that are taking place in real time and they're able to make sense of the world in which they're living and Margaret Hartwright plays a role in that.
28:29.045 --> 28:44.114
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that I talk about in detail is her attendance at the 1958 All African People's Conference, which is held in Akuragana organized by Kwame Ankuma and several other key African
28:45.014 --> 28:56.118
[SPEAKER_01]: activists and intellectuals, and I emphasize how what it means for this black woman to be in the space, one of the things that's very clear is that this is a male dominated space.
28:56.638 --> 29:08.762
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a few women in attendance, but they're not playing any form of roles, they're not giving speeches, they're just not involved at the level of the men who are there, and it is very much reflective of the time period.
29:09.242 --> 29:14.806
[SPEAKER_01]: we understand the kind of patriarchal structure that is evident in so many of these spaces.
29:15.587 --> 29:24.995
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, what's so important about the story, that even though she is there as just one of the few women who's observing, taking notes,
29:25.775 --> 29:41.141
[SPEAKER_01]: she comes back and and she writes a series of columns which is grappling with the conversations who's grappling with the ideas that other activists are thinking about and she's being very transparent about where she stands.
29:41.441 --> 29:42.661
[SPEAKER_01]: She's pushing back.
29:42.721 --> 29:44.922
[SPEAKER_01]: She's pointing out what she sees as
29:45.382 --> 29:56.247
[SPEAKER_01]: effective, but not as effective, and it just becomes this very public dialogue in which she's pulling others in which she's allowing others to play a part.
29:57.027 --> 30:05.511
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it is just so remarkable to see how journalism, how writing, of course, combined with traveling,
30:09.673 --> 30:24.940
[SPEAKER_01]: can the center of this history even as if you only focused on the more formal processes you would never pay attention to her and in fact most people don't pay attention to her and women don't receive much attention in many of these mainstream.
30:25.960 --> 30:27.021
[SPEAKER_01]: narratives on the period.
30:27.581 --> 30:38.446
[SPEAKER_01]: But by focusing on them, I show how even those who we might not pay attention to play a role in shaping and just to give another example beyond the writing.
30:38.626 --> 30:47.491
[SPEAKER_01]: What ends up happening is as she's traveling, as she's attending these events, she's actually building a connections, real connections.
30:47.831 --> 30:52.173
[SPEAKER_01]: She in fact develops a strong relationship, a really, I think, a friendship.
30:52.713 --> 30:59.162
[SPEAKER_01]: with someone like Enkuma, and she is able to, at some point, she's a connector.
30:59.222 --> 31:06.311
[SPEAKER_01]: She's able to introduce African leaders to African American leaders in different moments.
31:06.351 --> 31:08.594
[SPEAKER_01]: So I talk about the book, for example, how,
31:09.195 --> 31:12.960
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the one who makes sure that Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
31:13.000 --> 31:19.329
[SPEAKER_01]: receives an invitation from Enkuma to attend independent liberation events.
31:19.549 --> 31:24.736
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it just shows that even at a practical level, at a, you know, at the relational level,
31:25.557 --> 31:36.646
[SPEAKER_01]: She plays this important role in drawing the connections between what's happening in this, what's happening globally and particularly in the case of the African continent.
31:37.587 --> 31:40.970
[SPEAKER_01]: And so shedding light I think on her story helps us.
31:41.630 --> 31:46.253
[SPEAKER_01]: think we're broadly about this history and I think we end up more.
31:46.853 --> 31:55.998
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're exciting and enriched perspective when we center the stories of those on the ground operating outside traditional halls of power.
31:57.307 --> 32:05.093
[SPEAKER_02]: You talk in the book about how Cart Ray notes that she's frustrated that black people in general aren't paying more attention to United Nations.
32:05.293 --> 32:15.821
[SPEAKER_02]: Could you talk a little bit about the interactions that these black women leaders have with the United Nations that kind of hopes that they're pinning on the UN if it's not maybe living up to what they hope.
32:17.602 --> 32:40.187
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is really a fascinating story because one of the things that I emphasize of the book is perhaps mixed responses to the United Nations on the one hand, there is excitement because some activists see the United Nations certainly its formation as a moment where they're able to, in a
32:47.578 --> 32:49.779
[SPEAKER_01]: to black people, the world's over.
32:50.640 --> 32:55.402
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of them are, of course, in 1945, thinking about colonialism.
32:55.422 --> 33:03.986
[SPEAKER_01]: They're thinking that presence of the United Nations would be one avenue through which to bring an end to what's colonial rule.
33:04.606 --> 33:12.070
[SPEAKER_01]: And what they do find is some frustration because internally, because the United Nations
33:16.628 --> 33:28.353
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to craft something that is, that is new for the time that will involve so many different nations, so many different people from diverse backgrounds.
33:28.973 --> 33:39.958
[SPEAKER_01]: Naturally, there will be disagreements, naturally, there will be diverse perspectives in what exactly is the vision of human rights that would be able to
33:40.598 --> 33:42.640
[SPEAKER_01]: to apply broadly across the globe.
33:43.161 --> 33:56.514
[SPEAKER_01]: And what someone like Mary McLeod Bethune encounters and so I talk about her as one of the delegates as one of the African-American delegates who's there along with W.E.B.
33:56.554 --> 34:00.357
[SPEAKER_01]: DuBois and Walter White and part of what's happening is
34:01.098 --> 34:02.859
[SPEAKER_01]: all three of them at various moments.
34:02.919 --> 34:11.925
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to make sure that the concerns of people of African descent, that the concerns are heard at the drafting of the charter.
34:11.965 --> 34:18.449
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to make sure that black people are not being sideline and it's difficult.
34:19.269 --> 34:39.166
[SPEAKER_01]: for that, of course, encountering resistance within and externally, and yet it doesn't stop them from constantly trying, but part of that resistance, I think, broadly signals to show many activists that this may very well be an important space, but it might not actually
34:39.927 --> 34:42.350
[SPEAKER_01]: help you accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.
34:42.830 --> 34:43.951
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is a mixed story.
34:43.971 --> 34:50.758
[SPEAKER_01]: And as as I move from individual to individual, you get the sense that there is of course initially a lot of excitement.
