“What if I Am a Woman?” Maria W. Stewart and Black Feminist Activism

You are invited to the third event of Oglethorpe’s Year of Suffrage, a two-semester program of events celebrating the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.

Dr. Rhana Gittens, OU Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, will offer “’What if I Am a Woman?’ Maria W. Stewart and Black Feminist Activism” on Wednesday, October 21st at 6 PM via Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/96165399413).

For African American women the movement for suffrage was entangled with the necessities to be humanized and free. Black women, like Maria W. Stewart, allied with abolitionists to challenge oppression, paving the way for all women speakers. Stewart rose to the height of her career in 1832 when she became the first documented American-born woman (Black or White) to present a political oration before a mixed audience of men and women. In this talk, Dr. Rhana Gittens reviews Stewart’s two essays, and four speeches, which ultimately convey the intersectional identity of being African, American, and woman. Embodying her Christian beliefs and a spirit of defiance, Stewart pleads for justice and righteousness and most urgently affirms her right to speak politically as a woman.