How Did African Americans Fight For Freedom

Freedom to African Americans in the 19th century meant the reestablishment of family connections, the achievement of literacy, the exercise of political rights, and the ability to be economically and socially self-sufficient. The road to achieving such freedoms is usually told from a male’s perspective, yet women participated in such liberating activities just as much if not more than their male counterparts. African American women have faced an abundance of particular adversaries, especially in postwar America, yet they have combated these challenges in unique and effective ways that solidified their rights as colored women for years to come. African American women’s fight for freedom all began with the unification of all women towards one goal: the abolition of slavery. Long before the Thirteenth Amendment was proposed to Congress, women of both white and black heritage began to fight against slavery as a united front. For example, in The
However, African Americans were slotted into unskilled and service labor. Though this was not unexpected, it did narrow the opportunities provided to such a large group of people. Typically, the “range of job opportunities for black women was more narrow than for men. Black women were excluded from small manufacturing plants that hired white women [...] They were confined primarily to domestic labor in private homes as cooks, maids, and child-nurses” (Hunter 278). Nevertheless, African American women were insistent on working by their own terms. Though they had little to no choice in what they did for a living, black women would use “the marginal leverage they could exercise in the face of conflict between employers to enhance their wages and to improve the conditions of work” (Hunter 280). In other words, black women challenged class inequality by standing up to their employers when they believed they were being overworked or