Abstract
Due to the failure of the mainstream American settlement house movement to assist Blacks moving to cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a parallel movement was developed by Black female activists and reformers. As a historically oppressed group, African Americans used nonconfrontational strategies to fight for racial uplift and equal rights. This article posits that Black settlement houses provided a propitious environment for culturally based empowerment initiatives that contributed to the development of oppositional consciousness in the Black community. The article examines how Black female leaders’ activism was influenced by the extent of social control the settlement houses were subject to. It argues that the culture of resistance developed in Black settlement houses foreshadowed and contributed to subsequent social movements in the African American community.
During peak segregation in the United States, Black institutions provided opportunities for a culture of resistance that contributed to social movements in the African American community between the 1950s and 1960s. 1 A social movement, such as the civil rights movement, did not occur ex nihilo; it built on a pervasive oppositional consciousness that had existed among African Americans for a long time. Much research has been done about the Black church as a major institution that provided a favorable environment for activism (Harris, 2001; Mansbridge & Morris, 2001; Waite, 2001). Christianity was a major source of social activism among Blacks during both the Reconstruction and the Depression eras. It helped Blacks develop a worldview that resisted White supremacy. This article looks at another type of institution not much explored in research, Black settlement houses, as a structural setting in which activism emerged and developed. Due to the massive arrival of poor young Black women to urban areas between the late 1890s and the early 20th century, Black club women established self-help groups and settlement houses to assist these disadvantaged community members and protect the dignity of Black women (Hase, 1994).
Historically, the role played by Black women in social movements has often been overlooked in feminist and antiracist research despite the crucial role these women played for the survival and racial uplift of their people through the ages (Marshall, 2001). Research about the prevalence of a culture of resistance among African Americans focuses primarily on the role of male leaders in contemporary social movements (Harris, 2001; Morris & Braine, 2001; Waite, 2001). Given the circumstances in which they were created and the environment for education and empowerment they provided, Black settlement houses were settings where a culture of resistance developed, with African American female activists and reformers in the vanguard roles. Based on the concept of oppositional consciousness, as defined by Mansbridge and Morris (2001), the article argues that there were two main types of structural conditions in the Black settlement house movement: settlement houses with pronounced autonomy and settlement houses with limited autonomy. These two types of structural environments produced different levels of activism based on the extent of segregation they were subjected to and the level of input from Blacks in the leadership of the houses.
The purpose of this article is to explore how oppositional consciousness was expressed in Black settlement houses. First, the concept of oppositional consciousness is reviewed with the focus on how it applies to social movements among African Americans. Second, the article explores how segregation affected the creation of Black settlement houses. Third, the article examines how a culture of resistance evolved in Black settlement houses. Finally, by examining the activism of four African American female leaders, the article shows how the two structural conditions in Black settlement houses led to different social achievements and pathways to social uplift in the African American community.
Overview of the Concept of Oppositional Consciousness
Resistance is generally pervasive and difficult to repress in oppressed groups because a power rule calls for opposition to the imposed authority (Foucault, 1977). Oppositional consciousness describes attitudes and disposition of members of a dominated community to challenge injustice and oppression. Mansbridge and Morris (2001) define this concept as an empowering state of mind and behavior that members of an oppressed group develop. It results from a lingering feeling of frustration, inequity, and indignity experienced by the group. These authors argue that this mental consciousness arises in historical situations where members of an oppressed group become aware of their shared identity of subordination and consequently reflect on ways to free themselves from the grip of an oppressive rule. Oppositional consciousness is viewed by social movement theorists as an important factor in the emergence of a social movement or collective action.
The formation of oppositional consciousness depends on four major main conditions (Groch, 2001; Mansbridge, 2001). First, people develop the awareness of being members of an oppressed group. Second, they are conscious of being subjected to inequities. Third, they show disposition to confront the inequities and demand equality and fair treatment. Finally, they become aware of the importance of a shared commitment to end injustices they experience. The maturation of these four conditions depends on the presence of some variables, including a geographically segregated environment, an oppositional culture, and interactions among group members.
Free Spaces and Oppositional Consciousness
The notion of free spaces, that is, geographically segregated spaces, is important for the formation of oppositional consciousness. Free spaces provide a propitious environment for members of an oppressed group to strengthen their shared identity (Groch, 2001; Morris & Braine, 2001). Segregated environments provide opportunities, resources, networks, and strategies that allow the development of social movements. The extent of physical isolation of a dominated group conditions the scope of its oppositional consciousness. As Morris and Braine (2001) argue, “Despite close monitoring by repressive regimes, subordinate communities residing in the most highly segregated spaces are often the most likely to find the privacy and cultural resources to develop oppositional cultures and oppositional consciousness” (p. 31). Limited interference from nonmembers to an oppressed group contributes to a quick maturation of oppositional consciousness in the group. Likewise, culture affects oppositional consciousness.
