Black Women's Organizations:  Introduction

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Photo is of members of the Buffalo Regional of the Empire State Federation of Women's Club who gathered at the grave of Mary B. Talbert in November 1955. CRITERION Page 6, Saturday, May 27 - June 2, 2000

The economic and social circumstances of their community affected black women and their perceptions of the world. The informal networks that characterized much of their nineteenth-century efforts remained important, but the increasing population compelled them to give way to new formal, structured groups designed to improve their status and that of their community. African American women in Buffalo had keen notions of the meaning of community and they were deeply involved in the creation of their twentieth-century Buffalo. These women persistently had struggled to improve the lives of their people. 

Outspoken critic Mary Burnett Talbert expressed the belief that undergirded much of their thought when she told an assembly of delegates to the NACW in 1916 that "no Negro woman can afford to be an indifferent spectator of the social, moral, religious, economic, and uplift problems that are agitated around [her]." This spirit had governed their activities in the nineteenth century and had given them ample experiences necessary for devising new mechanisms and approaches to deal with contemporary concerns of blacks. Their network of kin and friendship still allowed black women of Buffalo to work within their tradition of self-help and mutuality and facilitated action on their part. This tradition and the ethos of the Progressive Era informed their decisions.

Buffalo black women understood well the importance of political action to help effect social change, and they had long participated in organizations established to shape public policy. Earlier they had been involved in abolitionism, the ratification movement for support of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the school integration movement in the city. Black women organized suffrage groups, participated in suffrage demonstrations, and pursued what political scientist Martin Kilson referred to as "mature" political action. They lobbied legislators and tried to influence the vote of black and white men in Buffalo. These women could draw upon their affiliation with the NACW, the Western New York Council of Women, and the Buffalo Federation of Women's Clubs for support. Buffalo club women perceived he NAACP, with its branches across the nation, as an effective tool for addressing the critical issues that the Buffalo community experienced. Such a network, dedicated to the eradication of racism and human rights violations, meant that communities with small black populations, like Buffalo, could draw on that network to avoid isolation and political suicide.

Reprinted with Permission of the author: Lillian S. Williams, Ph.D. 

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