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In “The Radical Potential of Queer? Twenty Years Later”, Cohen reflected on her article “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens” saying that it was shaped primarily by three factors: the HIV/AIDS crisis, neoliberal policies and ideologies implemented by Reagan and Clinton that harmed the poor, and hope, which stands in contrast to the first two (she is referring to the emergence of Black feminist and Black gay and lesbians communities between the 70s-90s). The article is primarily focused on hope, as Cohen is afraid of the erasure that happens with re-writing history, especially around Black and gay communities framed as only as response to HIV/AIDS. In fact, she argues that we need to remember that these communities were a radical attack on politics of respectability, and state violence.
She has received a number of awards, including the Robert Wood Johnson Investigator’s Award, and the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Research Fellowship.
Cohen is the recipient of two research grants from the Ford Foundation for her work as principal investigator of the Black Youth Project and the Mobilization, Change and Political and Civic Engagement Project. Cohen serves on a number of national and local advisory boards and is the co-editor with Frederick Harris of a book series at Oxford University Press entitled "Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities".
In 2004, Cohen was awarded the Race, Politics, and Adolescent Health: Understanding the Health Attitudes and Behaviors of African American Youth Award. In 2004, Cohen was also interviewed for the Global Feminisms Project Comparative Case Studies Of Women's Activism and Scholarships, which is an archive of oral histories given by transnational women scholars and activists.
In 2013, Cohen gave the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture, entitled "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Obama: Building a New Movement for the 21st Century", at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born Rebecca Davis, (February 8, 1831March 9, 1895), was an American physician, nurse and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States. Crumpler was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century. In 1883, she published "A Book of Medical Discourses". The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infantile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American about medicine.
Crumpler graduated from medical college at a time when very few African Americans were allowed to attend medical college or publish books. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily serving poor women and children. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing treating women and children was an ideal way to perform missionary work. Crumpler worked for the Freedmen's Bureau to provide medical care for freed slaves.
She was subject to "intense racism" and sexism while practicing medicine. During this time, many men believed that a man's brain was 10 percent bigger than a woman's brain on average, and that a woman's job was to act submissively and be beautiful. Because of this, many male physicians did not respect Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and would not approve her prescriptions for patients or listen to her medical opinions. Still, Rebecca Lee Crumpler persevered and worked passionately.
She later moved back to Boston to continue to treat women and children. The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, were named after her. Her Joy Street house is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
In 1831, Crumpler, was born in Christiana, Delaware to Matilda Webber and Absolum Davis. She was raised in Pennsylvania by her aunt who cared for ill townspeople. Her aunt acted as the doctor in her community and had a huge influence on her. She was inspired by her aunt after seeing that she was the one to go to when people got sick. She moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1852, where she worked as a nurse before applying and becoming accepted into the New England Female Medical College. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the only African American woman who attended this school at this time.
From 1855 to 1864, Crumpler was employed as a nurse. She was accepted into the New England Female Medical College in 1860. This school was founded in 1848 by Samuel Gregory. She won a tuition award from the Wade Scholarship Fund, established by a bequest from local businessman John Wade of Woburn.
It was rare for women or black men to be admitted to medical schools during this time. In 1860, due to the heavy demands of medical care for Civil War veterans, there were more opportunities for women physicians and doctors. Due to her talent, Crumpler was given a recommendation to attend the school by her supervising physician when she was a medical apprentice. That year, there were 54,543 physicians in the United States, 300 of whom were women. None of them were African Americans making Rebecca Lee Crumpler the first and only African American physician in her class.
Crumpler graduated from New England Female Medical College in 1864 after having completed three years of coursework, a thesis, and final oral examinations in February 1864. On March 1, 1864, the board of trustees named her a Doctor of Medicine. Married to Wyatt Lee at that time, she was identified as Mrs. Rebecca Lee by the school, where she was the only African American graduate. She was the country's first African-American woman to become a formally-trained physician.
Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston. She primarily cared for poor African-American women and children. After the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865), she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing it to be an ideal way to provide missionary service, as well as to gain more experience learning about diseases that affected women and children. She said of that time, "During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled... to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 colored."
