Episode 49: Without Fear – with historian Dr. Keisha Blain

The Discussion

Amy Allebest: When we think of the great struggles for human rights in America, the names that might come to mind are typically Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Malcolm X. With the exception of Rosa Parks, the leaders in our national consciousness tend to be all men, but in actuality, these men were not alone. From the very beginning, Black women have built, sustained, and led movements for justice, often at great personal risk, often without recognition. Fom the anti-lynching campaigns of Ida B. Wells, all the way to the fight against police violence today, Black women have always been at the forefront of human rights struggles. And yet, their stories have all too frequently been left out of the historical record. So I am thrilled about the recent release of the book Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights. With a far reaching scope and meticulous research, Dr. Keisha Blain traces generations of women who have challenged white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy. Women who not only imagined a more just world, but devoted their lives to bringing that world into being. It’s an essential work of human rights history, and I am truly honored to be joined today by the book’s author, Dr. Keisha Blain. Welcome, Dr. Blain! 

Keisha Blain: Thank you so much for having me. 

AA: Dr. Keisha Blain is an award-winning historian of the 20th-century United States. She is a professor of History and Africana Studies at Brown University, as well as one of the founding leaders of the African-American Intellectual History Society. And she serves as the editor-in-chief of Global Black Thought, which is a journal of essays on Black ideas, theories, and intellectuals. Blain is also the author of the books Set The World On Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, which I have also read, I might say, and it’s right behind me on my bookshelf. I love that book, I’m such a fan of it, so I also highly recommend that. And her most recent book, which we’ll be discussing today, is titled Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights, and it was published just this past September, so congratulations on your book. That’s so exciting. 

KB: Thank you so much. 

AA: I’d love to start our conversation with a little bit more of a personal introduction. We talked about your professional bio, but tell us a little bit about where you’re from, just some things about you that brought you to do the work that you do today. 

KB: Yes. I’m actually from the Caribbean, I was born in Grenada, but I mostly grew up in Brooklyn, New York. And I think those two things alone give you a window into perhaps how my earlier experiences shaped my trajectory and led me to the path of becoming a historian of the Black experience, and particularly one who thinks trans-nationally. I think the personal experience of having lived in two different countries made a major difference. I will also say that I did not intend to become a historian initially. I thought I would become an attorney, I was on the path to do so initially when I attended Binghamton University in upstate New York. But I took a history course, simply because it was required, and yet I fell in love with history and decided by the end of that first year that I would switch my focus to history. And quite frankly, I’ve never looked back. But I’ve been deeply drawn to the stories of people who look like me. I’ve been interested in learning more about Black people, certainly, and Black women in particular. I’ve been interested in understanding their lives, their ideas, and doing so both in the context of United States history, but even more so in the context of global history. So this new book reflects all of these interests, and I’m thrilled to be able to discuss it with you today. 

AA: I’m very excited to discuss it. And it just strikes me, the moment that we’re in right now, the moment that the book is being released, as Black history and women’s history, and then that intersection of the two, is being purposely erased right in this moment. Could you speak to that a little bit as a historian working in the space that you do and the time in which this book is coming into the world? 

KB: Yes. As we know, these challenges have been happening, and I think for some time. I will say that when I started writing the book, it was very much within the context of the political and social movements around the police killing of George Floyd. So there was a lot of energy. There was certainly a lot of interest in talking about a number of topics, including state sanctioned violence, but also broader topics around inequality and the mistreatment of Black people in the US and globally. And I think that was a moment where people seemed to be willing, at least, to listen and to have a conversation. And I think many people were moved to either join political and social movements around these concerns or at least start learning more about the history, the lives, and the experiences of Black people. And very quickly, I think, we noticed how the nation shifted and so did the world. We went from a moment where people were saying things like, “We have to talk about a reckoning. We have to talk about how we might work together. We have to talk about ways that we could form alliances.” And then within a year or two, I think the narrative shifted where it became clear that all of a sudden the marginalized groups that tried to raise attention to the challenges they were facing were now being called all of these different names. And now it was, “Well actually, Black people are privileged in some way and they’re taking away things from other groups.” It was unfortunate, I think on the one hand, to start the book at a moment of possibility, and then, as I was writing the book, I certainly paid attention to how the dialogue shifted on a national scale. And even on the college campus and where I teach, how people started discussing these topics differently. 

