African American feminist, abolitionist, lecturer, social justice activist, journalist, teacher

In honour of International Women’s Day and the IWD 2021 theme, #ChoosetoChallenge, we spotlight Maria W. Stewart (née Miller) (1803 – December 17, 1879).

Born free in Hartford, Connecticut, Stewart overcame early but pivotal hardships to spend her life challenging racism, misogyny, and sexism even when condemned by members of her own racial community or gender. Despite receiving minimal formal education, Stewart articulated her sharp insight of American life and social relations. Her eloquent prose framed in biblical discourse launched her as a popular essayist for William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, during its early years of publication. Stewart challenged the notion that only men are worthy to interrogate and condemn the institution of slavery. Even when verbal and physical attacks led by Black men forced her to leave Boston and end her writings for The Liberator, Stewart sought other public platforms to advocate on behalf of her race and her gender. An advocate for racial reforms and Black political rights, her anti-slavery efforts were in tandem with her campaigns against the oppressive treatment of free Blacks in the northern states. As a women’s rights activist, Stewart’s essays promoted women’s roles beyond domesticity. Believing that education is essential for societal reform, Stewart’s next and final career shift was to primary and secondary education and financially assisting in the expansion of historically Black universities and colleges (HBCUs).

Of her many pioneering achievements, she was:

  • the first Black woman to make public lectures;
  • the first American woman to make public speeches for mixed racial AND gender audiences;
  • the first African American woman journalist to speak about intersectional themes of oppression;
  • an early contributor to (Black) children’s literature despite mainstream publishers ignoring the genre, and
  • the first Black woman to lecture on women’s rights.

For more on Maria W. Stewart:

  • Rhana A. Gittens ‘“What if I Am a Woman?”: Black Feminist Rhetorical Strategies of Intersectional Identification and Resistance in Maria Stewart’s Texts’, The Southern Communication Journal, 83, 5 (2018), 310-321.
  • Maria W. Stewart and Marilyn Richardson, Maria W. Stewart, America’s First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches, (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1987).
  • Brittany Sulzener, ‘Night of Death, Morning of Rebirth: Maria W. Stewart’s Apocalyptic Futures’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 41, 5 (2019), 623-630.
  • Nazera S. Wright, ‘Maria W. Stewart’s “The First Stage of Life”: Black Girlhood in the Repository of Religion and Literature, and of Science and Art’, Melus, 40, 3 (2015), 150-175.

First published: 7 March 2021

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