Crumpler worked for the Freedmen's Bureau to provide medical care to freed slaves who were denied care by white physicians. At the Freedmen's Bureau she worked under the assistant commissioner, Orlando Brown. Subject to intense racism by both the administration and other physicians, she had difficulty getting prescriptions filled and was ignored by male physicians. Some people heckled that the M.D. behind her name stood for "Mule Driver".Rebecca knew being the first African American woman in this field would be challenging, but she was resilient and overcame this adversity.
Crumpler moved to 67 Joy Street in Boston, a predominantly African-American community street in Beacon Hill. She practiced medicine and treated children without much concern for the parents' ability to pay. Her house is on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
In 1860, bearing letters of recommendation from her physician-employers, Crumpler was accepted into the elite West Newton English and Classical School in Massachusetts, where she was a "special student in mathematics". Crumpler taught in Wilmington beginning in 1874 and in New Castle, Delaware beginning in 1876.
While living in Charlestown, Rebecca Davis married Wyatt Lee, a Virginia native and former slave. They were married on April 19, 1852. This was Wyatt’s second, and her first, marriage. A year later Wyatt’s son, Albert, died at age 7. This tragedy may have motivated Rebecca to begin her study of nursing for the next eight years. Rebecca was still a medical student when her husband died of tuberculosis on April 18, 1863. He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Boston.
The couple were active members of the Twelfth Baptist Church where Arthur was a trustee. They had a home at 20 Garden Street in Boston. Their daughter Lizzie Sinclair Crumpler was born in mid-December 1870.
Crumpler spoke at a service for Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner upon his death in 1874. She read a poem that she had written for him, where "she touchingly alluded to his love for the gifted Emerson". By 1880, the Crumplers moved to Hyde Park, Boston.
Although no photographs or other images of Crumpler survive, a "Boston Globe" article described her as "a very pleasant and intellectual woman and an indefatigable church worker. Dr. Crumpler is 59 or 60 years of age, tall and straight, with light brown skin and gray hair." About marriage, she said the secret to a successful marriage "is to continue in the careful routine of the courting days, till it becomes well understood between the two".
Rebecca Crumpler died on March 9, 1895, in Fairview, Massachusetts, while still residing in Hyde Park. She and her husband Arthur are both buried at the nearby Fairview Cemetery. Arthur died in May 1910. She and her husband were buried in unmarked graves for 125 years, until July 16, 2020. Donations were collected through a fundraiser to create gravestones for the couple and a ceremony was held at Fairview Cemetery, as a gravestone finally was installed, marking where she and her husband are buried.
The Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, was named in her honor. Her home on Joy Street is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
In 2019, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared March 30 (National Doctors Day) the Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day.
At Syracuse University there is a pre-health club named "The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society". This club encourages people of diverse backgrounds to pursue health professions. They offer mentors, workshops, and resources to help members succeed. Rebecca Lee Crumpler and her husband Arthur Crumpler also received new granite headstones to celebrate her achievement of being a pioneer physician who earned her medical degree in Boston.
Demico Boothe is an African-American bestselling author of several books on the plight of African American men in the American prison system. Boothe's book, "Why Are There So Many Black Men in Jail?" addresses the issue of racism in the Crack versus Cocaine Laws and was published in 2007, three years before Michelle Alexander's better-known book that also addresses the subject, "The New Jim Crow," published in 2010. "Why Are There So Many Black Men in Prison?" is on the Black Lives Matter recommended reading list.
Boothe was born in Memphis, Tennessee and grew up partly in his mother’s home in the Castalia Heights Projects in South Memphis, and partly at his father’s home, in a part of Memphis that was originally “residential, crime-free” but that degenerated during Boothe’s teen years when Crip gang members started inducting young neighborhood men into the drug trade.
In addition, Boothe’s father, who had previously made a good living in business, developed a crack cocaine habit and began spending all his money on the drug. Boothe started working two part-time jobs, but his father demanded the earnings so he could buy drugs.
Boothe had always hoped to go to college. By the time he was finishing up high school and determining how he could finance a college degree, his father had entered a drug rehabilitation program but was still in too much debt due to his previous drug habit to help Boothe out financially. In addition, Boothe’s younger brother was making large amounts of money selling cocaine. Boothe then made the decision to engage in cocaine sales in order to make enough money to pay for his college fees.