34:50.858 --> 34:57.565
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I talk about journalists, another journalist, a poet, Nadal, who's from Martinique.
34:58.006 --> 35:01.850
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about her as the first black woman to formally.
35:02.803 --> 35:11.889
[SPEAKER_01]: worked for the United Nations as an area expert in 1946, and she writes about the UN in very glowing terms.
35:12.309 --> 35:15.852
[SPEAKER_01]: She talks about it as a new hope for her.
35:16.272 --> 35:19.334
[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be the breaking point.
35:19.394 --> 35:23.197
[SPEAKER_01]: This will be the moment where like people will be able to experience
35:23.897 --> 35:29.859
[SPEAKER_01]: the rights that they have been advocating for, this will be the moment where perhaps colonialism will come to an end.
35:29.920 --> 35:41.164
[SPEAKER_01]: So she starts off with this very optimistic point of view and you see that are similarly experiencing that sense of excitement and hope.
35:41.804 --> 35:45.606
[SPEAKER_01]: And as time progresses and as I'm
35:49.387 --> 35:55.369
[SPEAKER_01]: spending time with the correspondence, it becomes clear that there's not a lot of doubt.
35:56.369 --> 36:01.510
[SPEAKER_01]: There are people who are outright saying, listen, it's just not going to happen through the United Nations.
36:02.130 --> 36:04.011
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to work around it.
36:04.131 --> 36:13.153
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to figure out other strategies because they're not willing to go as far as we want them to go to secure rights for Black people and in other
36:16.294 --> 36:20.956
[SPEAKER_01]: story and to Margaret Cartwright, she has a sense of hope.
36:22.097 --> 36:23.958
[SPEAKER_01]: She's not oblivious to the challenge.
36:24.258 --> 36:27.920
[SPEAKER_01]: But she maintains a sense of hope that this is important.
36:28.200 --> 36:33.723
[SPEAKER_01]: And her sense is that black people need to be paying course attention to the United Nations.
36:33.763 --> 36:38.025
[SPEAKER_01]: They need to be paying attention to the conversations that's taking place to the developments.
36:38.689 --> 36:54.363
[SPEAKER_01]: And she is frustrated that she finds a bit of cynicism among many people, as she's talking about it, and some people see her as a bit agilistic, and they're not as enthused, but she makes a case in her columns.
36:54.964 --> 36:57.346
[SPEAKER_01]: She's emphasizing what's happening.
36:57.706 --> 37:03.491
[SPEAKER_01]: She's going to these meetings, and she's emphasizing what's happening in order to say to readers,
37:04.212 --> 37:21.906
[SPEAKER_01]: look, keep your eye on the United Nations, keep your eye on these developments as we are advocating for civil rights in the national context, we need to be fully tapped in to what's happening globally because in fact, it will strengthen our argument for expanded political rights in the U.S.
37:21.926 --> 37:22.407
[SPEAKER_01]: context.
37:23.227 --> 37:31.514
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to ask you to, you've been very involved in public history, just wonder if you could comment on the importance of public history in this moment.
37:32.718 --> 38:00.365
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it is so important I have been deeply committed to this for so many years and perhaps this moment compared to so many others, I feel a sense of urgency when it comes to doing this work because as we have been seeing across the nation, it's not only the amnesia because there's that part of the kind of national amnesia where people don't necessarily
38:01.085 --> 38:11.867
[SPEAKER_01]: seem to remember many things, but there's the intentional erasure of this history, and I thought a bit about that too as I was writing the book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So just as one example, I relied in IntelliMarket Cartwrights story, I relied heavily on her papers,
38:27.890 --> 38:43.778
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the past few weeks, I was a portion of surprise given everything that's happening nationally, but I was certainly just hearted when I heard the news that they had lost a significant funding from the federal government and they needed to lay off staff members and they
38:45.298 --> 39:10.081
[SPEAKER_01]: Now trying to raise funds because quite frankly, they're on shore about what the future looks like and I remember just reflecting on the reality that who knows in 10 years whether researchers will have access to this material simply because resources are drying up certainly at a federal level and and there is this kind of disregard for
39:10.782 --> 39:16.367
[SPEAKER_01]: scholarship for research on not only blood people, but other marginalized groups.
39:17.108 --> 39:20.632
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's where I think public history matters so much.
39:20.732 --> 39:26.677
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, it's important to write the narratives that people can read and understand in the broadest sense.
39:26.697 --> 39:27.658
[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't have to have
39:28.519 --> 39:51.564
[SPEAKER_01]: a college degree to read and understand and the work that I'm producing and and also I'm committed to making sure that the information is available in so many different mediums because some people will listen to this podcast but we'll not actually read this book and that's okay but I want them to to be able to have this information because what all the forces
39:52.244 --> 40:01.674
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd play with all the external challenges with all the efforts to suppress the history, to silence, the voices of those who are doing this work, to pull funding, to make it harder for researchers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think what will last quite frankly are these narratives that we are continuing to circulate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here I think about the power of oral traditions when we don't have the text to be able to tell these stories to our children and they can tell the stories to their children and so on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think about public history in this very urgent sense and this realisation that as much as I love being able to engage scholars and
40:29.813 --> 40:44.222
[SPEAKER_01]: of course I do that all the time I end up with committed to making sure that I am in dialogue with folks who may never see my classroom, but we'll need to know and understand its history as they navigate this world.
40:44.762 --> 40:54.288
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully what I'm sharing will help them figure out even how to strategize within their communities, how to respond to the challenges they're facing.
40:54.308 --> 40:54.448
[SPEAKER_01]: There's
40:57.628 --> 41:01.289
[SPEAKER_02]: Without fear is a tremendous book and very readable.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I'd like to encourage listeners to get a copy.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell them how they can do that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: The book is available wherever books are sold.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I encourage people to visit their local bookstores.
41:13.211 --> 41:17.992
[SPEAKER_01]: I think independent bookstores, especially now, need our support as much as possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where I would start.
41:19.472 --> 41:22.633
[SPEAKER_02]: Akisa, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
41:52.123 --> 41:53.983
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to Unsung History.