Oppositional Culture and Oppositional Consciousness
The development of oppositional consciousness is intrinsically linked to the prevalence of an oppositional culture in an oppressed group (Morris & Braine, 2001). Oppositional culture relates to the social values, shared worldviews, and strong sense of oneness in a traditionally subjugated group. It allows group members to develop a collective identity based on their experience of oppression. For West (as cited in Harris, 2001), “any political consciousness of an oppressed group is shaped and molded by the group’s cultural resources and resiliency as perceived by individuals in it” (p. 59). Segregating conditions and oppression often lead to the development of a pervasive culture of resistance in a group. Oppression based on race, ethnicity, or class is likely to result in segregated communities where a culture of opposition reinforces a shared identity and group bonds (Futrell & Simi, 2004; Morris & Braine, 2001). Oppositional culture could be considered an inherent tendency of a subordinate community to resist, whereas oppositional consciousness could be described as the community’s active motivation and push to confront an oppressive social structure. The stronger the oppositional culture in a group is, the higher the group’s oppositional consciousness can be.
Elitist Interest as a Threat to Oppositional Consciousness
Positions occupied by leaders of an oppressed group can affect the development of oppositional consciousness. Waite (2001) used the case of the Black elites in Chicago in 1966 to illustrate how oppositional consciousness can be difficult to develop when leaders in an oppressed community occupy privileged, structural positions in the sociopolitical environment. Though Black elites in Chicago shared an oppositional culture with the rest of the Black community, their privileged positions in the political sphere pushed them more toward an assumed hegemonic consciousness. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to convince these elites to help develop the Chicago Freedom Movement campaign, a campaign similar to the successful one he spearheaded in the South (Morris, 2001). Yet, the divided consciousness among the Black elites in Chicago thwarted the coordination and success of the campaign. Thus, developing unified group consciousness in the African American community in Chicago at that time was problematic because most leaders shared conditions of oppression based on ethnicity on the one hand and conditions of privileges based on sociopolitical status on the other hand. According to Stockdill (2001), “people who are oppressed on one dimension . . . but privileged on other dimensions, often find it hard to give up the inner conviction of superiority accompanying their privilege” (p. 236). This view does not necessarily apply to African American female leaders in general, especially those in the settlement house movement. Most Black settlement house leaders were middle-class women who capitalized on their privileged status to assist disadvantaged members of the Black community.
Segregation and the Establishment of Black Settlement Houses
Segregation negatively affected African Americans’ socioeconomic status and well-being. Yet, to some extent, it also influenced the development of a resistance stance in their communities. Through segregation, a shared identity of an oppressed group was reinforced among Blacks. Thus, despite its confining and inhuman aspect, segregation provided a nurturing environment for Blacks to reflect on their experiences of oppression. Morris (1984) argues that “it facilitated the development of black institutions and the building of close-knit communities” (p. 3). According to Lasch-Quinn (1993), segregation and Jim Crowism served as binding forces among Black communities. Jim Crow laws allowed an environment propitious for self-awareness among Blacks through the Black church institution and a separated settlement house movement.
Origin of the Settlement House Movement
A settlement house was both a residence and a community center that aimed to assist migrants and the poor to adjust to the industrial, urban life. Founded in 1883 in London, Toynbee Hall was the first settlement house ever established. The most famous settlement house in the United States was Chicago’s Hull House, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889 after they had visited Toynbee Hall in 1888. Primarily led by women, the American settlement house movement resulted in many programs and reforms with long-lasting effects.
Failure of mainstream settlement houses to assist Blacks
The main objective of the American settlement house movement was to provide social and welfare services to immigrants and migrants in industrial cities. Yet, African Americans who migrated to the urban areas from the poor southern regions did not get as much attention as European newcomers. The general belief among White settlement house leaders was that Blacks “could best progress on their own, through separate self-help or racially oriented organizations, but not through the settlement house movement” (Lasch-Quinn, 1993, p. 5). The arrival of Black newcomers in the vicinity of mainstream settlement houses created a sweeping, negative change in neighborhoods. Consequently, settlement houses were gradually abandoned or relocated far from Black migrants. As Lasch-Quinn (1993) wrote, “rather than responding to black migration by welcoming the newcomers, settlements largely ignored blacks (p. 11). The failure of mainstream settlement houses to assist Blacks could be related to two main issues: the difficulty for houses to raise or get funds for specific services needed by Black migrants and the opposition of White neighbors and settlement house clients to any assistance to Blacks. The very few mainstream settlement houses that reached out to Blacks limited their efforts to establishing separate Black branches (Trolander, 1987).