After six months of selling, at the age of 18, Boothe was arrested (on a first-time charge) and sentenced to ten years in prison for “possession with intent to distribute over 50 grams of crack cocaine.” At that time, crack cocaine sentences were 100 times longer than for selling powder cocaine. A major theme of his book, "Why Are There So Many Black Men in Prison?" is this sentencing disparity, which Boothe blames on racism.
After serving eight years and ten months in various prisons, Boothe was released. He was determined to stay out of prison but, six months after his release, was re-arrested when he unknowingly drove a friend to a rendezvous to buy counterfeit money. The friend promised to testify that Boothe had known nothing about the counterfeit money, but upon being repeatedly warned and pressured by both his counsel and the judge, the friend decided not to testify after all. The friend’s mother did testify to Boothe’s innocence, but the jury still convicted Boothe to another 46 months in prison.
During this second prison stint, Boothe set out to educate himself as part of an overall plan to prepare himself for life outside and to do all he could to make sure he never did time again.
Altogether, Boothe spent nearly 13 years in federal prison and was released in 2003. He wrote his first book, entitled "Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?", while incarcerated. To date, he has written and published three other books, including: "Getting Out & Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success After Prison" and "The Top 25 Things Black Folks Do That We Need To Stop!!!" The latter was published in January, 2009, and received much critical acclaim within the African-American community.
Boothe is a noted expert on many subjects and issues concerning the African-American community, with an emphasis on the U.S. criminal justice system as it relates to black males.
Besides addressing the issue of anti-black racism in the legal and prison system, Boothe is an advocate for education and lifelong learning. He notes, for example, that the black men he met in prison were very badly educated.
On the back of his book, Why Are "So Many Black Men in Prison?", Boothe states that, while he was incarcerated, he read and studied over 500 books, including the entire Webster's Dictionary, the Bible, the Qur'an, as well as every alphabetical entry in the 1998 Encyclopædia Britannica.
Boothe also advocates taking a pragmatic approach to avoiding the "school to prison pipeline." In his book, "Getting Out and Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success After Prison," he suggests "taking full control and responsibility of yourself and your actions from that point on, despite any injustices or wrongful actions that may have been committed against you by the system." Other suggestions are, as above, embarking on a serious reading program while still in prison, and when out, developing an entrepreneurial work style, and growing, fostering, and maintaining a committed, supportive relationship and permanent family unit.
"Why Are There So Many Black People in Prison?" (2007)
"The Top 25 Things Black Folks Do that We Need to Stop!!!" (2009)
"Getting Out & Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success after Prison" (2012)
"The U.S. Child Support System and the Black Family" (2018)
David Ehrenstein (born February 18, 1947) is an American critic who focuses primarily on LGBTQ issues in cinema.
Ehrenstein was born in New York City. His father was a secular Jew with Polish ancestors, and his mother was half African-American, half Irish. His mother raised him in her religion, Roman Catholicism. He attended the High School of Music and Art (different from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts) and then Pace College (now Pace University). He now lives in Los Angeles. He is openly gay.
His writing career started in 1965 with an interview with Andy Warhol which was published in "Film Culture" magazine in 1966. Ehrenstein wrote for "Film Culture" until 1983. During the 1960s he also wrote for "December" and the "Village Voice". In 1976 he moved to Los Angeles with his partner Bill Reed and began work as a film critic and entertainment journalist for the "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" and also wrote for "Film Comment" and "Film Quarterly" during this period.
In 1982 he collaborated with Bill Reed on the book "Rock On Film", while continuing to write for diverse publications, including the "San Francisco Examiner", "Rolling Stone", "Cahiers du Cinéma", "Arts", the "Los Angeles Reader", "Enclitic", and "Wide Angle". From the "Herald-Examiner" he moved to "Daily Variety" and later "The Advocate". He also wrote "Film: The Front Line - 1984", a survey of experimental and independent film work. He has contributed to "Sight and Sound".
In 1987 he served as the film researcher and historian for the "Hollywood and History" costume exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1992 he published "The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of Martin Scorsese". In 1998 he published "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1927-1997". As he documents on his blog and website, lawyers representing Hollywood actor Tom Cruise threatened to take legal action against Ehrenstein because he wrote of how Cruise is appealing to both men and women.
