Private Politics and Public Voices: Black Women's Activism from World War I to the New Deal

This political history of middle-class African American women during
World War I focuses on their patriotic activity and social work. Nearly 200,000
African American men joined the Allied forces in France. At home, black clubwomen
raised more than $125 million in wartime donations and assembled "comfort
kits" for black soldiers, with chocolate, cigarettes, socks, a bible, and
writing materials. Given the hostile racial climate of the day, why did black women
make considerable financial contributions to the American and Allied war effort?
Brown argues that black women approached the war from the nexus of the private
sphere of home and family and the public sphere of community and labor activism.
Their activism supported their communities and was fueled by a personal attachment
to black soldiers and black families. Private Politics and Public Voices follows
their lives after the war, when they carried their debates about race relations into
public political activism.