The need for separate settlement houses
In response to the refusal of mainstream houses to assist the increasing, needy population of Black migrants, African American female activists and reformers became involved in a separate settlement house movement. The needs of Blacks moving to cities were so high in the early 20th century that Black settlement houses significantly increased in number and even outnumbered mainstream settlement houses (Crocker, 1995). Black settlement houses not only provided safe havens to poor people, but they also offered an appropriate environment and free space for activism. Lasch-Quinn (1993) defines a Black settlement house as any organization that “conducted extensive work in black neighborhoods in the settlement tradition” (p. 115). By their geographical situations, Black settlement houses were segregated settings in which Blacks could feel relatively safe from their daily oppressive condition. Like the Black church, these houses provided opportunities not only for educational and recreational activities but also for activism (Hase, 1994). Inside these settings, Blacks could get basic education and social skills needed to survive in the city. They could also reflect on their experiences of oppression among themselves. Black settlement houses not only allowed strengthening the group identity, but they also provided spaces for the development of group oppositional consciousness.
Shared Consciousness in Black Settlement Houses
Historically, African American women have developed a three-level consciousness related to their experience of oppression based on race, class, and gender (Gyant, 1996; Morris, 1992; Waite, 2001). While Black males are viewed as the most represented among victims of race discrimination, and White females are the most represented among victims of gender discrimination, Black females experience both forms of discrimination whatever their social status (Crenshaw, as cited in Marshall, 2001). To break this pervasive multilevel oppression, starting from the late 1890s, Black club women became activists. They relied on nonconfrontational strategies and empowerment initiatives to promote racial uplift in their communities (Stockdill, 2001). They used complex patterns of oppositional culture, negotiation, struggle, solidarity, and conscious creativity in activism (Mansbridge & Morris, 2001). In other words, Black club women capitalized on their resources and skills to organize Black communities through structures such as settlement houses (Carlton-LaNey, 2001; Cash, 1991; Hase, 1994).
The Call to Duty for Black Female Leaders
The principles of oppositional consciousness are appropriate to analyze Black club women’s motivations to engage in a separate settlement house movement. First, despite their middle-class status and educational levels, Black club women were not spared from prejudices and discrimination based on race. They shared with the poor Black women moving to cities the consciousness of being part of a community that was indistinctively affected by the Jim Crow laws. Second, their awareness of the need for collective action to oppose social injustices spurred their motivation for creating a parallel settlement house movement to assist disadvantaged people in their community. Third, they were conscious that stereotypes used against disadvantaged members of the Black community could not only hurt their own pride as leaders but also jeopardize their activism for social uplift and equal rights (Lasch-Quinn, 1993). According to Hase (1994), Black club women across the country were highly conscious that their lives and those of their less fortunate sisters were inextricably tied. Regardless of their class and social standing in the community, all Black women were indistinctively viewed through the race lens. Thus, Black female leaders were aware that, prior to any engagement in an effective activism, their community needed to reclaim its identity affected by prejudices of dependence, immorality, and ignorance.
Lasch-Quinn argues that Black female reformers’ idea to project decency among their underprivileged sisters was actually part of a conscious plan to help the Black community adopt attitudes that would disprove stereotypes. Thus, these leaders got involved in movements of assistance to their disadvantaged community members partly because they shared oppressive conditions at various levels. They also shared with these members the consciousness of the urgency to alleviate the oppressive conditions they all were subject to. They were aware that the lack of basic education and satisfaction of basic needs in their community could negatively affect their activism and fight for racial uplift.
Female activists in the Black settlement house movement were conscious that it would be risky to overtly confront the oppressive conditions the Black community was subject to. This was due to the limited level of education in the Black community and the need of financial resources to conduct their settlement work. Research shows that a substantial part of the resources of many Black settlement houses came from White donors and reformers (Carlton-LaNey, 2001; Glazer & Moynihan, 1963; Hase, 1994; Karger, 1986). Thus, Black settlement house female leaders managed to address problems in their communities using a constructive dialogue and nonconfrontational strategies (Lash-Quinn, 1993). People like Lugenia Burns Hope, Victoria Earle Matthews, and, Gertrude Brown often used their connections with White reformers and settlement leaders to get important financial support for their settlement house programs (Carlton-LaNey, 2001; Hase, 1994; Rouse, 1989). The use of the expression racial uplift instead of equal rights by Black female reformers was probably motivated by the need to avoid an unnecessary, open confrontation with Whites in a period when the issue of equal rights was hardly discussed.