Ehrenstein has appeared often on "The E! True Hollywood Story", specifically for the profiles of Rock Hudson, Sonny Bono, and Bob Guccione. He has also written about the film "Brokeback Mountain" for "LA Weekly". His homepage and blog also contain commentary and satire on various journalists, politicians and figures in the entertainment industry.
Hallie Quinn Brown (March 10, 1849 – September 16, 1949) was an American educator, writer and activist.
Originally of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she moved with her parents while quite young to a farm near Chatham, Canada. Brown was born to parents who had been enslaved. Brown's family moved to Canada in 1864 and then to Ohio in 1870. In 1868, she began a course of study in Wilberforce University, Ohio, from which she graduated in 1873 with the degree of Bachelor of Science.
Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of six children.
Her parents, Frances Jane Scroggins and Thomas Arthur Brown, were freed slaves.
Her brother, Jeremiah, became a politician in Ohio.
At a young age, Brown's parents and siblings migrated to Ontario, Canada. She attended Wilberforce University and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in 1873. There were a total of six people in her class. One of her classmates was the wife of Rev. B. F. Lee, D.D., ex-President of Wilberforce.
Her fame as instructor spread and her services were secured as teacher at Yazoo City. On account of the unsettled state of affairs in 1874–5, she was compelled to return North. Thus the South lost one of its most valuable missionaries. Brown then taught in Dayton, Ohio, for four years. Owing to ill health, she gave up teaching. She was persuaded to travel for her alma mater, Wilberforce, and started on a lecturing tour, concluding at Hampton School, Virginia. After taking a course in elocution at this place, she traveled again, having much greater success, and received favorable criticism from the press.
She was dean of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, from 1885 to 1887 and principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama during 1892–93 under Booker T. Washington. She became a professor at Wilberforce in 1893, and was a frequent lecturer on African American issues and the temperance movement, speaking at the international Woman's Christian Temperance Union conference in London in 1895 and representing the United States at the International Congress of Women in London in 1899. She also performed in front of Queen Victoria in 1897.
In 1896, she held a meeting in Edinburgh and gave an interview with a correspondent of "The Edinburgh Evening News." The correspondent wrote:
For several years she traveled with "The Wilberforce Grand Concert Company", an organization for the benefit of Wilberforce College. She read before hundreds of audiences, and tens of thousands of people. She possessed a magnetic voice, seeming to have perfect control of the muscles of the throat, and could vary her voice as successfully. As a public reader, Brown enthused her audiences. In her humorous selections, she often caused "wave after wave" of laughter; in her pathetic pieces, she often moved her audience to tears.
In 1893, Brown presented a paper at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. In addition to Brown, four more African American women presented at the conference: Anna Julia Cooper, Fannie Barrier Williams, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Sarah Jane Woodson Early.
Brown was a founder of the Colored Woman's League of Washington, D.C., which in 1894 merged into the National Association of Colored Women. She was president of the Ohio State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs from 1905 until 1912, and of the National Association of Colored Women from 1920 until 1924. She spoke at the Republican National Convention in 1924 and later directed campaign work among African-American women for President Calvin Coolidge. Brown was inducted as an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta.
She was a prominent member of the A. M. E. Church; also a member of the "King's Daughters," "Human Rights League," and the "Isabella Association." Brown died on September 16, 1949, in Wilberforce, Ohio, and is buried at Massies Creek Cemetery in Cedarville, Ohio. Her biography, "Hallie Quinn Brown, Black Woman Elocutionist, 1845(?)-1949", was published by Annjennette Sophie in 1975.
Ashley Nicole Black (born June 15, 1985) is an American comedian, actress, and writer from Los Angeles, California. She was a writer and correspondent for "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" from 2016-2019. She left the show in February 2019 to write and act in "A Black Lady Sketch Show" on HBO.
Black received the 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for her work on "Full Frontal."
Black was born in Los Angeles, and grew up in Walnut, California, a suburb of said city.
Black graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2007 with a degree in theatre arts. She then attended Northwestern University, where she earned a master's degree in performance studies. Black was four years into a PhD program at Northwestern University when she decided to drop out and pursue her dream of working in comedy.
Black's comedy career began at the Second City, where she first attended an improv class that her parents paid for her to attend.
In 2016, she was hired as a correspondent on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. She worked on the show for three years, during which time she received six total Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning in 2017 for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. Her last episode on "Full Frontal" was on February 13, 2019.
