Gender & American culture

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

This groundbreaking study examines how race, gender, and political power reshaped North Carolina during the rise of Jim Crow, from the disfranchisement of Black men in the 1890s through the enfranchisement of women in 1920. Centering the experiences of educated African American women, it reveals how they developed influential strategies of activism, advocacy, and interracial engagement in a society structured by white supremacy. The book also explores white women’s participation in southern politics and the ways white supremacists manipulated ideals of womanhood to justify racial control. Richly researched and sharply analytical, it offers a nuanced account of Black women’s political leadership and the contested emergence of southern progressivism.