Activism in Black Settlement Houses Mirrored in the AIDS Community
Stockdill’s (2001) study of the formation of a multidimensional oppositional consciousness in the community of AIDS reflects the oppositional consciousness that developed in the Black settlement house movement. This study examined empowerment and grassroots efforts for awareness about HIV-AIDS in some American cities. It shows that AIDS activists fought multidimensional oppression by “challenging collective prejudices with constructive dialogue, facilitating empowerment, establishing concrete ties with impacted communities, and utilizing indigenous culture” (Stockdill, 2001, p. 235). The findings imply that opposing injustices and demanding equal rights do not necessarily involve radical or confrontational attitudes.
However, in contrast to Stockdill’s (2001) finding that AIDS activists had to build communication with affected communities before assisting them, Black settlement female leaders did not need to establish any particular form of communication with the clients they served or acquire cultural competence to assist them. Both sides of the group shared an oppositional culture based on their social values and their common experience of oppression. They understood the importance of a collective commitment in efforts to end or at least alleviate the injustices they experienced. The way underprivileged community members being served in the settlement houses could demonstrate that they shared in the vision of racial empowerment was to work toward disproving stereotypes and get education leading to an active engagement in the combat for equal rights. Marshall (2001) attributes such a shared commitment of purpose to a spectrum of interactions and feedback in the building of a collective awareness. Nonactivists do have a role to play in efforts to achieve a common goal. She argues that “although a movement cannot exist without activists who in some cases dedicate their lives to the movement, it also depends heavily on nonactivists who are influenced by the movement’s ideas” (Marshall, 2001, p. 141). The cognitive support as well as the feedback from the nonactivists in the community helps social activists to assess the impacts of their advocacy work. For instance, the increase of coming out among AIDS nonactivists and their involvement in awareness campaigns gave AIDS activists strong, positive feedback about their strategy of developing oppositional consciousness in their community (Stockdill, 2001).
In the Black settlement house movement, middle-class female reformers were the activists, and the disadvantaged community members they helped empower were the nonactivists. Both parts of the group had a strong sense of oneness and solidarity regarding race and gender discrimination. The outcomes of their shared responsibility for social uplift were dependent on the commitment of the leaders to guide underprivileged group members and the latter’s obligation to improve their moral and educational standing.
Autonomy of Black Settlement Houses and Activism
Black settlement houses displayed two types of structural conditions that led to different pathways of activism: settlement houses with pronounced autonomy and settlement houses with restricted autonomy.
Settlement Houses with Pronounced Autonomy
In settlement houses with pronounced autonomy, Black clients were served by Black staff and leadership, including head residents and the board of directors. These types of settlements had full independence for their activities and policies. Their leadership (i.e., boards of directors and head residents) consisted of people who shared social values and culture with those receiving services. Lugenia Burns Hope’s Neighborhood Union in Atlanta and Victoria Earle Matthews’s White Rose Mission in New York are two examples of organizations that fit this pattern of Black settlement houses.
The Neighborhood Union
The Neighborhood Union (hereafter Union) was a social service and settlement house organization. It was created in 1908 as a response to the Jim Crow policy and its effects on the Black population in Atlanta, Georgia (Neverdon-Morton, 1982). As in other regions around the United States at that time, Blacks in Atlanta experienced oppressive conditions of segregation. The Union provided culturally competent education and social awareness services that helped empower Blacks for a collective action out of oppression. The organization’s leadership successfully advocated for and attained many reforms in public services in favor of the community it served (Neverdon-Morton, 1982; Rouse, 1989). The leadership consisted of Black club women and activists who shared identity and values with the disadvantaged community members they committed their time and resources to. Racial uplift and social empowerment of their community were their primary concerns. The Union’s motto, “Thy Neighbor as Thyself” (Rouse, 1989, p. 66), illustrated the purpose and commitment of members of an oppressed group that shared values and understood the importance of solidarity for activism.
