OPINION As state Senate seeks to honor a woman, it should bring a groundbreaking Black Bostonian out of the shadows
Maria W. Stewart rose from indentured servitude to
become not only the nation’s first Black female published political
writer but also the first woman of any race to give public political
speeches — and she did it all in Boston.
L'Merchie Frazier,
member of the State House Art Commission, Senate President Karen Spilka,
and Nina Lillie LeDoyt, daughter of artist Lloyd Lillie, unveiled a
bust of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the Senate chamber at
the State House on Feb. 14.Steven Senne/Associated Press
In
the shadow of the State House, along a quiet stretch of Joy Street, is a
small marker so unassuming that it’s easy for passersby to miss. Its
inscription begins: “Controversial Black Abolitionist.”
But
that plaque marking the onetime home of Maria W. Stewart falls
embarrassingly short of the honor such a groundbreaking figure in
American history deserves. The self-educated New Englander rose from
indentured servitude to become not only the nation’s first Black female
published political writer but also the first woman of any race to give
public political speeches — and she did it all in Boston. That is, until
the backlash she received drove her away.
Now
members of the Massachusetts Senate have an opportunity to give Stewart
her proper due when they decide in March, Women’s History Month, which
historical figure to memorialize with a bust in the Senate chamber.
This week, that honor was bestowed on Frederick Douglass.
The sculpture of the famed orator and civil rights leader was the first
permanent bust added to the chamber in more than 125 years and occupies
one of two new spots reserved for a more diverse array of honorees in
the newly renovated space.
The
other, according to the office of Senate President Karen Spilka, will
be a woman. Abigail Adams is reportedly on Spilka’s short list. But
while statues of the well-known first lady abound — including a new one unveiled in 2022
in Quincy — none exist of Stewart. In fact, most people don’t even
recognize her name, let alone know how to properly pronounce it: It’s
ma-RYE-ah.
But Stewart deserves to be honored in that hall every bit as much as the others there, including Douglass, who was influenced by Stewart’s words and work.
Born
free in Hartford, Stewart was orphaned by the age of 5, forced to trade
her own labor in exchange for room and board as the indentured servant
of a minister until she was in her teens. With no formal education,
Stewart learned to read and write in Sunday school classes and by
stealing glimpses of books in the minister’s home library.
Once freed of her contract, she moved to Boston and married a shipping agent but was widowed just three years later.
She
made a living by doing what would become a lifelong vocation: teaching.
But her faith also compelled her to address what she saw as the
greatest moral failing of her time: the oppression of Black Americans.
So she began writing about it.
“And she writes with fire,” historian and Johns Hopkins University professor Martha S. Jones told me.
It
was 1831, a time when it was taboo for women to engage in political
discourse, even privately. But Stewart went to the offices of the
abolitionist newspaper The Liberator and presented her essays to its
publisher, William Lloyd Garrison, who was white.
And
he did. The success of her published essays — the first by any Black
woman in her own name — led to a series of public speeches in Boston,
the text of which were also published in the paper.
Stewart
not only pressed for the end to the institution of slavery in the South
but also encouraged Black Americans and their supporters to build
schools so that Black people could educate themselves with a view of
reaching the same heights in industry, the arts, and the sciences as
white people occupied.
“Give
the man of color an equal opportunity with the white, from the cradle
to manhood, and from manhood to the grave, and you would discover the
dignified statesman, the man of science, and the philosopher,” Stewart said at the Boston African Masonic Hall. There, too, she broke convention by speaking before an integrated audience.
She also focused some messages on Black women, urging attendees
at the African American Female Intelligence Society in 1832 to reject
being relegated to subservient roles, so that “the higher branches of
knowledge might be enjoyed by us.”
But
her words came at a price. She faced vitriolic pushback from white and
even some Black residents. “Some audiences weren’t ready for her ideas,”
Jones told me. “Some took offense at her forthrightness.”
She retreated from public oration, giving a farewell speech
less than a year after her first address, and moved from Boston to New
York. She was an educator and writer for the rest of her life, living in
Baltimore and finally in Washington, serving as Matron of the
Freedmen’s Hospital, where she died in 1879.
It
is because she broke through ceilings in ways unimaginable at the time
that I, a Black political columnist, am able to write about her life,
hail her influence, and call for her to be appropriately honored among
the best of Bostonians. Bring her name from the State House’s shadow
into its shimmering light.
No comments:
Post a Comment