Black Women of the South: The Untold Story of their Struggles

“Black Woman in the South,” analyzes the complex relations between various forms of oppression that black women faced, and examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within recent women's movement, and black women's involvement with feminism. According to the racist definition of the nineteenth century, black women were inferior members of the sex that were outcast, lacked intelligence, and were distasteful creatures whom God himself had hatred towards. Even with these stereotypes black women could not have existed in the nineteenth century as they have in the twentieth century, which has been described as a frail and fragile human being.
In the harsh conditions of the nineteenth century, the black woman had no place for ambition or determination. Blacks were freed from bondage only to be placed into a new structure of life. This included things such as disenfranchisement, rape, lynching, economic exploitation, and other prejudices to keep them powerless. This harsh reality of life is what pushed and shaped black women in the south, redefining them as individuals of courage, strength, and commitment. Crummell's speech is a lucid, persuasive speech of extraordinary penetrating and original thinking. His wide-ranging analysis of sexist and racist oppression of black women in America leaves no group without criticism, no assumption unchallenged, no woman ignored.
Crummell raised many arguments during his speech; many that told the tale of the struggle that Black woman have endured during the course of history. The main points of the speech with the most recognition were the exploitation the black woman during this century. Crummell states that the girlhood ability to mature into womanhood was stolen by lust, grossest passions, and ignorance. Black women never had the ability to obtain womanhood due to their conditions such as not choosing their own soul mate, being used as a production tool to breed more working hands, and having their children being taken from them.
She bared the harshest type of life, one that didn’t give her definition. The black woman understood nothing. These events led to these women having no sense of belonging and a future filled with uncertainty lingered upon them. The childhood that she once knew came and went like a brisk wind and her dreams, thoughts and her ability followed. Crummell paints picture after picture of horror in which the black woman lived; he speaks of her sorrow and shattered dreams that have been taken away by such an evil institution. The speech had many topics in which were discussed; however it was the essence that every woman has growth from one maturity level to the next. Crummell informs the listener that black women never possessed this power to transcend themselves to higher levels due to the barbaric nature of the world’s institution She had been beaten, raped, was unable to become educated herself, and forgotten by those that she nurtured, feed, and loved.
Crummell's work is one that expresses sympathy to black women in the south; he reaches out to give to black women a voice that has long been silenced. The speech helped me greatly in writing this piece in that a lot of what we think he spoke made sense of the distance the world has come with black women of the south. The nineteenth century was a time of intellectual traditions that were noticeably strengthened by the presence of the gifted, visible, and active black women who proposed ideas; their activities, leadership, and lasting influence. In this first century of independence, the traditions of equality, was faint in the Colonial era which would grow to major social concerns in the 20th century became more defined and potent. In many ways black women are thinkers and or activists were participating in the broader developments of this period. Their work variously helped to shape positions on slavery, equality, emigration, minority rights, feminism, and other major social issues. The transformation and work of these women are what Crummell desired when he stated that true civilizations can only be obtained when the life of woman is reached, her whole being permeated by noble ideas, and her fine tasted enriched by culture.