Black Women in White America

Recipient of the 2002 Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Historical Writing.
 
In this “stunning collection of documents” (Washington Post Book World), African-American women speak of themselves, their lives, ambitions, and struggles from the colonial period to the present day. Theirs are stories of oppression and survival, of family and community self-help, of inspiring heroism and grass-roots organizational continuity in the face of racism, economic hardship, and, far too often, violence. Their vivid accounts, their strong and insistent voices, make for inspiring reading, enriching our understanding of the American past.
 
“A very timely and powerful collection which gives emphasis to the magnificent role of Black women in the struggle of Black people to survive in this, the United States,”—Nathan Irvin Huggins
 
“Gerda Lerner has collected . . . material which can change images that whites have had of Blacks, and possibly even those which we, as Blacks, have of ourselves,”—Maya Angelou

Gerda Lerner (1920–2013) was a prominent historian, activist, educator, writer, and one of the founders of the study of women's history. She received her PhD in history from Columbia University, and at her first academic post at Sarah Lawrence College, she developed the first graduate program in women's history. She went on to teach at University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she created the first PhD program in women's history in the United States. Lerner is the editor of Black Women in White America: A Documentary History, and is the author of many publications, including The Creation of Patriarchy and Why History Matters: Life and Thought.