41:54.764 --> 41:58.284
[SPEAKER_00]: Please subscribe to Unsung History on your favorite podcasting app.
41:58.765 --> 42:04.246
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find the sources used for this episode in a full episode transcript at unsunghistorypodcast.com.
42:04.866 --> 42:10.947
[SPEAKER_00]: To the best of our knowledge, all audio and images used by Unsung History are in the public domain, or are used with permission.
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42:19.283 --> 42:22.955
[SPEAKER_00]: The contact is with questions, corrections, praise, or episode suggestions.
42:23.396 --> 42:25.945
[SPEAKER_00]: Please email Kelley at unsigned historypacast.com.
42:26.687 --> 42:30.660
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42:31.021 --> 42:31.222
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
00:00.111 --> 00:08.813
[SPEAKER_02]: This is Unsung History, the podcast where we discuss people and events in American history that haven't always received a lot of attention.
00:09.693 --> 00:11.774
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, Kelly Theresa Pollock.
00:12.534 --> 00:19.416
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll start each episode with a brief introduction to the topic and then talk to someone who knows a lot more than I do.
00:20.556 --> 00:25.117
[SPEAKER_02]: Be sure to subscribe to Unsung History on your favorite podcasting app so you never
00:27.778 --> 00:32.823
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, maybe even strangers to listen to.
00:32.843 --> 00:35.125
[SPEAKER_02]: Margret Phillips Dorsey was born on May 17, 1910.
00:35.765 --> 00:38.427
[SPEAKER_02]: The only child of Joseph A and Mary Louise Ross
00:53.045 --> 01:07.399
[SPEAKER_02]: A bright child, Margaret finished high school at the age of 15, after which she enrolled in Boston University, earning both her bachelor's and master's degrees by the age of 19.
01:09.201 --> 01:13.365
[SPEAKER_02]: Her master's thesis was on the African Origins of Drama.
01:14.881 --> 01:24.966
[SPEAKER_02]: At Boston University, Marguerite met her future husband, Leonard Carl Cartwright, a white man who became a chemical engineer.
01:26.547 --> 01:32.190
[SPEAKER_02]: Interracial marriage was legal in New York in December 1930 when they wed.
01:33.831 --> 01:40.695
[SPEAKER_02]: After briefly working as a school teacher, Cartwright turned to show business, dancing
01:43.687 --> 02:01.196
[SPEAKER_02]: and appearing on Broadway in Paul Greene's Rolls Suite chariot and in six Hollywood films, including The Green Pastors in 1936, a film with an all-black cast that depicted stories from the Bible.
02:03.397 --> 02:08.342
[SPEAKER_02]: In the 1930s, Cartwright worked in the well fair department in New York.
02:09.563 --> 02:27.300
[SPEAKER_02]: She was not allowed to continue her work when she chose to campaign for FDR, so she enrolled in doctoral work at New York University, where in 1948 she earned her doctorate of education in social studies.
02:29.158 --> 02:41.885
[SPEAKER_02]: Her dissertation focused on anti-discrimination legislation, and she followed that with postdoctoral research at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research.
02:44.747 --> 02:53.612
[SPEAKER_02]: In 1955, Cartwright began writing for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the leading black newspapers of the day,
02:59.692 --> 03:13.777
[SPEAKER_02]: A prolific writer, Cartwrights, and limit her contributions to the courier, writing as well for the New York Amsterdam News, Negro History Bulletin, Fylon, and other publications.
03:16.138 --> 03:18.839
[SPEAKER_02]: From 1955 to 1957, Cartwright wrote a weekly column called, Around the United Nations.
03:27.201 --> 03:30.497
[SPEAKER_02]: as a member of the UN Correspondence Association.
03:31.582 --> 03:59.052
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright aimed to inform black Americans about the work of the UN, and sought to convince them of the importance of paying attention to an organization that worked on, quote, such matters of universal concern as lasting peace, human rights, world reconstruction, food distribution, world wealth, the welfare of the world's children, world literacy,
04:01.593 --> 04:04.716
[SPEAKER_02]: conservation and others, unquote.
04:06.838 --> 04:11.742
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright also traveled widely and wrote about global black struggles.
04:13.263 --> 04:27.275
[SPEAKER_02]: In 1955, she traveled to West Java, Indonesia, to attend the Bendung Conference, where representatives from the governments of 29, Asian and African nations gathered.
04:29.095 --> 04:41.841
[SPEAKER_02]: The conference resulted in a resolution outlining goals including economic and cultural cooperation, protection of human rights, and an end to racial discrimination.
04:43.381 --> 04:59.422
[SPEAKER_02]: as Cartwright wrote, quote, the conference at Bandung introduced the people of Asia and Africa to international politics and made known to the world their determination to have their voices heard, unquote.
05:02.288 --> 05:15.037
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright supported African self-determination and criticized the UN for its 1956 article and self-determination because it had not acted sooner to address apartheid.
05:17.499 --> 05:29.828
[SPEAKER_02]: Throughout the 1950s, Cartwright traveled to Africa repeatedly, taking over 25 trips, interviewing leaders and lecturing colleges in Liberia and Kenya,
05:31.645 --> 05:41.308
[SPEAKER_02]: In 1957, Qualmene Kruma, the first prime minister of independent Ghana, invited Cartwright to Ghana's independent celebrations.
05:43.809 --> 06:00.635
[SPEAKER_02]: When the University of Nigeria was established with a grant $14 million and $10,000 from the Eastern Nigeria government, Nigerian President, Namedi Aziki Wei, and the Eastern Nigeria Parliament,
06:01.506 --> 06:05.127
[SPEAKER_02]: a pointed cart right to the University's Provisional Council.
06:05.147 --> 06:10.789
[SPEAKER_02]: A street in Nassuka Nigeria is named in Cartwrights' honor.
06:12.690 --> 06:24.595
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright was a special guest of his EQA's at Nigeria's Independent Celebrations in 1960, and she was instrumental in ensuring the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
06:24.755 --> 06:25.615
[SPEAKER_02]: attended as well.
