Abstract
Securing rights and opportunities for women have traditionally been portrayed as the success of White women under the leadership of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida Husted Harper, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Those portrayals have created a false narrative by elevating White women to the role of champion for women, while ignoring their active utilization of racism against Black women, particularly when racism supported their cause. Only a few works have acknowledged the role of Black women in the battles fought and won by women in America for social and political reform. For example, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn's African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920 took direct aim at the Anthony, Stanton, Harper, and Gage's edited six-volume History of Women's Suffrage and situated Black women in the narrative. Additionally, Paula Giddings's When and Where I Enter explored the impact of Black women on women's movements in the United States.
Dr. Jones's intention is clear in Vanguard: to retell the last 200 years of women's history in the United States in a manner that includes Black women, rather than relegating them to the margins. When presenting their narratives, she uses familial stories, letters to the editor of abolitionist newspapers, newspaper articles, and minutes from organizational meetings to fill in the blanks. Overall, she succeeds. She identifies well-known and lesser-known women who had an impact and the situations and environments in which they succeeded.
The book is divided into three sections. In part one, she notes the role of Black women from the American Revolution through the Civil War. She identifies anti-slavery movements as an opportunity for Black women to engage in political activism and work towards the elimination of racism, sexism, and their intersectionality. She also discussed the conflicts Black women had to navigate with Black men about their rightful place. In part two, she considers the experiences Black women had between Reconstruction and World War I. The challenges Black women encountered when excluded by White women due to racism are explored and presented as the impetus for Black women to consider the varying roles they were assigned and that they desired. Dr. Jones also delves more deeply into the growing movement of Black women to broaden their movement beyond voting rights to focus on the overall status of Blacks. Finally, in part three, the spotlight is on those who worked towards the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Although strong in its concentration on the contributions of individual Black women, in an effort to be comprehensive, there was a glossing over of some significant contributors that should have been acknowledged. For example, when discussing the participation of Black women in the Washington D.C. suffrage parade in 1913, organizations such as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. were minimized. Dr. Jones, states, “Howard University students — sorority members — joined the procession decked out in caps and gowns” (p. 165). The lack of importance attributed to this groundbreaking act is disheartening. The actions of the 22 founders of the organization, which was less than two months old, was important because their participation in the parade was the first public act of what has become the largest fraternal organization of college-educated Black women in the world. In fact, many of the women she identified as significant contributors to breaking barriers later became members of that sorority (e.g., Mary Church Terrell, Mary McLeod Bethune, Shirley Chisholm, and Barbara Jordan). The naming of such organizations is important because of their historical influence and ongoing contributions. Vice President Kamala Harris, herself, acknowledges the importance of her own sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sonority, Inc., in her personal and political success. To minimize those women continues the act of relegation to the margins that this book seeks to correct. The book's few missteps, such as that one, do not diminish its success, but might leave the reader feeling as if the insider perspective as a Black woman, which is promulgated, has not been consistently suffused throughout the text.
Throughout Vanguard, Dr. Jones makes it clear that Black women were always fighting for civil rights for all, not just themselves. At a time when we are experiencing anti-racism as a movement in social work and preparing social workers to engage in what can be challenging work, Vanguard provides many lessons. The use of less commonly known sources to create the narrative is a reminder that for persons, such as Black women, where attempts have been made to silence and erase them, it is important to look for those stories instead of assuming they do not exist. Notably, Black women, then and now, are often described without conveying a sense of their humanity. By contrast, throughout her book, Dr. Jones added granular context to the lives of the women she highlighted using supposition based on the broader experiences of Black women. Some readers might find the style employed distracting and ultimately be transported away from the narrative immersion attempted throughout. However, her stylistic choice in no way devalues the importance of the knowledge gained by the reader.
The title, Vanguard, was selected by Dr. Jones to ensure that Black women would be acknowledged for their trailblazing efforts, as “the nation's original feminists and anti-racists,” (p. 11) despite racism and the numerous forms of violence and exploitation they consistently experienced. Vanguard makes a significant contribution to the discourse regarding intersectionality and serves as a reminder that, by definition, Black women embody intersectionality. This book re-writes history through truth-telling; thus, it should be read by anyone seeking to learn the real history of the United States.