I will say, I could not have predicted that the book would come out in a year as tumultuous as this one. I think a lot has happened, certainly since 2020, that I did not anticipate, and I think many people did not anticipate. So I’ve had to think deeply about what it means to release a book on Black women’s history and, as you point out, at a moment where many books on similar topics are being banned and where there’s an effort to limit the teaching of Black women’s history and ideas in the college classroom. So, it is disheartening on the one hand, but I also feel a sense of urgency to tell this story. Because quite frankly, I don’t know how long we’ll be able to tell this story, we collectively as Black historians and as other scholars who are doing this kind of work. So I want to make sure to talk about it and to do so for as long as I can. 

AA: Thank you for your work doing it. It’s so, so important, and I’m really grateful for it. I have one more question about the process of writing the book. As a historian in training myself, I’m working on a PhD right now, I’m curious about the gap in the existing literature that you wanted to fill and what the process of researching the book was like. What were your sources, what was that like for you, and were there any challenges that you ran into?

And as someone who was physically, at the time, I was a fellow at the Carr Ryan Center for Human Rights at at the Harvard Kennedy School, and that meant I was in conversation with human rights scholars and practitioners, and an array of brilliant minds, brilliant thinkers who did not necessarily know much about Black women in this history. So as I was having conversations with so many different people, I had to explain quite a bit what I was working on. Not solely the focus, but I think many people were intrigued by the specific figures, because they were wondering, “Who in the world are you writing about, Condoleezza Rice? Who are you writing about?” And I would say, “No, I’m writing about Ida B. Wells.” And then I think some people would pause to say, “Okay, tell me more. I want to know more about how Ida B. Wells fits into this story.” So the process of talking about it was useful because it showed me that I took for granted how many people did not really know this history. It was important for me to write it. 

So on the one hand, it is filling a major gap in terms of the fact that we have a large body of human rights history and scholarship on the subject, and if you pay attention to these works, Black women hardly ever show up. And when they do, they show up in very particular ways that do not necessarily give a sense of how they are shaping that history, how they are making change, and how they’re doing so at the grassroots level. That perspective especially matters for this book because we understand that these women did not have full access to the more formal spaces and the more traditional halls of power, so they needed to work in other spaces and they needed to be creative in their response. So the book is, on the one hand, changing the focus. Rather than looking at a top-down perspective, thinking deeply about a story that begins at the bottom and really grappling with how it moves and perhaps how women are able to affect change from the ground up. That’s one aspect. 

The second is really thinking through how these women made human rights their own. We understand that there are all of these thinkers, especially European ones, and I talk about European philosophers. Certainly someone like Nietzsche was very important in this history. But the framing of the scholarship is that these individuals ultimately shape the narrative, they shape the vision, they shape our understanding of what human rights is. And we don’t get a sense of Black women saying, “Actually, we are part of this too.” And it’s happening in so many different ways and it’s been happening for decades. So the book accomplishes many things. And then I’m also extending the chronology, because so many scholars focus primarily on the 1940s with the establishment of the United Nations as a pivotal moment for understanding human rights in the modern era. I begin in the 19th century, long before the term even circulated in public discourse. I’m arguing that Black women were already thinking about it and they were already working toward it. So, multiple different contributions, and I certainly hope that beyond just the scholarly frameworks, that it is the kind of work that resonates broadly with readers, non-academic readers as well as academic ones. Because I do want this to be a book that people are able to learn something from and to find useful in their everyday work.

AA: Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s so great to hear about. Can you also tell us a bit about your research methods and the process of writing the book? 

