Elizabeth Ross Haynes: An African American Reformer of Womanist Consciousness, 1908–1940

Key words: African Americans; Elizabeth Ross Haynes; history, labor, social welfare; women As a pioneer social worker, author, politician, "race woman," and community activist, Elizabeth Ross Haynes constantly advocated and agitated for the rights of African Americans and for the rights of women. In 1937 she challenged her contemporaries with the following question: If Frances Perkins (the Honorable Frances Perkins), secretary of labor, can fill one of the most difficult posts in the Cabinet of the President of these United States--and this she had done superbly despite any criticisms--is to extend and enlarge the opportunity fought for by Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth, especially since the latter could neither read nor write? (Haynes, n.d.) Haynes offered herself as a role model. She involved herself in researching, writing, and speaking about women's labor issues, women's spiritual and Christian growth, women's roles in the political arena, and women's use of all their talents and skills and did these to such an extent that she can be described as a pioneer in the women's movement of the Progressive Era and beyond Like most African American women of her time, however, Haynes has been virtually ignored in the study of women's contributions to social welfare history and to the development of social welfare institutions for African Americans and for the larger community. This invisibility of African American women in history leaves gaps in social workers' cognition, distorting the knowledge base. As Brown (1989) noted, an even greater problem is that because of the exclusion of African American women like Haynes, the "concepts, perspectives, methods, and pedagogues of women's history and women's studies have been developed without consideration of the experiences of black women" (p. 610). Furthermore, recent efforts to uncover African American women's history occurred parallel to the development of feminist theory. The consequence of this timing is that African American women's history is often couched inside the feminist perspective, which, according to Brown, was designed to omit the experiences of women of color. African American women generally have held marginal positions in the feminist movement. The misperception is that African American women deal either with women's issues or with race issues, and then sequentially, not simultaneously. White women have complained that they did not want to dissipate their energies dealing with issues of race, because their time could be better spent addressing issues of importance to all women (Giddings, 1984; Smith, 1985). For them, the primacy of female oppression denies the structured inequalities of race. On the other hand, McDougald (1925) stated that the African American woman's "feminist efforts are directed chiefly toward the realization of the equality of the races, the sex struggle assuming a subordinate place" (p. 691). Some writers (Palmer, 1983; Terborg-Penn, 1983) have argued that the term "feminism" is partly responsible for the exclusion that African American women feel, because "feminism" puts a priority on gender, not race. To deal with the problem of terminology, author Alice Walker (1983) and others (Hine, 1996; Ogunyemi, 1985) have used the words "womanist" and "womanism" to describe the African American female experience. Walker defined womanist as a consciousness that incorporates racial, cultural, sexual, national, economic, and political considerations for all people. Hine believed that womanism speaks to a double legacy of oppression and a resistance movement among African American women. The term may be uncomfortable for some, but its ideals are descriptive of the life careers of many African American pioneer social welfare leaders of the Progressive Era. Leaders such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Janie Porter Barrett, and Birdye Henrietta Haynes knew that their oppressed positions in society resulted from both gender and race and that their struggle must include both, because they were not fragmented individuals but whole and holistic in consciousness and purpose. …