Black Women in Texas History

The book, “Black Women in Texas History”, begins with an article about slave life before the Civil War and chronologically builds up to the examination of African American female leaders in education and in politics at the twenty-first century. Each chapter provides an overview of the lives and roles of African American women in Texas during that period, detailed documentation, and a collection of bibliographies for scholars wanting to learn more about that specific topic.

Angela Boswell presents Rebecca Sharpless work in the article about African American women between 1874 and 1900.

Sharpless does not shy away from explicit information and uses it to analyze the work of African American women in the community. Sharpless entails the formation of secular clubs as evidence of early development of the African American middle class. Using a real life quote for her title, Sharpless has pulled information from the census, slave narratives, as well as numerous secondary sources to account for the productive, yet difficult years for African Americans.

Her article is titled “Us Has Ever Lived De Useful Life”.

Boswell provides the reader with essays with information about African American women during each major time period. Each of these essays include detailed analysis of each topic, including family and social life, at home and beyond in the world of work and in organizations like the church, the NAACP, and politicals groups, but often almosts buries the reader with countless names and organizations.

As the lives and activities of African American women are analyzed in the essays, topics like creating institutions, education, migration, surmounting barriers, resistance and struggle, organizations and leadership emerge.

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Boswell uses solid primary evidence, including the Census Bureau data and slave narratives as sources to support her thesis. Regardless of location or situation, the accounts presented by Boswell demonstrated that African American women persevered despite the double burdens of gender and race discrimination learned from “Black Feminist Thought”.

The co-editors of this book, Bruce A. Glasrud and Merline Pitre, suggest the purpose of the text is ‘to provide a history of African American women in Texas that reflects an open-minded narrative’ they intend this to start a trend for other states to discover the story of Black women within their own histories (p. 3). After reading the book I see Baswell is successful in showing how African American women shaped Texas culture. Baswell does an excellent job in putting the historical accounts and events of African American women in chronological order. Therefore the book, “Black Women in Texas History”, is a valuable tool for the researcher, student, or professor and is an important addition to history