06:28.412 --> 06:35.273
[SPEAKER_02]: That was only one of the times that Cartwright forged connections between Africans and African-Americans.
06:36.433 --> 06:44.755
[SPEAKER_02]: When Nigeria's Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Akoti Ebo attended meetings at the UN in New York in 1958.
06:46.355 --> 06:51.516
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright introduced him to the black community in Harlem for which he was very grateful.
06:54.217 --> 06:54.937
[SPEAKER_02]: In December of 1958,
06:56.985 --> 07:03.887
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright traveled to Akra Ghana to attend the first all African people's conference.
07:05.608 --> 07:25.695
[SPEAKER_02]: Over 300 people participated in the conference from the independent states of Africa, including Egypt, Ethiopia, and Liberia, as well as from the then African territories, like Angola, Cameroon, Kenya, Rhodesia, and Uganda.
07:27.422 --> 07:34.409
[SPEAKER_02]: and delegates from Canada, China, the UK, the United States and other countries outside Africa.
07:36.411 --> 07:42.678
[SPEAKER_02]: There they discussed encouraging independence movements and unity within Africa.
07:44.778 --> 08:02.334
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright described the conference as a place to talk about, quote, ideals of human dignity, mutual respect, and the complete espousal of the objectives, of the UN Charter and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, unquote.
08:03.715 --> 08:08.720
[SPEAKER_02]: Activist Shirley Du Poise, and Estlanda Robison, attended the conference as well.
08:11.505 --> 08:34.336
[SPEAKER_02]: Cartwright belonged to a number of organizations throughout her life, including the National Council of Negro Women, the NAACP, the Harlem Fashion Institute, the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, the Peace Corps, the American Council on Race Relations, and the American Committee on Africa.
08:35.260 --> 08:43.624
[SPEAKER_02]: along with professional organizations, like the American Association of University Women and the Public Education Association.
08:45.684 --> 08:50.907
[SPEAKER_02]: Margarit Cartwright died in May 1986 at the age of 76.
08:54.668 --> 09:01.591
[SPEAKER_02]: Joining me in this episode to discuss both Margarit Cartwright and Black women's leadership.
09:01.897 --> 09:18.895
[SPEAKER_02]: in the fight for human rights, is Dr. Kisha and Blaine, professor of history and to africanist studies at Brown University, and author of, without fear, black women and the making of human rights.
09:39.933 --> 09:40.433
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi Kisha.
09:40.473 --> 09:41.934
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for joining me today.
09:41.954 --> 09:43.414
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
09:44.134 --> 09:48.656
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, this is an incredible book and I'm excited to talk to you about it.
09:49.036 --> 09:51.837
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to start by asking just how you got started.
09:51.877 --> 09:53.097
[SPEAKER_02]: You've written several other books.
09:53.137 --> 09:54.778
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, why why this book?
09:54.998 --> 09:55.398
[SPEAKER_02]: Why now?
09:57.483 --> 09:58.304
[SPEAKER_01]: multiple reasons.
09:58.684 --> 10:04.209
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in the process of finishing up a book on Fannie Lou Hamer until I am free.
10:05.010 --> 10:13.778
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, I was actually a fellow at the Car Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
10:14.638 --> 10:23.086
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that happened during my time there is that I spent a lot of time thinking about Fannie Lou Hamer as
10:24.067 --> 10:46.508
[SPEAKER_01]: not only a civil rights activist and grappling with her significance as it relates to the expansion of Black voting rights, but I spent a lot of time thinking about her as a human rights activist and specifically grappling with the global dimensions of her political activism, which is an aspect that has not received as much attention in the scholarly literature.
10:46.688 --> 10:48.170
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up writing a chapter,
10:48.970 --> 11:08.485
[SPEAKER_01]: about Hamer's internationalism in until I'm free, but it was in the process of writing that particular chapter, as I was finishing up in manuscript, I thought it would be important to really think broadly about black women's contributions to the struggle for human rights.
11:09.165 --> 11:11.327
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think 2020 was a particular moment
11:14.229 --> 11:24.038
[SPEAKER_01]: that emphasized the need for a book on this topic and I'm specifically thinking about the political and social movement really rose to the surface in 2020.
11:24.098 --> 11:25.279
[SPEAKER_01]: So many things happened.
11:25.319 --> 11:34.808
[SPEAKER_01]: The one of the things that did happen was we saw a I think fierce national and global response to the police killing of George Floyd and
11:35.689 --> 11:45.576
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the particular characteristics of the movements that we're taking place at a time is the prominence of black women leaders.
11:46.297 --> 11:56.165
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, multiple journalists reached out to me to ask my thoughts on what it meant to see so many black women in a very visible way.
11:56.725 --> 12:09.615
[SPEAKER_01]: speaking certainly to diverse audiences, speaking publicly about stay sanctioned violence, thinking about a range of urgent topics and drawing actions transnationalies.
12:09.655 --> 12:16.821
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that was happening, and I was speaking constantly about what it meant to have these women in these roles.
12:17.541 --> 12:40.679
[SPEAKER_01]: And for some people, it appeared that this was a new development, something that they had not seen before, but I knew as someone who had written so much on black women's history, both a national and global context, is that this was very much not new, but these women were certainly building on a rich history of black women's political engagement.
12:41.539 --> 12:54.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And I offered commentary in various spaces, I ended up writing a piece in foreign affairs, in which I spoke specifically emphasized black women's roles in the historical context.
12:55.013 --> 12:58.977
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I was doing that, I thought, okay, I really have a lot more to say here.
12:59.718 --> 13:03.101
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's important for me to write a book on this subject.
13:03.222 --> 13:04.503
[SPEAKER_01]: So I set out to write a book.
13:04.883 --> 13:20.847
[SPEAKER_01]: in earnest in 2020 started pulling the pieces together, building on some material that I had collected even years before, I didn't quite know what to do with the material I was able to return to many of these texts in this new book.
13:21.387 --> 13:29.449
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think in a nutshell, the political moment, the developments taking place nationally and globally emphasized the need for a book that would
13:33.685 --> 13:36.948
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's check then a little bit about what is human rights?