KB: The process was quite exciting. One of the things that I love about writing these kinds of books is that you almost feel like you’re a detective. You’re having to pull pieces together, and I certainly have to do that. Of course, that process is challenging, but when I discovered someone in a Black newspaper, for example, if I was reading about a particular conference and there was a reference to a Black woman who gave a speech about human rights, the first thing I needed to do was figure out who this individual is. I would utilize census records to identify her location and the year of her birth, and then be able to figure out what else I could find out about her. Where did she go to school? Where did she work? Who is this person, and how did they get involved in these particular organizations? So it was a lot of piecing together, because many of the women I talk about are not as well known. I utilize traditional archives, certainly, but I paired those with census records, historical newspapers, and then I also utilize oral histories, especially for the latter part of the book where I could find people to talk to about what was happening in the 1980s or the 1990s. It was wonderful to be able to talk to them and figure out ways to weave these stories into the book. Lots of piecing together, but it was quite extraordinary and a very rewarding experience. 

AA: That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing those details. I think they’re fascinating. And it is grueling, kind of tedious work sometimes. People don’t realize that when they read a book that’s all done. They think the person just sat down and wrote it out, but there are a lot of hours of combing through. 

KB: Absolutely. And I would say a lot of years. What’s interesting about writing this book, I mentioned that I started writing it in 2020, but even though I sat down to write it in 2020, I ended up utilizing material that I had been collecting for at least 10 years.

AA: Wow. 

KB: So it’s important to think about just how long the process is to be able to piece together these narratives. There are women who I first encountered while I was writing my dissertation as a grad student, but I just didn’t have the time and I knew that I needed to finish a dissertation. I needed to move things along, but I was so intrigued that I just kept digging and digging and digging, and I was able to now return to some of these women in this book. So it is truly a long process, a difficult one, but it’s exciting when the pieces come together. 

it is truly a long process, a difficult one,
but it’s exciting when the pieces come together

AA: Mm-hmm. That’s amazing. Can I say, too, I have a comment that is in my heart and right at the top of my mind today. I live in Utah, and I have a dear friend who’s a Black woman in her fifties, and where she lives is so, so, so white. She’s lived there for years. And she and I went to lunch yesterday, and she was really emotional, she’s having a rough time. And she talked about talking to white women, very well-meaning white women that she knows, who just have not had the exposure or the education, and are really, truly ignorant of even basic parts of history. And she was saying, “I don’t know how I can educate all these women.” And I just said, “First of all, you don’t have to. That is not your responsibility. You don’t owe that to people.” But I said, “If it’s something you want to do, there are scholars out there who have dedicated years and years and years of their lives to provide a resource so that you don’t have to do all that work.” I mean, a lot of us don’t know it anyway, we wouldn’t know it to that depth. But you can give them a book, or say, “Go to the library, here’s the title, check it out,” and then they can do that work themselves. So, I want to say with all my heart how valuable this is and how it really does affect real people’s lives to have a resource. You put in all of that work so that then it can be disseminated broadly and it doesn’t have to be duplicated. It’s a huge gift that you’ve given to people. 

KB: Thank you. And I would say, too, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to write a book like this in this particular moment, where some of the collections that I utilized for the book are housed in libraries or archives across the nation that have lost significant federal funding simply because of the focus on Black people and Black women. In one instance, I was trying to figure out how to respond when I learned that one of the research centers that I visited announced that they had to lay off staff and they were cutting back in all of these ways because of the funding concerns. It made me wonder, “Will this even be available in 20 years?” So, on the one hand, the book is a secondary source and I’m able to draw on all of these primary sources, and I included a ton of information in the footnotes because I want people to follow up on this. I’m hoping this inspires others to write many other books. At the same time, I think about what it means for a future researcher to show up at a center where they’re hoping to find this material and they’re just not available because of the significant funding cuts that are happening at the moment. So then my book may be more than a secondary source, right? It might have to function in a range of different ways. It’s something that I haven’t had to think about before, but I now have to think about it. I think a lot about it now because it is scary and it’s disheartening. But to my point earlier, it brings on for me that sense of urgency and I’m grateful that I was able to release the book and I encourage those who are doing research on these topics to really push to get them done, because we simply don’t know what the feature holds. 