Black has also appeared as an actor on Comedy Central's "Drunk History" and in the 2014 film "An American Education".
In 2019, Black joined other WGA writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA and the unfair practice of packaging.
She is a cast member and writer on HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show", which debuted in 2019.
Mary Elizabeth Carnegie (19 April 1916 – 20 February 2008) was an educator and author in the field of nursing. Known for breaking down racial barriers, she was the first black nurse to serve as a voting member on the board of a state nursing association. She was later president of the American Academy of Nursing and edited the journal "Nursing Research".
She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, received a diploma from the Lincoln School of Nurses, bachelor's degree from West Virginia State College, master's degree from Syracuse University, and doctor of public administration degree from New York University.
After receiving her bachelor's degree from West Virginia State College, Carnegie took a job in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia. She became a clinical instructor at St. Philip Hospital School of Nursing. While working at St. Philip, Carnegie was exposed to a different social system in the nursing world in the south.
Carnegie joined the Florida Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (FACGN) in 1945. She was elected president of the organization three years later. Traditionally, the FACGN was named a courtesy (non-voting) board member of the Florida State Nurses Association the next year. After Carnegie's service with the FACGN, the FSNA board decided to grant her full rights and responsibilities on their board. She was the first black nurse to serve on the board of a state nursing association.
Between 1945 and 1953, Carnegie was a professor and dean of the nursing school at Florida A&M University. She later served as president of the American Academy of Nursing and was the editor of "Nursing Research". She was awarded eight honorary doctorates and was inducted into the hall of fame of the American Nurses Association. She was inducted into the Virginia Nursing Hall of Fame in 2009.
After developing hypertensive cardiovascular disease, Carnegie died in 2008 in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She had lived there for 25 years. Carnegie had been married once; her husband died in 1954.
Williams held some good memories of his early years, saying that of the family that enslaved him and his relatives, they were "of all slave holders, the very best." The younger children had almost all of their time free to play. Early on, Williams would play with the neighbor's white children, and later with other black children on the plantation that to which he moved.
However, Sam makes sure to clearly indicate, "There is nothing good to be said of American slavery. I know it is sometimes customary to speak of its bright and its dark sides. I am not prepared to admit that it had any bright sides, unless it was the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln..."
In his early childhood, while the four white children Williams played with were at school, Williams was taught how to read and write by the three unmarried white ladies who were most likely part of the family that enslaved Williams' father. He was taught using only one book, which he called "Thomas Dilworth's," referring to "A New Guide to the English Tongue" by Thomas Dilworth. From the book, Williams claims he learned about grammar, weights and measures, ciphers, and morals. In addition, Williams describes the popular use of slates for his lessons, as well as his fascination with fable illustrations that instructed what was moral and what was not:
"...such as that of the man who prayed to Hercules to take his wagon out of the mire; of the two men who stole a piece of meat; of the lazy maids and of the kindhearted man who took a half frozen serpent into his house."
He also states many slaves were punished for being found in possession of the schoolbook, though the reward of mastering the book was being considered a "prodigy of learning" within the slave community.
"Mr. Ward was what was called a 'good master.' His people were well-fed, well-housed, and not over-worked. There were certain inflexible rules however, governing his plantation of which he allowed not the slightest infraction, for he had his place for the Negro... His place for the Negro was in subjection and servitude to the white man."
Williams alludes to his master's classism, pointing out that his white supremacy ideology did not extend to all whites and that there were some he would have barred from slaveholding. Ward, like many other slaveholders, asserted his role as owner and enslaver with a paternalistic view. He provided well for his slaves while demanding complete obedience. Ward, for example, took care to always know their whereabouts by insisting he authorize any departure from his land and as Williams depicts in his memoir, Ward had no qualms about punishing those slaves he felt defied him.
As a boy, Williams learned to ride horses from one of his enslavers. Williams states, "He taught me to ride, and when I could sit my horse well 'bare-back' he had a saddle made for me at the then famous 'McKinzie's' saddlery, sign of the 'White Horse' at the corner of Church and Chalmers Street." This training to ride was not wholly unique to Williams' experience. In fact, enslaved people were essential to the world of horse racing in the American South. Jockeys and trainers were commonly enslaved people. Despite limited privileges, these enslaved horse riders were still subjected to the realities of being slaves in a slave society. Williams never became a formal jockey, however, and of this he says the following:
"Possibly Mr. Dane had 'views', concerning me for he owned several fast horses, but before I was old enough to be of practical service, 'Sherman came marching through Georgia.'"