13:36.988 --> 13:42.834
[SPEAKER_02]: How is this distinct from civil rights, which people, of course, know a lot about the civil rights movement?
13:43.215 --> 13:45.237
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you defining human rights?
13:45.677 --> 13:50.222
[SPEAKER_02]: And what does that mean in the context of the Black women's leadership?
13:51.843 --> 14:11.077
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, as we know, the term human rights means many things to different people and then of course we understand that it's meaning in so many ways We'll shift across time and even across space, but in the broadest sense of what I emphasize in the book is a these women who I discuss
14:12.138 --> 14:23.743
[SPEAKER_01]: saw human rights as essentially God-given protections that they knew one they certainly made the case could not be taken away.
14:24.643 --> 14:45.233
[SPEAKER_01]: because they were divine-spired and protections that were owed to them simply because they are humans and that it didn't really matter their citizenship status, it didn't even matter their location at the end of the day what these women wanted to emphasize is that there were
14:48.635 --> 14:57.823
[SPEAKER_01]: draw on Lin Hunts' work to emphasize three values that these women in their own writings and speeches.
14:58.524 --> 15:07.792
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is first universal rights that there are just certain protections that everyone should have everywhere.
15:08.954 --> 15:20.322
[SPEAKER_01]: and equal rights that each individual should have equal access to things like quality education, quality health care, that the plane field should be equal.
15:20.862 --> 15:27.386
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, regardless of the location, and regardless of one's race and one's gender, and then
15:28.407 --> 15:38.309
[SPEAKER_01]: to the first point that I was making natural rights that these are rights that are inherent, rights that are specifically tied to one's humanity.
15:38.849 --> 15:53.212
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you frame it that way, it's a very different kind of argument than say the kinds of arguments that, of course, someone like Ben Muhemer made in 1964.
15:53.252 --> 15:57.693
[SPEAKER_01]: She's talking about the importance of recognizing
15:58.753 --> 16:09.917
[SPEAKER_01]: Citizenship rights of making the Black people have the right to cast a ballot because they are citizens of the United States and she's emphasizing the reconstruction amendments.
16:09.937 --> 16:10.857
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just one example.
16:11.477 --> 16:15.659
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these statements certainly matter into history, but part of what I'm doing in this book.
16:16.319 --> 16:23.083
[SPEAKER_01]: is saying that black women were thinking beyond that, including humor herself, we're thinking beyond that.
16:23.143 --> 16:43.135
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were trying to make a larger claim in order to effectively shame the United States on a global scale so that others would understand that the lack of protection that black people experienced in the United States wasn't just about them being treated at a second class citizens and certainly that was part of it.
16:43.775 --> 16:48.417
[SPEAKER_01]: but but more to to the point that they were not even being treated as humans.
16:48.657 --> 17:06.265
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it emphasized the urgency of the the mat and then I think it spurred them to forge transnational networks and solidarity because they understood the importance of drawing the connections between what's happening in the local level to what's happening nationally to what's happening globally.
17:08.119 --> 17:18.123
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of studies of human rights of course look kind of top down at organizations and things that are are thinking about human rights or they're looking at state actors.
17:18.684 --> 17:29.148
[SPEAKER_02]: This of course is not that kind of study many of these women by virtue of being black women in the US in the 20th century or earlier didn't have that kind of power.
17:29.208 --> 17:32.570
[SPEAKER_02]: So what does it mean to look at this bottom up?
17:34.097 --> 18:02.172
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is absolutely what I intended to do from the very beginning, because I felt a sense of frustration that the focus is often on those who hold official positions, so we certainly talk about diplomats or we focus on key organizations like the United Nations, I'm a state international, and I'm not suggesting that we don't pay attention to that, but part of what I wanted to capture in this book.
18:02.992 --> 18:16.118
[SPEAKER_01]: was at the basic level and at the grassroots level, how did Black women in the United States as human rights, so that's one question, and how did they effectively make it their own?
18:16.679 --> 18:28.044
[SPEAKER_01]: So as people are using the term or talking about human rights on a global scale, how did Black women then take a hold of this idea
18:29.044 --> 18:35.088
[SPEAKER_01]: and make, and turn this concept into an active, organized, sensible.
18:35.668 --> 18:40.611
[SPEAKER_01]: So in so many ways, I'm trying to capture what's happening within communities.
18:40.631 --> 18:46.975
[SPEAKER_01]: I even more show what's happening with people who don't have access.
18:47.495 --> 18:51.198
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk a lot about this notion of having a seat at the table.
18:52.198 --> 18:57.663
[SPEAKER_01]: and for many of the women who I am discussing in this book, they simply, they don't have a seat at the table.
18:57.963 --> 18:59.184
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not even in the room.
18:59.504 --> 19:07.531
[SPEAKER_01]: They just don't have that access that proximity by virtue of their race, by virtue of gender in different contexts.
19:08.251 --> 19:13.152
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, it doesn't mean that they don't try to shape human rights discourse.
19:13.172 --> 19:19.794
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that they don't try to move things forward, not solely themselves, but for other marginalized groups.
19:20.254 --> 19:22.895
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the book captures what that looks like.
19:23.635 --> 19:30.556
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that's so fascinating about it is leaders encounter, well certainly women they have not heard of before,
19:37.978 --> 19:55.411
[SPEAKER_01]: who may not have the resources, or may not have the ability to be part of the more formal conversation, still assert their political power, and still ensure that their voices are heard, and they do so through all these creative means.
19:56.011 --> 20:00.575
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as an example, I talk about someone like Madame CJ Walker.
20:05.318 --> 20:28.634
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I emphasize in the book is the role that she played in the establishment of the International League for darker peoples, the ILDP, a short-lived, but very significant political organization that ultimately focuses on making the connections between the struggle for
20:29.805 --> 20:32.147
[SPEAKER_01]: expanded rights for the Black people in the U.S.
20:32.187 --> 20:44.398
[SPEAKER_01]: context and connecting it to global struggles in different spaces and one thing that Madam CJ Walker does is she utilizes her home.
20:44.498 --> 20:49.082
[SPEAKER_01]: At a practical level, she allows activeists to come into her home.