The Union was autonomous in its policies, programs, and resources. The organization conducted its settlement work outside Whites’ interference and supervision. A large part of the financial support for its programs came from the Black community (Hase, 1994; Rouse, 1989). Its board of directors consisted of Black middle-class women who were committed to help their underprivileged community members improve their social conditions (Rouse, 1989). The activism of the Union went beyond typical settlement work. The leaders used their privileged status of educated club women to build networks with the local political authorities and lobby for essential services, like recreational facilities, improved schools, better police protection, and improvement of public facilities in Black neighborhoods. They fought for social reforms that were needed in their community.
Lugenia Burns Hope’s activism in the Union
Hope, one of the founders of the Union, represented middle-class Black club women who used their influence and privileged social position to advance their race. It was under her 25 years of leadership that the organization achieved most of its social uplift goals in the Black community of Atlanta. She led and actively participated in various social service programs whose goals included racial uplift, interracial cooperation, sexual equality, and civic engagement. Hope fought to maintain the independence of the Union, rejecting pressures from accommodationism partisans, like Booker T. Washington and, particularly, Eugene K. Jones, whose National Urban League attempted to get control of the Union (Rouse, 1989). Similar to the self-centered attitudes of Chicago’s Black elites mentioned earlier, Black accommodationists’ efforts to curb the Union’s women’s activism appears to show Black male leaders’ tendency to develop more hegemonic consciousness and less oppositional consciousness than their female counterparts (Waite, 2001).
According to Rouse (1989), Hope exemplified the strongest spirited of Black woman reformers. Beyond her leadership in the Union, Hope played key roles in various associations fighting for improvement of the social and economic conditions of Blacks. For instance, she was a founding member of the Atlanta Branch of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. She was vice president of the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was involved in national reform activities and particularly in the efforts to challenge racial discrimination. Hope sharply criticized the widespread belief that African Americans had to prove their readiness for citizenship (Rouse, 1989). In 1920, she led a movement to challenge the practices of segregation within the national Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). For example, at the National conference of YWCA in Cleveland, Ohio, in May 1920, in one of her strong defiance stances of the status quo, she threatened that Black women “would rather go back to their church organizations than have a special policy for colored women under the direction of a southern white woman who knows absolutely nothing about us” (Rouse, 1989, p. 101). Overall, Hope represents Black female activists who relied on their elite class consciousness, their networks, and their education to work for social reforms that were needed for the racial and social uplift of their oppressed community.
Victoria Earle Matthews and the White Rose Mission
The White Rose Mission in New York is another case of a Black settlement house with pronounced autonomy. It was founded in 1897 by Victoria Earle Matthews. Started as a social center for women and children, the White Rose Mission broadened its services later to offer lodging to southern migrant women, to help them adjust to the city and develop skills necessary to survive in the urban areas (Waites, 2001). It became a place where Black women and girls received basic education and training in the principles of self-help. It was among the very few Black settlement houses that succeeded in providing services with an exclusively Black leadership (Cash, 1991). This settlement house sustained its programs through resources generated from donations from both Whites and Blacks and volunteering from women who had been clients of the house on their first arrival to New York City. Contributions and volunteering from former boarders of the settlement house illustrate a shared vision of the house’s leadership and the people it served to promote racial and social uplift of the community.
Victoria Earle Matthews, the founder of the White Rose Mission, devoted her life to the advancement of her race and gender. She was described as “a Salvation Army field officer, a settlement worker, a missionary, a teacher, a preacher, a sister of mercy, all in one” (Brown, 1988, p. 215). She was known for advocating for preserving race history and for using practical means to facilitate the social uplift of Blacks. Through her writings and her social service activities, Matthews sought to bring Black women together to work for their empowerment (Waites, 2001). For instance, in 1895, she helped found the National Federation of Afro-American Women. She also helped merge it with the National Colored Women’s League the following year. In 1896, she was the national organizer of the newly founded National Association of Colored Women, whose motto was “Lifting as We Climb” (Hutson, 1971).
Settlement Houses With Limited Autonomy
In contrast to Black settlement houses with pronounced autonomy, Black settlement houses with limited autonomy had a structural condition characterized by the monitoring of the policy making and programs implemented in the settlement houses by Whites. Thus, the decision-making power for the management of the houses was in the hands of nonmembers of the Black community. Although Blacks were served by Black staff, the board of directors typically consisted of White people. Black settlement houses with limited autonomy were mostly created and funded by Whites but were staffed by Blacks to serve only Blacks in Black neighborhoods. Settlements of this type were primarily created with the purpose of social control of the growing Black community in big cities (Karger, 1986; Hase, 1994; Stone, 2001).
