March 2024: March is Women’s History Month

Updated on
by Brynne Gorman

From left to right, the biographies of three enslaved African American women before the Civil War: Lucy Terry Prince (1725-1821), Ona Judge (1773-1848), Ellen Craft (1826-1891), written by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, and Ilyon Woo, respectively.

March is Women’s History Month. When you aren’t taught to read, when you aren’t taught to write, when you don’t have a public surname, when the major recorded events of your life are the date you were bought or sold or listed in an estate at the death of your owner, you become invisible to history. Rarely, you escape. You learn to read, to write, to sign your name to documents, to pen letters, a diary, or poetry. You have employment, own land, purchase goods and services. You become an individual in the public domain. Your birth may be lost, but your death may be recorded. Even more rarely, your name and hence your life enter the store receipts, the newspapers, the tax records, and the judicial system. If you live long enough your stories, your adventures, and your notoriety may have an audience, and you may even have an obituary. How did you do that?

You were a poet and argued for your right in front of the Vermont Supreme Court (Lucy Terry). You were owned by Martha Washington, escaped, and were never caught despite being chased by all the president’s men (Ona Judge). You disguised yourself as an invalid man and with your husband as your slave, you left the bondage of a Georgia plantation, traveled north by train, boat, and on foot to become part of the abolitionist lecture circuit with your tales, and you left descendants who also entered the fight for freedom (Ellen Craft).

Almost two centuries later, your stories reached the hearts and minds of women who benefited from your actions. The written records of your lives are full of gaps, but your biographers are historians who know the value of truth and the cost of embellishment. They were motivated to ferret out the recorded pieces of your lives and went to great lengths, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to do so. Your biographers (Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, and Ilyon Woo) are also compassionate story tellers and they know how to weave the spartan facts of public record into compelling narrative. The three books above are the result of their work documenting your lives. We are the beneficiaries.

The books:

Gerzina, G.H. 2008. Mr. and Mrs. Prince. Amistad, HarperCollins.

Dunbar, E.A. 2017. Never Caught. Simon & Schuster.

Woo, I. 2023. Master Slave Husband Wife. Simon & Schuster.

Next Month: Since Earth Day is next month, we will focus on environmental justice questions that could be asked of candidates at League-run panels, or by individuals at campaign events.

Selected Web and Video Sources:

Lucy Terry Prince

PBS ‘Africans in America’

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p15.html

African American Registry

https://web.archive.org/web/20061027022531/http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2010/Lucy_Terry_Prince_poet_and_abolitionist

Vermont History Explorer

https://vermonthistoryexplorer.org/lucy-terry-prince

Afric Network (3.5 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5EuzVj2kIk

Brattleboro Words Project (35.5 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bwAn4TchuE