AA: Yeah. Well, again, thank you. Thank you for all of that work.

Well, let’s get into some of the content of the book and talk about the women that you highlight. You talk about Ida B. Wells, as we mentioned, in early chapters, and I’m hoping our listeners know who Ida B. Wells is. She’s one of the more well-known activists from the 19th century. But you also purposely take space to tell the stories of lesser-known women who are working in the same struggle. So I’m wondering if you could highlight one of their stories, a name that maybe listeners have not heard of, and tell us about one or two remarkable women that you highlight in your book. 

KB: Yes. One of the women who I read about in the book is Pearl Sherrod. This is someone who was a working-class Black woman living in Detroit in the 1930s. I focused on her because she shows up at this Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in Vancouver in 1937, and it’s, in fact, the way that I found her in the archives. And what she does is she shows up at this conference, it’s a gathering of white women and Asian women interested in cross-cultural solidarity, and they’re thinking about women’s rights in the transnational lens. And Pearl Sherrod shows up, walks to the front, gets to the podium, and starts speaking. And what she does is she calls these women out and she tells them, “You’re never going to have harmony and peace or any of these things you’re seeking if you’re not going to take Black women’s concerns seriously.” Because she is noticing, she’s clear that Black women are not invited into this conversation. And she wants not solely to shame those who are present, but it’s more than that. It’s to help them understand how it’s important to include those voices, if indeed they’re going to call for human rights in this broad sense. It’s something that many people write about who are attending the conference. They’re shocked, and so because of it, it shows up in various journals. Individuals are writing about it in their personal journals, and then it’s also covered in the local newspaper as an odd scene or a surprising moment of this Black woman who no one knows from Detroit, who just essentially crashes the party. 

But I followed Pearl Sherrod and I ended up doing a lot of research to piece together her story. I learned that she was from Alabama. I learned that by the time she showed up, she was a single mom raising her two children. Her husband had abandoned her, and she had this very difficult life. But part of what she does is she’s always thinking creatively about ways to assert her political power and to assert her voice in spaces where she’s not necessarily welcomed. And certainly the incident at the conference is one example, but she also ends up writing a column. She writes about women’s rights, she writes about human rights, she writes about the importance of Afro-Asian solidarity. Very remarkable things in the 1930s for someone who is working class living in Detroit. So that’s an example of one of the women who show up in the book. She is not someone who anyone would imagine, I suppose, would be in a history of human rights. But that’s part of what I’m trying to signal, is that this is a story that cannot be limited to the diplomats or to those who hold official titles, those who might be at the UN. And granted, I do talk about those who are at the UN, I do talk about women who are correspondents or even secretaries of the UN. So I don’t overlook those contributions. 

But Pearl Sherrod is an example of how this story unfolds in the most unlikely places, but it truly is a powerful story of women trying to affect change from below. So to Pearl Sherrod’s story, after she shows up at this conference and gives this powerful speech, it’s documented that the group then decides that they will open up the doors for Black women to participate. So it’s not just that she crashed the party and people wrote about it, but she was so persuasive that changes took place within the organization. And I think those are the kinds of stories that most people don’t know, but certainly should know. And I’m really thrilled to be able to tell Pearl Sherrod’s story, as well as many others who are lesser known.

AA: Yes. Thank you for that. And it reminds me, again, it’s the grassroots thing, right? It’s from the bottom up and then change just spreads from there. It’s so exciting, and really inspiring for any reader to read that and think, “She did the work that was hers to do. She lifted where she was standing. What’s mine to do where I live and with the resources I have?” It’s really, really inspiring. 

