A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South

In “The Status of Women in America,” Cooper analyzes the history and social condition of American women and advocates for the empowerment of Black women. Her analysis demonstrates her respect and acknowledgement of white women’s contributions to the cause for uplifting humanity. To emphasize anew the significance of the female force within society, she contrasts womanhood with masculinity. She notes that women’s “sympathetic warmth and sunshine” often counters the “practical and unsentimental instinct of the business man” and “the selfishness of an acquisitive age” (77).

The theme of Black Feminism and Intersectional Oppression recurs when Cooper emphasizes that America’s new age of prosperity at the end of the 19th century makes the reconsideration of women’s position in society crucial. For Cooper, the world needs women as “moral forces” that would balance a materialistic era. She highlights Black women’s unique perspective to demonstrate the necessity of their empowerment. Cooper argues that Black women faced “both a woman question and a race problem” (79), underlining the intersection of race and gender in oppression and disenfranchisement. She also explicitly ties her ideas to those of other Black woman thinkers of the time. Her intersectional perspective echoes that of Sojourner Truth, whose famous 1851 “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech addressed similar concerns that the woman’s cause was implicitly becoming synonymous with the white woman’s cause.

However, Cooper also suggests in this essay that it is not just white women but also Black men who present an obstacle to the cause of Black women. Black women remained marginalized and often confronted sexism by Black men who were not “ready to admit the actual need among the sturdier forces of the world for woman’s help or influence” (79). However, Black women with their experiences and viewpoint could contribute to both racial and national issues, especially those regarding the African American community. The intersectional slant is clear here: Cooper argues that by neglecting the woman’s cause, Black men will never truly be liberated, and by neglecting the cause of Black people, white women will never truly be liberated.

Cooper criticizes the state of American politics that favored ephemeral political advantage and demagoguery instead of caring for “permanent good.” Selfish political men who uncritically sought power harmed the country, while Black men would often be distracted seeking their own political interests. Therefore, women’s socio-political influence became necessary. Cooper’s view of men and women as complements of one another is implicit here: She suggests that the political issues characterizing the day could be remedied if women, as contrastive complements to the man’s natural disposition, could be given more political agency. Men and woman acting together could create a harmonious political state that successfully avoids the pitfalls that crop up in a male-dominated world.

Cooper stresses that Black women were always devoted to the well-being of African Americans. Responding to political issues and formulations of the period, and countering the dilemma between gender and racial equality, she notes that Black women never betrayed their values and supported policies for racial liberation. She highlights the work of African American women of the period to illustrate their ongoing interest for the uplift of Black people. The late 19th century was a crucial time for the country and the African American community, and Cooper stresses that women should be active participants in all socio-political formations.

Women’s agency would define the course of American society in the 20th century. Black women’s role in this was even more pivotal, as their experiences made them fully aware about the “possibilities of the crisis” (84). The theme of The Quest for Black Liberation in the Post-Reconstruction Era becomes evident as Cooper describes Black people’s hopes for freedom and equality after emancipation. Following a long history of oppression and dehumanization, African Americans were full of potential and anticipation for growth and progress, and Cooper’s text displays this mindset. Therefore, she says, Black women, with their humanizing viewpoint, should define the future of their people:

What a responsibility then to have the sole management of the primal lights and shadows! Such is the colored woman’s office. She must stamp weal or woe on the coming history of this people (86).

Cooper’s analysis calls for the lives of women to go beyond the traditional gender roles of the time.