Nevertheless, the concept of free spaces in oppositional consciousness still applies to Black settlement houses with limited autonomy. Such houses provided a physically segregated setting where Blacks had opportunities to meet and discuss their oppressive conditions and community issues. They were also provided culturally appropriate education and basic social services. Clients were served by Black staff with whom they shared an oppositional culture related to their status of an oppressed group. For a very long period of the existence of houses with restricted autonomy, the board of directors consisted of White members. The only Black presence with some leadership role was generally a head resident, who was responsible for implementing policies and programs approved and funded by White board members and donors. Examples of Black settlement houses with limited autonomy included the Phyllis Wheatley settlement house in Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Wendell Phillips settlement in Chicago, Illinois; and the Lincoln House settlement in New York City.
The Phyllis Wheatley settlement house
The Phyllis Wheatley was the only Black settlement house in Minneapolis from 1924 to 1940. Beyond this observation, this settlement house had two other peculiarities. First, contrary to most Black settlements, the Phyllis Wheatley was a member of the National Federation of Settlements (NFS), the umbrella association of mainstream settlement houses. The NFS traditionally denied membership to Black settlement houses (Hase, 1994). Second, in spite of its NFS affiliation and its limited autonomy, the Phyllis Wheatley performed services and functions similar to Black settlement houses established and funded by Blacks themselves.
The primary purpose for establishing the Phyllis Wheatley was to provide Blacks with a recreational facility in Minneapolis, a city highly segregated at that time (Stone, 2001). Yet, the actual motivation behind the establishment of this settlement house was the need for social control of the increasing Black community in the city. The board of directors of the settlement house was all White until the mid-1930s (Hase, 1994; Karger, 1986). By funding and monitoring the house, the White board and donors also intended to monitor the scope of activism among Blacks. By monitoring the management of the settlement house, they could restrain the pull of Blacks to radical movements, such as “Garveyism,” and radical political organizations (Karger, 1986). This segregated settlement also gave Whites a paternalistic sense of control over the rising rate of interracial legal and illegal relationships between White women and Black men at that time (Hase, 1994). Moreover, White women were concerned about the negative effect of the sexual behavior among Black woman migrants on the city’s reputation.
However, although governed by Whites, the Phyllis Wheatley was a setting for culturally appropriate social, recreational, and educational programs. It was identified by many Blacks as a safe port in the middle of a racially segregated and unfriendly environment of Minneapolis (Karger, 1986). The White board of directors did not have direct relationship with the house’s constituency or the staff members except through the head resident. As the only Black-staffed, Black-focused settlement in the city of Minneapolis, the Phyllis Wheatley offered a social, free space. Blacks from varied class backgrounds residing in different neighborhoods of Minneapolis gathered in the Phyllis Wheatley to have political and social meetings and participate in cultural events that helped nurture racial solidarity among Blacks in Minneapolis (Hase, 1994).
Thus, it can be argued that this settlement house provided Blacks with a safe, free environment for activism. As a social space where diverse community groups held meetings, the Phyllis Wheatley supported community, civil rights, and political organizing. According to Karger (1986), “Wheatley was more involved in social action than the majority of its settlement cohorts” (p. 82). Among the guests of the house were nationally eminent Black leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Mary Mcleod Bethune, and Jane Edna Hunter. Most Blacks living in the city at that time reported that the house actually was the only place they felt valued and well connected with people they shared culture and worldviews with (Hase, 1994; Stone, 2001).
Gertrude Brown’s radical activism and fall at the Phyllis Wheatley
Gertrude Brown was the first head resident at the Phyllis Wheatley and unquestionably the most powerful figure in the house’s history. She was the head resident of the house from its inception in 1924 up to 1937. As a Black social worker in charge of a White-funded black settlement house, Brown was viewed as a controversial figure not only in the White-dominated American settlement house movement but also in the Minneapolis Black community because of her uniquely radical advocacy for racial equality (Hase, 1994). She used her activism and professional skills to provide assistance to the settlement constituency and raise the city’s Black community’s consciousness. In her determination to help empower this community, Brown was hardly deterred by intimidation and discriminatory behavior toward her (Karger, 1989).
In spite of their professed monitoring intentions, the board of Phyllis Wheatley could hardly restrain Brown’s activism. She became the most vocal spokesperson of the settlement house and the Minneapolis Black community on race relations in the city and in the American settlement house movement. She often defied the pressure from the Phyllis Wheatley board members and sponsors to allow labor and radical groups to hold meetings at the house (Hase, 1994). She was very active in defending and protecting the civil rights of Blacks and was involved in many community and civic activities (Karger, 1986). For instance, in 1936, Brown was successful in bringing to reality the Sumner Field housing project, a federal housing project that had been strongly opposed by Whites for fear of more Blacks moving to Minneapolis.