20:49.723 --> 20:53.927
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where it read the Isleding P where they come together for their first meeting in 1919.
20:55.468 --> 21:03.174
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she is giving financial resources to the group to be able to advance the mission.
21:03.714 --> 21:14.662
[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, she helps to organize a meeting between ILDP members and Japanese delegates who are getting ready to attend the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
21:14.762 --> 21:22.667
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the purpose of it is to, in a way, use them or attempt to use them as proxy to stand
21:23.508 --> 21:48.178
[SPEAKER_01]: for the group and broadly for the interest of African Americans, and certainly Madame C. Joe Walker and others, they're trying to push forward this idea of racial equality, and they're trying to make sure that as people are thinking about peace and the broadest terms, as they're thinking about stability, all of these ideas that they're not overlooking,
21:49.238 --> 21:52.841
[SPEAKER_01]: the experiences and the real concerns of people up African descent.
21:53.341 --> 22:02.786
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's an attempt to shape human rights as we are at a level that I don't think so many people pay attention to.
22:03.247 --> 22:06.689
[SPEAKER_01]: They might pay attention to the Paris Peace Conference, well that's a critical moment.
22:07.089 --> 22:08.590
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something we certainly know a lot about.
22:09.210 --> 22:11.912
[SPEAKER_01]: But here you have an example of someone working behind the scenes.
22:12.452 --> 22:25.458
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like a small thing, but it's not, and as I capture in the book, it really helps to build a kind of momentum as we move forward in the history, and you see how other women later would do similar kinds of things.
22:25.618 --> 22:36.542
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is, as you say, a grassroots story, and which we're able to think about what people are doing on the ground, and how that connects to what is happening
22:38.458 --> 22:44.143
[SPEAKER_02]: You open chapter one with one of my very favorite historical actors, I to be welles.
22:44.584 --> 22:52.431
[SPEAKER_02]: Could you talk a little bit about I to be welles and her anti-lynching campaigns and her journalism as a human rights project?
22:54.323 --> 23:09.621
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I decided to open with Ivy Wells because one of the things that captured my attention in the process of doing the research was how much she thought broadly about human rights
23:14.387 --> 23:31.608
[SPEAKER_01]: But still emphasizing the core values that I appoint to thinking about universal rights, natural rights, and equal rights, I to be well as as we know go out very passionately against lynching that was taking place in the United States.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And
23:33.350 --> 23:41.694
[SPEAKER_01]: She called on the federal government on various instances called on the federal government to offer protection for black people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She spoke about citizens of rights to be sure.
23:44.455 --> 23:52.598
[SPEAKER_01]: She spoke about the fact that black people should expect the federal government to protect them should
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[SPEAKER_01]: in the 19th century, in the early 20th century, and one of the things that Attabi Wells does in the late 19th century is she travels to the UK.
24:10.312 --> 24:19.203
[SPEAKER_01]: And this particular trip is important because it provides a space for to talk about lynching for an international audience.
24:19.263 --> 24:20.464
[SPEAKER_01]: It provides a space for her.
24:21.165 --> 24:40.466
[SPEAKER_01]: to in fact draw them the argument and and it's clear in her speeches as it is clear in her writings during this period that she is making a claim that the problem with lynching is in solely that it's in violation of citizenship rights but but at the fundamental level
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is in fact a violation of human rights, it is in fact evidence of human rights abuses that are taking place.
24:47.990 --> 24:56.653
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she uses that as a way to shame the United States, she uses it as a way to get others outside the U.S.
24:57.053 --> 25:04.036
[SPEAKER_01]: to recognize the problem that's taking place on your soil and how it has broader implications.
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[SPEAKER_01]: try to focus specifically on that, think as a way to add some texture to the literature and the way we talk about her.
25:14.705 --> 25:24.995
[SPEAKER_01]: And the new other thing that I do in our chapter is draw a connection between what I would be also saying at the late 19th century and what another black woman.
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[SPEAKER_01]: riot steward is saying several years earlier in the 1830s out of Boston.
25:31.238 --> 25:45.705
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is both an intellectual history in one sense and then thinking through the dynamics of a social and political perspective that I think will help readers see how out of ewells is in fact.
25:46.585 --> 26:00.117
[SPEAKER_01]: a key voice in early human rights history, we should know that at the same time, I think the scholarship on human rights history has not given out of ewells the attention that she certainly deserves.
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[SPEAKER_02]: people may have heard of I'd be well so hopefully she's got a Barbie doll.
26:06.326 --> 26:14.591
[SPEAKER_02]: But another journalist that you talk about that I had never heard of and I wish I had because her story is so important is that of Margarit Cartwright.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Do you talk a little bit about what Margarit Cartwright is doing in her journalism how she's thinking about the United Nations and connections with
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Margaret Cartwright is someone who I first learned about about 10 years ago and to have always been interested in writing about her, so it was wonderful to be able to have the chance to do that in this particular project as you note she's a journalist.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's also professor at the 1950s and 1960s.
26:44.801 --> 26:49.124
[SPEAKER_01]: She's writing for primarily black newspaper, she's a columnist
26:53.968 --> 27:09.299
[SPEAKER_01]: And I find her story so remarkable because what she does is she uses the avenue of journalism as a way to advance human rights advocacy, as just one example.
27:10.380 --> 27:25.450
[SPEAKER_01]: She's traveling across the globe, and she's attending very significant gatherings in order to observe, to listen, and report back to an American audience, specifically a Black American audience.
27:26.030 --> 27:51.499
[SPEAKER_01]: So, 1955, she attends the pivotal band-down conference, which we know as perhaps one of those significant gatherings for Afra-Asian political and social movements, and she goes to the gathering and returns to United States, writes about what she hears, what she sees, and then in a way translates all of that.
27:52.059 --> 28:04.424
[SPEAKER_01]: for black Americans to explain why it matters, why band-ong matters, and not solely in a general sense, but what it means for black people in the U.S.
28:04.464 --> 28:05.004
[SPEAKER_01]: context.
28:05.444 --> 28:11.267
[SPEAKER_01]: Her columns then provide a window for many readers, including as you can imagine.
