Hello and welcome back to Breakfast with Mom!

With voting season upon us, I wanted to use time to talk about a woman who truly embodied what it means to fight for your right to be heard.

Today, we have the opportunity to walk into a voting booth and make our voices count. But that right was not always ours. It was not freely given, and it did not come without sacrifice. Generations of women fought, protested, organized, and challenged a society that believed they should have little say in the decisions that shaped their lives.

And for Black women in nineteenth-century America, that fight was even more complicated. They were fighting not only for their rights as women, but also against a society that denied them equality because of the color of their skin.

One of those women was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

SOURCES AND SHOW NOTES

Voices of Democracy — University of Maryland
Frances E. W. Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together” (1866)
A scholarly resource containing Harper's speech and interpretive materials.
Library of Congress
“I Speak of Wrongs”—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Provides historical context for Harper's role in women's suffrage and her criticism of racial discrimination within reform movements.
National Park Service
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper House
Information about Harper's home in Philadelphia and her work as a writer and reformer.
Maryland State Archives — Maryland Women's Hall of Fame
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
A biographical overview covering her early life, education, writing, abolitionism, and activism.
Academy of American Poets
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Biographical information about her poetry, fiction, public speaking, and reform work.
National Constitution Center
“We Are All Bound Up Together” (1866)
Historical context and an excerpt from Harper's famous speech.
Facing History & Ourselves
Speech by Frances Watkins Harper: “We Are All Bound Up Together”
An accessible excerpt and teaching resource for understanding the speech in the context of Reconstruction.
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
Poetry towards Progress: Frances E. W. Harper
Background on Harper's upbringing, education, and literary and abolitionist work