However, her activism—probably too radical for a Black woman at that time—eventually brought criticism and threats onto her not only from the Phyllis Wheatley board but also from Black male leaders in Minneapolis. According to Hase (1994), “[Brown] was criticized by whites as too militant on race matters, while some African American male leaders considered her a tool of white control” (p. 5). Local Black male leaders, who were strongly opposed to the establishment of the Phyllis Wheatley as a separated Black settlement house at the start, later wanted to take control of it and limit its functions to social services. They resented not only Brown’s extensive civic and political activism in the Black community but also her strong connection with the White community. Here as well, this attitude among Black male leaders mirrors Waite’s (2001) divided consciousness of the Chicago Black elites. In both the cases of the Neighborhood Union and the Phyllis Wheatley, Black male leaders had difficulty tolerating the independence of Black female reformers and activists in the fight for better conditions for the underprivileged members of the Black community. Such behavior could be considered a threat to the shared commitment of the Black community to end injustices.
In 1936, an evaluation report by the Council of Social Agencies of the Phyllis Wheatley at the request of the board of directors of the house stated that because of outside activism involvement, Brown was not fulfilling her management duties. The report recommended that her outside activities be limited. In addition, the board relieved Brown of the responsibility for the hiring and firing of staff. Her resignation in 1937 from her position of head resident of the Phyllis Wheatley provides a glimpse of the extent of challenges she faced not only as a Black head resident of a White-funded, Black-staffed settlement house but also as a female activist in the male-dominated Black community of Minneapolis. According to Hase (1994), Brown was confronted by many forces involving race, gender, and class in the Black community; the settlement house movement; and the social work profession. Her departure from the Phyllis Wheatley led not only to a general outrage of the African American community in Minneapolis but also to a fundamental shift in the way the house was governed afterward. The Black community did not like the exclusive presence of Whites on the house board and their interference in the management of the settlement. Brown’s strong activism in a hostile environment of a multidimensional oppression suggests that the presence of experienced and charismatic activists in an oppressed community could help develop the group’s oppositional consciousness and help increase its shared commitment for social change.
Byrdie H. Haynes’s leadership challenges in two houses with limited autonomy
The Wendell Phillips in Chicago and the Lincoln House in New York are two other examples of Black settlement houses with restricted autonomy. They were created and supervised by White social reformers. Byrdie H. Haynes was head worker successively in both houses. Her short-lived social work career unraveled in an oppressive system that negatively affected her settlement housework (Carlton-LaNey, 2001). Professionally trained in settlement house work, Haynes was skillful in program planning and development. She was aware of her strengths and the limits of her position as head worker. Yet, according to Carlton-LaNey (2001), Haynes was committed to the growth and development of the African American community.
From June 1911 to July 1915, Haynes was the head worker of the Wendell Phillips settlement house in Chicago. Under her leadership, the house developed programs to meet the needs of the Black community. However, the Wendell Phillips board was an obstacle to Haynes’s work. As Carlton-LaNey (2001) states, “she was simply not entrusted with full authority for running the settlement, nor was she given the board support that she needed to be successful” (p. 43). She could not be expected to work effectively with a board that did not share her views of the management of the settlement.
Haynes spent the years from 1915 to 1922 as head worker of the Lincoln House settlement in New York. Despite her education and experience in settlement work, she was conscious that her role in this second settlement house was complicated by both her race and her gender. She was also aware that she had to exercise caution in her work with the board (Carlton-LaNey, 2001). Institutional and racial barriers interfered with her role as head worker. There were strict codes of behavior for Black women that Haynes was supposed to comply with. For instance, she was required to be deferential in her interactions with the board of directors of the house.
Haynes believed her work mission was to improve the quality of life for African Americans in urban areas. Thus, she tried to convey this understanding to the Lincoln House board. For example, reflecting on challenges inherent to her responsibility of head worker, she wrote to the board in 1917 to explain that her role involved “breaking down prejudices and misconceptions” (Haynes to V. Conklin, as cited in Carlton-LaNey, 2001, p. 46). Through her settlement house, she was a strong advocate for local community residents. She constantly advocated for professionally trained workers and for programs to address specific needs of the new Black migrants who moved into the cities. She encouraged the board to seek to understand the needs of this disadvantaged group of people and to be sensitive to their culture.