28:12.147 --> 28:15.931
[SPEAKER_01]: those simply did not have the privilege to be able to travel abroad.
28:16.432 --> 28:28.485
[SPEAKER_01]: They now have a window into key historical developments that are taking place in real time and they're able to make sense of the world in which they're living and Margaret Hartwright plays a role in that.
28:29.045 --> 28:44.114
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that I talk about in detail is her attendance at the 1958 All African People's Conference, which is held in Akuragana organized by Kwame Ankuma and several other key African
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[SPEAKER_01]: activists and intellectuals, and I emphasize how what it means for this black woman to be in the space, one of the things that's very clear is that this is a male dominated space.
28:56.638 --> 29:08.762
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a few women in attendance, but they're not playing any form of roles, they're not giving speeches, they're just not involved at the level of the men who are there, and it is very much reflective of the time period.
29:09.242 --> 29:14.806
[SPEAKER_01]: we understand the kind of patriarchal structure that is evident in so many of these spaces.
29:15.587 --> 29:24.995
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, what's so important about the story, that even though she is there as just one of the few women who's observing, taking notes,
29:25.775 --> 29:41.141
[SPEAKER_01]: she comes back and and she writes a series of columns which is grappling with the conversations who's grappling with the ideas that other activists are thinking about and she's being very transparent about where she stands.
29:41.441 --> 29:42.661
[SPEAKER_01]: She's pushing back.
29:42.721 --> 29:44.922
[SPEAKER_01]: She's pointing out what she sees as
29:45.382 --> 29:56.247
[SPEAKER_01]: effective, but not as effective, and it just becomes this very public dialogue in which she's pulling others in which she's allowing others to play a part.
29:57.027 --> 30:05.511
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it is just so remarkable to see how journalism, how writing, of course, combined with traveling,
30:09.673 --> 30:24.940
[SPEAKER_01]: can the center of this history even as if you only focused on the more formal processes you would never pay attention to her and in fact most people don't pay attention to her and women don't receive much attention in many of these mainstream.
30:25.960 --> 30:27.021
[SPEAKER_01]: narratives on the period.
30:27.581 --> 30:38.446
[SPEAKER_01]: But by focusing on them, I show how even those who we might not pay attention to play a role in shaping and just to give another example beyond the writing.
30:38.626 --> 30:47.491
[SPEAKER_01]: What ends up happening is as she's traveling, as she's attending these events, she's actually building a connections, real connections.
30:47.831 --> 30:52.173
[SPEAKER_01]: She in fact develops a strong relationship, a really, I think, a friendship.
30:52.713 --> 30:59.162
[SPEAKER_01]: with someone like Enkuma, and she is able to, at some point, she's a connector.
30:59.222 --> 31:06.311
[SPEAKER_01]: She's able to introduce African leaders to African American leaders in different moments.
31:06.351 --> 31:08.594
[SPEAKER_01]: So I talk about the book, for example, how,
31:09.195 --> 31:12.960
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the one who makes sure that Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
31:13.000 --> 31:19.329
[SPEAKER_01]: receives an invitation from Enkuma to attend independent liberation events.
31:19.549 --> 31:24.736
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it just shows that even at a practical level, at a, you know, at the relational level,
31:25.557 --> 31:36.646
[SPEAKER_01]: She plays this important role in drawing the connections between what's happening in this, what's happening globally and particularly in the case of the African continent.
31:37.587 --> 31:40.970
[SPEAKER_01]: And so shedding light I think on her story helps us.
31:41.630 --> 31:46.253
[SPEAKER_01]: think we're broadly about this history and I think we end up more.
31:46.853 --> 31:55.998
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're exciting and enriched perspective when we center the stories of those on the ground operating outside traditional halls of power.
31:57.307 --> 32:05.093
[SPEAKER_02]: You talk in the book about how Cart Ray notes that she's frustrated that black people in general aren't paying more attention to United Nations.
32:05.293 --> 32:15.821
[SPEAKER_02]: Could you talk a little bit about the interactions that these black women leaders have with the United Nations that kind of hopes that they're pinning on the UN if it's not maybe living up to what they hope.
32:17.602 --> 32:40.187
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is really a fascinating story because one of the things that I emphasize of the book is perhaps mixed responses to the United Nations on the one hand, there is excitement because some activists see the United Nations certainly its formation as a moment where they're able to, in a
32:47.578 --> 32:49.779
[SPEAKER_01]: to black people, the world's over.
32:50.640 --> 32:55.402
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of them are, of course, in 1945, thinking about colonialism.
32:55.422 --> 33:03.986
[SPEAKER_01]: They're thinking that presence of the United Nations would be one avenue through which to bring an end to what's colonial rule.
33:04.606 --> 33:12.070
[SPEAKER_01]: And what they do find is some frustration because internally, because the United Nations
33:16.628 --> 33:28.353
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to craft something that is, that is new for the time that will involve so many different nations, so many different people from diverse backgrounds.
33:28.973 --> 33:39.958
[SPEAKER_01]: Naturally, there will be disagreements, naturally, there will be diverse perspectives in what exactly is the vision of human rights that would be able to
33:40.598 --> 33:42.640
[SPEAKER_01]: to apply broadly across the globe.
33:43.161 --> 33:56.514
[SPEAKER_01]: And what someone like Mary McLeod Bethune encounters and so I talk about her as one of the delegates as one of the African-American delegates who's there along with W.E.B.
33:56.554 --> 34:00.357
[SPEAKER_01]: DuBois and Walter White and part of what's happening is
34:01.098 --> 34:02.859
[SPEAKER_01]: all three of them at various moments.
34:02.919 --> 34:11.925
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to make sure that the concerns of people of African descent, that the concerns are heard at the drafting of the charter.
34:11.965 --> 34:18.449
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to make sure that black people are not being sideline and it's difficult.
34:19.269 --> 34:39.166
[SPEAKER_01]: for that, of course, encountering resistance within and externally, and yet it doesn't stop them from constantly trying, but part of that resistance, I think, broadly signals to show many activists that this may very well be an important space, but it might not actually
34:39.927 --> 34:42.350
[SPEAKER_01]: help you accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.
