A Forgotten Sisterhood

November 3, 2014
In this chronicle of a "sisterhood of purposeful women," McCluskey, a professor at Indiana University, examines the lives of a four African American activist women who gained notoriety for their dedication to educating African American youth and their mission to sustain schools among the harsh conditions of the Jim Crow era. Confronted with issues of class, race, and gender "in an era of harsh racial repression, as well as a social order that constricted and confined women," Lucy Craft Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Nannie Helen Burroughs all succeeded in educating black girls and boys, young women and men, as well as establishing Institutions, three of which survive today. McCluskey explores their supportive, although occasionally competitive relations with one another, their links to the networks of black women's clubs, and white philanthropists who supported their efforts, their writing, and their emergent feminist and political activism as well. Of special interest are the interviews with several surviving graduates of Palmer Memorial Institute, which was founded by Charlotte Hawkins Brown in 1902 and closed in 1971. The graduates detail their experiencesâhow they came to study there, how the school commemorated Brown, and what the daily regimen was like. McCluskey's well-researched account articulates the importance of this particular movement in education, appropriately and skillfully, to memorialize the four pioneering women at the forefront.