Haynes resigned after being accused by the board of the Lincoln House of lack of dynamism and criticized for her injudicious choice of staff. In spite of her social work background, Haynes’s career path was negatively affected by the constraints of racial segregation that were legitimized by people who surrounded her (Carlton-LaNey, 2001). The oppressive conditions in which she worked in the two settlement houses and her eventual resignation illustrate the great challenge of most Black settlement female leaders to get the needed independence to help and lead their community out of oppressive and discriminatory social conditions.
Conclusion
Social activism of Black female reformers, such as Hope, Matthews, Brown, and Hayes, illustrates the emergence of settlement house work from a perspective of activist motherhood (Lasch-Quinn, 1993). This perspective puts an emphasis on the duty of Black women as active citizens demanding social justice for their community. Unlike Black male leaders battling between maintaining their elitist, hegemonic consciousness and asserting their Black consciousness, Black female reformers committed themselves to raise the consciousness of the Black community through education, training, and recreation within the context of a separate settlement house movement. Despite various obstacles to their leadership, Black female settlement house leaders managed to help empower their community members, particularly, poor, uneducated Black girls and women. As middle-class, educated club people, most female reformers were more concerned about the welfare of their disadvantaged community members than about securing their privileged standing.
With female activists and reformers in the vanguard roles, Black settlement houses contributed to the empowerment of the Black community. The more autonomous a Black settlement house was, the more organized and engaged it became in the social and civic life of the community. The houses provided an environment for Black women not only to reflect on their oppressive conditions based on race, sex, and class but also to develop nonconfrontational strategies to fight injustices Blacks experienced. Black female leaders used their skills, knowledge, and resources to help empower underprivileged community members. As members of an oppressed community, both sides of Black women were conscious of the fact that the discriminatory conditions they were experiencing could not be changed through a radical confrontation. The oppositional culture shared by Black female activists and community members they assisted contributed to the development of group oppositional consciousness more through empowerment initiatives than confrontational strategies.
The historical and political contexts of each settlement house determined what the Black leaders could and could not do. These contexts shaped what activists and nonactivists could accomplish. The Jim Crow laws forced onto Black settlement houses a segregated environment that spurred an oppositional consciousness that might not have otherwise developed. Beyond the issue of social control and the activism of charismatic female leaders, funding and the racialized social climate determined what services could be provided and what actions were tolerated. How the settlement houses were funded and managed was a product of the context of the time and politics in a particular social and geographical space, which is far more important point than just the availability of safe space for activism. Thus, funding and how it changed was a major intersecting issue for autonomy within the context of a Black settlement house. However, despite adverse conditions of funding, social control, and oppression Black settlement houses underwent at various degrees, the house’s female leaders managed to work for their community’s survival and uplift. They were conscious that Black women’s empowerment could help achieve social uplift in their community and eventually lead to equal rights with the dominant community.
The pervasiveness of a culture of resistance in Black settlement houses probably contributed to social movements in the Black community from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. Social movements, such as the civil rights movement and Black Power movement, were certainly the outcomes of a buildup of sustained activism that developed inside Black social settings for decades. Morris (1984) found that apart from Black religious institutions, other organizational networks and circles contributed to the development of solidarity and capacity that made the civil rights movement possible. He demonstrated that the major campaigns of the civil rights movement were successful due to a complex network of local movement centers rather than to a handful of charismatic leaders often celebrated. Prior mobilization created by deliberate organizing efforts of small organizations and associations led by Black women provided the structure for the explosion of mass protest in the civil rights movement.
Similar to the Black church, Black settlement houses not only played a substantial part in the social lift of underprivileged community members, but they also provided spaces for the development and maturation of a culture of resistance that helped transition to the fight for equal rights. By their isolation and autonomy, Black settlement houses provided a more suitable and safer environment for activism than church settings. Contrary to the Black church, Black settlement houses were created mostly by social activists and reformers with the shared motivation to prepare their community for the eventual fight for equal rights. Beyond the assumptions developed in this article about the development of oppositional consciousness in Black settlement houses, there is a need to further explore how activism in these segregated spaces contributed to the empowerment of African American women who took an active part in the civil rights movement. In broader terms, it is important to examine how Black settlement houses contributed to the educational, social, and political uplift of African American women later on in history.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Jerry Cates, associate professor emeritus at Jane Addams College of Social Work, for his guidance about the concept of oppositional consciousness used in this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.