For the Freedom of Her Race

“Through careful and creative research, Lisa Materson traces the intellectual and social meanings of citizenship rights and the vote for northern African American women from the end of Reconstruction to the New Deal. This outstanding study makes a lively, important, and highly readable contribution to understanding gender and race in U.S. politics.” — Patricia Schechter, author of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform: 1880–1930

“Materson draws a compelling portrait of the experiences of migrant women and the ways in which they used their ballots in Chicago to engage in 'proxy politics' on behalf of disfranchised southerners. Readers will learn a great deal about politics in the 'woman’s era,' about coalitions and divisions within the black community, and about the roots of African Americans' electoral realignment during the New Deal years. This is an impressive work of scholarship and an important book.” — Rebecca Edwards, Vassar College

“Materson has done an admirable job of placing the political activities of local African American women in a larger context. . . . [She] aptly reveals how African American women jockeyed for position to push forward their political interests.”—Journal of Southern History

“Exhaustively researched, meticulously analyzed, and does justice to the complex ways that those who are politically motivated function inside the limitations of a two-party system.”—Journal of American History

“One of this book’s many strengths is that Materson takes her subjects seriously as political actors.”—American Historical Review

“Makes an important contribution to our understanding of the role of African-American women within Jim Crow era politics.”—Southwest Journal of Cultures

“Convincingly demonstrates that black women were agents of social and political change, and carefully traces the post-emancipation experiences of southern black women who used the political process to gain political rights for all blacks.”—Journal of Illinois History

“Well-organized, nicely written, and makes an important contribution to our knowledge of African American women’s history and politics, and to our understanding of the sometimes messy and complicated processes by which political realignments occur.”—Indiana Magazine of History

“An important new study . . . [that contributes] to the historiography on political culture in modern America and on Illinois and the Midwest.”—Annals of Iowa