KB: Another woman who I discuss in the book, who most people have not heard of, is Margaret Cartwright. Margaret Cartwright was a professor at Hunter College in the 1950s. She was also a columnist for The Pittsburgh Courier and also the New York Amsterdam News. I talk about Margaret Cartwright because she’s an example of a Black woman who has access to certain spaces, but not necessarily opportunities for leadership in those spaces. One example is the fact that she’s able to attend the 1958 All African People’s Conference. This is a gathering that takes place in Accra Ghana, with Kwame Nkrumah and many other prominent African leaders and leaders from across the diaspora. And Margaret Cartwright is one of the few women who are present at this gathering. By one account, only eight women were there, compared to hundreds of Black men. Margaret Cartwright is not on the program. She’s not invited in any official capacity, but she’s there as a writer and as an observer. She’s attending the session, she’s listening, she’s taking careful notes, and what she does is she goes back and she writes a series of columns in which she explains the significance of this gathering, she highlights the themes, and she makes the case that the conversations taking place in Ghana around how to ensure that African countries are liberated from colonialism, she makes a case for how those conversations should inform the struggle for civil rights that’s taking place at the same moment. So it’s a careful linking of the two, and she does this for a Black American audience. 

I talk about in the book just how pivotal it is for someone who’s not on the official program, someone who doesn’t have an opportunity to be involved in those conversations, yet her voice is so pivotal as someone who goes back and interprets what she hears. And it’s quite powerful to see behind the scenes how Black women find ways to affect change and how they find ways to advocate for human rights. And in Cartwright’s case, she’s able to use her writing and her ability to travel in this moment, and all of that makes a difference. And it’s so powerful in thinking through how you work outside of the halls of power. That’s just two examples of women who are not well-known, but I pay attention to their stories because I think it helps people imagine the possibilities, even within our own lifetime in our own communities. What are the ways we could effect change? What are the skills that we have that we could utilize even if we are not invited as the keynote speaker? If you make that comparison. It is quite remarkable when you pay attention to these women’s stories. 

AA: Yes, definitely. A question I’d love to ask is the title, “Without Fear”. That comes from the words of Mary McLeod Bethune, who encouraged people to do the work of pursuing human and civil rights without fear or hesitation. And that underlines the courage that’s required to do the work, because there are things to be afraid of. So I am wondering if you could talk about that a little bit. I mean, when I think of the fear of danger, I think of the 1960s, especially in the Deep South and Selma and the physical danger that was such a part of that activism. So you could talk about that, or I’d also love to hear about the risks that come with this work today.

KB: Yes. When Mary McLeod Bethune emphasized in 1944 the importance of doing the work without fear and hesitancy, I think she understood that many of those listening to her would in fact be dealing with fear and worries around the kinds of reprisals that they would have to endure. One of the things I talk about in the book is how someone like Margaret Cartwright ends up losing her job at one moment. At the time, she was working for the State Department. She loses her job because the critique is that she’s too involved in politics, she’s too wrapped up in all of these efforts. At the time she was trying to help FDR get elected, and she was bumping up against her supervisors who felt like this is not something she should be doing. That’s a small example, but then there are other cases that I talk about of women even earlier, like Maria Stewart, who’s a powerful public speaker, and yet she has to stop giving public speeches, she has to pull back from public life, and she has to do so because of the threat of violence, because she’s worried about her personal safety. 

So there are women who I talk about in the book who are arrested. They’re arrested, sometimes blocked from being able to travel abroad simply because of the ideas that they hold. So it is quite risky for these women to be making these demands. And oftentimes the political connections they’re making, the political solidarity they’re forming, those are causing them problems too. When federal officials are wondering, “Why are these women in contact with South African activists? What exactly is going on in these conversations?” So these women are surveilled and they are constantly worrying about how their commitment to human rights broadly will cost them their jobs or their livelihood, their ability to care for themselves. Many of them are mothers, so they’re worried about their families and their children. So, to the point that when Bethune says this, she is mindful of the challenges at every level. And there were so many things like fear, and I think in the contemporary moment, the same is true. The same is true. And we see this every day, people losing their jobs simply because they have decided to stand up and speak boldly and advocate for human rights for all people. And sometimes face imprisonment, and the list goes on. So I think what happens in the historical sense we see continuing today. 

