Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Black Women's Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1914-1965

by Cherisse Jones-Branch

Overview

The first major study to consider Black women’s activism in rural Arkansas, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps foregrounds activists’ quest to improve Black communities through language and foodways as well as politics and community organizing. In reexamining these efforts, Cherisse Jones-Branch lifts many important figures out of obscurity, positioning them squarely within Arkansas’s agrarian history.

The Black women activists highlighted here include home demonstration agents employed by the Arkansas Agricultural Cooperative Extension Service and Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers, all of whom possessed an acute understanding of the difficulties that African Americans faced in rural spaces. Examining these activists through a historical lens, Jones-Branch reveals how educated, middle-class Black women worked with their less-educated rural sisters to create all-female spaces where they confronted economic, educational, public health, political, and theological concerns free from white regulation and interference.

Centered on the period between 1914 and 1965, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps brings long-overdue attention to an important chapter in Arkansas history, spotlighting a group of Black women activists who uplifted their communities while subverting the formidable structures of white supremacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682261675
Publisher:	University of Arkansas Press
Publication date:	04/28/2023
Edition description:	1
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Cherisse Jones-Branch is the James and Wanda Lee Vaughn Endowed Professor of History at Arkansas State University, where she is dean of the graduate school. She is the author of Crossing the Line: Women and Interracial Activism in South Carolina during and after World War II and coeditor of Arkansas Women: Their Lives and Times.
 

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Contents:
1. Arkansas Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers
2. Home Demonstration Agents in Rural Black Arkansas Communities
3. African American Women’s Activism in Rural Black Communities during and following World War I
4. The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and Agrarian Activism in 1930s Arkansas
5. The State Council of Home Demonstration Clubs
6. The Arkansas Association of Colored Women
7. World War II
8. The Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation Negro Division and the Spirit of Cotton Pageant
9. Rural Activism in 1950s Arkansas
10. Ethel B. Dawson and the National Council of Churches of Christ Home Missions Division
11. The National Negro Home Demonstration Agents’ Association
12. Annie Zachary Pike: Arkansas Homemaker, Farmer, and Politician

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 3

1 Arkansas Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers 9

2 Home Demonstration Agents in Rural Black Arkansas Communities 31

3 African American Women's Activism in Rural Black Communities during and following World War I 41

4 The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and Agrarian Activism in 1930s Arkansas 51

5 The State Council of Home Demonstration Clubs 65

6 The Arkansas Association of Colored Women 73

7 World War II 85

8 The Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation Negro Division and the Spirit of Cotton Pageant 99

9 Rural Activism in 1950s Arkansas 107

10 Ethel B. Dawson and the National Council of Churches of Christ Home Missions Division 119

11 The National Negro Home Demonstration Agents' Association 131

12 Annie Zachary Pike: Arkansas Homemaker, Farmer, and Politician 137

Conclusion 157

Notes 159

Bibliography 199

Index 217