Triple Burden

Women being marginalized in United States prompted the national movement for voting rights. Mary Terrel , the first president of the National Association of Colored Woman (NACW c. 1896), called the fight a “double burden” in being black and in being a woman.  It seems to me that there was a third burden to fight, and that is of a BLACK WOMAN. The Negro woman fought for voting rights but were never credited historically. Photos never show their side by side along with white women. That marginalization seemed to be happening on the home front of the Harlem Renaissance movement. Black women writers , founders and playwrights all prolific, successful, talented and educated, and creative voices were, and some still, silenced throughout the years.

New Negro Woman?

The question is: were black woman ever considered a part of the “talented tenth” or a “New Negro” in the eyes of the architects W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke. Is there such a thing. And just as the word “men” was not universal in its use in the Declaration of Independence to include the Negro man the terminology of the “New Negro” is not meant to universally include black woman.

 The New Negro according to Alain Locke

Alain Locke says, in The New Negro (pg 3:2), when he talks about the past ten years of the Negro life , he asks can the change to a New Negro have taken place that quickly, “The answer is no; not because the New Negro is not here, but because the Old Negro had long become more of a myth than a man. “

The Talented Tenth

Here we have W.E.B. DuBois’ first sentence of his document The Talented Tenth:: “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.” In his own words the talented are not women of any race.