"And here I must admit I wore the 'gray.' I have never attended any of the Confederate reunions. I suppose they overlooked my name on the army roll!"
Williams' childhood home on Guignard Street was destroyed by the Great Charleston Fire on December 11, 1861. This fire destroyed many of the main landmarks such as the Charleston Circular Church and Institute Hall where the Ordinance of Secession was signed, and Williams remembered it to be the biggest blaze he would ever see in Charleston. Remembering the event in his memoir, Williams describes how "the sparks seemed to rain down as we ran." Thus, Williams' memoir serves as an eye-witness account of the chaos and fear created by the Great Fire.
Once the Confederates surrendered, life in South Carolina changed dramatically for Williams and his family. They were reunited under one roof; Alexander Williams and his family resided on Princess Street in Charleston for many years.
Williams' account of this era includes reflections about the "Black Code" or laws passed to restrict civil and social rights of freedmen. He wondered why, at least in his time when writing his memoir in the 20th century, one did not hear much about this, saying that perhaps "somebody is ashamed of it."
In 1876, Williams' employer asked him to vote for General Wade Hampton. Williams chose not to vote in the election at all, even though he heard the General speak:
"Our only desire he said, was to save our dear old state from utter ruin. Then, raising his right hand to heaven he said these very words as near as I can recollect, "If I am elected governor, I swear to God that not one right or privilege that you now enjoy shall be taken from you!"
Williams also noted that many of the promises that General Hampton made did not come to fruition and that, in fact, acts of disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws were being enacted against blacks during this era.
Sometime in the 1880s, Williams moved to Vermont (he appears to have moved initially to Springfield VT) and soon sent for his second wife and children (several from his first marriage and perhaps some step children or children from his second wife)to join him. While not much is known about his life in Vermont, he and his eldest daughter Susan show up in the 1910 census, living in Lebanon, NH where they worked as servants for the Carter family. In Vermont, both worked for author Thomas H. Thomas. They were listed in the 1920 United States Federal Census, living in Windsor with the Thomas Family.
Williams appears to have moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1920s with his daughter Susan, who married an African-American lawyer/dentist named William Alexander Cox. Cox was also heavily involved in the National Negro Business League.
After an illness weakened Williams' eyes and he feared going blind, he decided to record events from his past. He was also motivated in writing his memoir by the desire to remind future generations of African Americans of the cruel experience of slavery, a reason disclosed in the memoir's preface:
"It is a remarkable fact that very many of the immediate descendants of those who passed through the trying ordeal of American slavery know nothing of the hardships through which their fathers came. Some reason for this may be found in the fact that those fathers hated to harrow the minds of their children by the recital of their cruel experiences of those dark days... While it is sweet to forgive and forget, there are somethings that should never be forgotten. If this humble narrative will serve to cause the youth of my people to take a glance backward, the object of the writer will have been attained."
Williams continued to live with his family for several decades after publishing his memoir and died in Massachusetts in 1946.
Anita Cornwell (born September 23, 1923) is an American lesbian feminist author. In 1983 she wrote the first collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, "Black Lesbian in White America".
Born in Greenwood, South Carolina, Cornwell moved to Pennsylvania at the age of 16, living first in Yeadon with her aunt, then in Philadelphia with her mother, who moved north when Cornwell was aged 18. Cornwell has one sibling, an older brother. She graduated from Temple University with a B.S. in journalism and the social sciences in 1948. She worked as a journalist for local newspapers and a clerical worker for government agencies.
Cornwell's early writings, published in "The Ladder" and "The Negro Digest" in the 1950s, were among the first to identify the author as a black lesbian, and other publications where her work has appeared include "Feminist Review", "Labyrinth", "National Leader", and the "Los Angeles Free Press".
Published on October 1, 1983, Cornwell's first book "Black Lesbian in White America", which includes her essays and an interview with activist Audre Lorde, is widely noted as the first collection of essays by a black lesbian.

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