AA: That leads me to my next question, and that is, I know for people involved in human rights work, a lot of times you’re planting seeds that you’re not going to be able to see the fruit from the tree. You’re thinking about the future and the future generations. And I’m thinking this especially as we’re at this moment in American history, as we’ve talked about, where we were not actually sure what the future holds. And even some of the rights that have been won are now backsliding. So there’s fear of reprisals, there’s fear of danger, there’s also fear of not knowing what’s coming. So I’m wondering if I can ask a personal question. I guess more broadly, what keeps people going? And if I can ask you personally, what keeps you going in this work? 

And the other thing, too, one of the benefits of studying history is having that long view. Being able to spend time with these women, being able to see, for example, how someone like Maria Stewart in the 1830s articulates a very passionate and clear vision for human rights. Change doesn’t happen immediately, certainly, but then being able to reflect on what would happen later in the 1950s or the 1960s, or being able to reflect on the fact that Mary Church Terrell gives a speech in 1919. And reading her words, it’s quite extraordinary because she’s effectively saying and expressing the same message that would later be articulated in the 1948 Universal Declaration for Human Rights. And so many of these women don’t. And granted, many of them do live long lives and so they have an opportunity to see things change, but there are others who don’t have an opportunity to see things change and might imagine that their words fell on deaf ears. And perhaps those words did fall on deaf ears in 1919, but with time they began to take root and people began to listen in different ways and respond. So that keeps me going, because it tells me that I can’t only pay attention to what I see. I don’t have a crystal ball, which means I don’t know if change is about to happen two days from now, two years from now, or 20 years from now. But giving up now doesn’t actually seem to be the sensible response. I have to keep pushing until I can’t push anymore, right? Until I’m no longer here. I think about how change isn’t a neat process. There are times where you do go forward and then there are times where you step back, but this book is a reminder that human rights are not permanent. You don’t fight for rights, secure those rights, and then relax. You have to keep fighting to protect those rights, and that’s what we’re facing at this moment. 

AA: Yeah. Thank you for that. Well, that sadly leads us to the end of our conversation, but if I could ask you one more question, our season in season five of the podcast is emphasizing action. So I’m wondering if there are some takeaway actionable things that listeners could do based on the work that you’ve done and based on the book that you’ve written. 

KB: Well, I would encourage everyone to think of ways to connect with a local organization that is involved in human rights advocacy. And that’s a fairly broad umbrella, but I think that’s important to do. I said local because I think oftentimes we don’t pay attention to the people in our communities, in our backyards, in that sense. We don’t often think about the folks who are struggling to make a difference, and they don’t have the visibility and they don’t have as much in terms of the resources, and they’re looking for people to support the work. So take a look at what’s happening in your community. Who can you collaborate with? Who can you work with? Who can you support so that change can happen within your space? And not to discount important national organizations or international ones, but perhaps take a look around and see how you can support some group or initiative that’s happening in your community.

AA: Well, thank you so, so much. That’s a fabulous, fabulous takeaway. And again, I want to recommend to listeners to go out and get this book. It’s by Dr. Keisha Blain and the title is Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights. And Dr. Blain, if you can just leave us quickly with social media handles or a website, anywhere that we can find your work.

KB: Yes, I encourage people to reach out to me. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m also on Instagram @keishanblain, and I’m also on X @KeishaBlain. I spend most of my time on Instagram and LinkedIn, so those are the two best places to reach me. But if you’re also on Facebook, you can follow my page there as well.

AA: Perfect. Thank you so much. This was a wonderful conversation. I’m so grateful for your work. 

KB: Thank you so much for having me.

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