34:42.830 --> 34:43.951
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is a mixed story.
34:43.971 --> 34:50.758
[SPEAKER_01]: And as as I move from individual to individual, you get the sense that there is of course initially a lot of excitement.
34:50.858 --> 34:57.565
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I talk about journalists, another journalist, a poet, Nadal, who's from Martinique.
34:58.006 --> 35:01.850
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about her as the first black woman to formally.
35:02.803 --> 35:11.889
[SPEAKER_01]: worked for the United Nations as an area expert in 1946, and she writes about the UN in very glowing terms.
35:12.309 --> 35:15.852
[SPEAKER_01]: She talks about it as a new hope for her.
35:16.272 --> 35:19.334
[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be the breaking point.
35:19.394 --> 35:23.197
[SPEAKER_01]: This will be the moment where like people will be able to experience
35:23.897 --> 35:29.859
[SPEAKER_01]: the rights that they have been advocating for, this will be the moment where perhaps colonialism will come to an end.
35:29.920 --> 35:41.164
[SPEAKER_01]: So she starts off with this very optimistic point of view and you see that are similarly experiencing that sense of excitement and hope.
35:41.804 --> 35:45.606
[SPEAKER_01]: And as time progresses and as I'm
35:49.387 --> 35:55.369
[SPEAKER_01]: spending time with the correspondence, it becomes clear that there's not a lot of doubt.
35:56.369 --> 36:01.510
[SPEAKER_01]: There are people who are outright saying, listen, it's just not going to happen through the United Nations.
36:02.130 --> 36:04.011
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to work around it.
36:04.131 --> 36:13.153
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to figure out other strategies because they're not willing to go as far as we want them to go to secure rights for Black people and in other
36:16.294 --> 36:20.956
[SPEAKER_01]: story and to Margaret Cartwright, she has a sense of hope.
36:22.097 --> 36:23.958
[SPEAKER_01]: She's not oblivious to the challenge.
36:24.258 --> 36:27.920
[SPEAKER_01]: But she maintains a sense of hope that this is important.
36:28.200 --> 36:33.723
[SPEAKER_01]: And her sense is that black people need to be paying course attention to the United Nations.
36:33.763 --> 36:38.025
[SPEAKER_01]: They need to be paying attention to the conversations that's taking place to the developments.
36:38.689 --> 36:54.363
[SPEAKER_01]: And she is frustrated that she finds a bit of cynicism among many people, as she's talking about it, and some people see her as a bit agilistic, and they're not as enthused, but she makes a case in her columns.
36:54.964 --> 36:57.346
[SPEAKER_01]: She's emphasizing what's happening.
36:57.706 --> 37:03.491
[SPEAKER_01]: She's going to these meetings, and she's emphasizing what's happening in order to say to readers,
37:04.212 --> 37:21.906
[SPEAKER_01]: look, keep your eye on the United Nations, keep your eye on these developments as we are advocating for civil rights in the national context, we need to be fully tapped in to what's happening globally because in fact, it will strengthen our argument for expanded political rights in the U.S.
37:21.926 --> 37:22.407
[SPEAKER_01]: context.
37:23.227 --> 37:31.514
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to ask you to, you've been very involved in public history, just wonder if you could comment on the importance of public history in this moment.
37:32.718 --> 38:00.365
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it is so important I have been deeply committed to this for so many years and perhaps this moment compared to so many others, I feel a sense of urgency when it comes to doing this work because as we have been seeing across the nation, it's not only the amnesia because there's that part of the kind of national amnesia where people don't necessarily
38:01.085 --> 38:11.867
[SPEAKER_01]: seem to remember many things, but there's the intentional erasure of this history, and I thought a bit about that too as I was writing the book.
38:12.327 --> 38:20.469
[SPEAKER_01]: So just as one example, I relied in IntelliMarket Cartwrights story, I relied heavily on her papers,
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[SPEAKER_01]: And in the past few weeks, I was a portion of surprise given everything that's happening nationally, but I was certainly just hearted when I heard the news that they had lost a significant funding from the federal government and they needed to lay off staff members and they
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now trying to raise funds because quite frankly, they're on shore about what the future looks like and I remember just reflecting on the reality that who knows in 10 years whether researchers will have access to this material simply because resources are drying up certainly at a federal level and and there is this kind of disregard for
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[SPEAKER_01]: scholarship for research on not only blood people, but other marginalized groups.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's where I think public history matters so much.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For me, it's important to write the narratives that people can read and understand in the broadest sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't have to have
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[SPEAKER_01]: a college degree to read and understand and the work that I'm producing and and also I'm committed to making sure that the information is available in so many different mediums because some people will listen to this podcast but we'll not actually read this book and that's okay but I want them to to be able to have this information because what all the forces
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'd play with all the external challenges with all the efforts to suppress the history, to silence, the voices of those who are doing this work, to pull funding, to make it harder for researchers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think what will last quite frankly are these narratives that we are continuing to circulate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here I think about the power of oral traditions when we don't have the text to be able to tell these stories to our children and they can tell the stories to their children and so on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think about public history in this very urgent sense and this realisation that as much as I love being able to engage scholars and
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[SPEAKER_01]: of course I do that all the time I end up with committed to making sure that I am in dialogue with folks who may never see my classroom, but we'll need to know and understand its history as they navigate this world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully what I'm sharing will help them figure out even how to strategize within their communities, how to respond to the challenges they're facing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's
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[SPEAKER_02]: Without fear is a tremendous book and very readable.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I'd like to encourage listeners to get a copy.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell them how they can do that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: The book is available wherever books are sold.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I encourage people to visit their local bookstores.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think independent bookstores, especially now, need our support as much as possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where I would start.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Akisa, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to Unsung History.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please subscribe to Unsung History on your favorite podcasting app.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can find the sources used for this episode in a full episode transcript at unsunghistorypodcast.com.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To the best of our knowledge, all audio and images used by Unsung History are in the public domain, or are used with permission.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The contact is with questions, corrections, praise, or episode suggestions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please email Kelley at unsigned historypacast.com.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
