Harper (1825-1911) was an abolitionist and a feminist. However, several of the white feminist movements she was a member of were only committed to their upliftment. White women believed their movement competed with the black movement. She opposed women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (founders of the National Women Suffrage Association) because of their opposition toward the implementation of the 15th Amendment (allowing black men to vote). Stanton went as far as to say, “The Negro is no longer ‘lowest in the scale of being’ and ‘it becomes a serious question whether we had better stand aside and see Sambo walk into the kingdom first” (18). This quote supports the idea that blackness and womanhood had to be resistance to each other. Racial consciousness for black women was the understanding that they were excluded from both the women’s rights and black rights. “Watkins Harper saw that her white counters would seldom operate with black women’s concerns in mind” (18). Both groups were forbidden certain rights in society, but instead of coming together and fighting for equal rights for all, they were fighting alone for their separate issues (see Anna Julia Cooper).
Harper also depicts this opposition between black and white in her novel Iola Leroy. She shows that living as a white person leads to a different life than living as a black person. The light skin characters in the novel have two choices: pass with the white race, have access to opportunities that are only given to white people, and escape second class citizenship or to not pass, follow the black race, and choose a life of hardship. These white-passing characters show that aligning themselves with the black race is far more beneficial than being white because they have access to the black community that is centered around culture, family, and love. These characters are proud of their race and refuse, “to live under a shadow of concealment which [they] thoroughly hate as if the blood in [their] veins was an undetected crime of [their] soul” (217).
Harper also uses her novel to encourage other black people of the race toward being successful and then racial upliftment. Through Iola, Harper expresses, “every person of unmixed race blood who succeeds in any department of literature, art, or science is a living argument for the capability which is in the race. For it is not the white blood which is on trial before the world” (194-195). During reconstruction, black people had more to prove their capabilities to the rest of the nation, and becoming successful black individuals in areas that have been historically inaccessible to black people is one way of accomplishing that. She also employs these successful black individuals to then work toward racial uplift. Iola says on multiple occasions, “I intend, when this conflict is over, to cast my lot with the freed people as a helper, teacher, and friend” (ch. XIII), and, “I must serve the race that needs me the most” (219). As an educated black individual, there is a moral responsibility to work in the community and help other members of the race reach their potential through education, Christianity, and manners. This was a primary stance both Iola, in the novel, and Harper, during her time, exercised in their lives because the fate of the whole race is dependent on how successful every individual can become.
In her life, Harper had to deal with the intersections of ladyhood and blackness. Nevertheless, in her novel, she chose to mostly focus on race issues because it seemed like more of a dire problem. White people were attracted to literature that talked about black people, yet the authors who incorporated them in their writings depicted them incorrectly. “Harper hoped to used Americans’ attraction to black characters as an opportunity to expose them to images that were more faithful to the community” (28). Harper uses plantation fiction to draw white audiences in but spins it to show that members of the black community are three-dimensional, with different views and upbringings. In addition, Iola does not marry until the end of the novel. She is also making commentary on the idea of a “lady.” Ladies during this time were supposed to aspire to marriage. That was supposed to be their life goal, and after that, commit themselves to the upbringing of their children. However, Harper shows that marriage “is more of a bonus than as the main prize” (26). There is too much work that needs to be done, like uplifting the race, then getting married.
Mitchell, Koritha, editor. Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted. Broadview Press, 2018.