Black Women, Can I Ask You a Question?
And it's a serious one a Black Woman asked before
What’s your vision for yourself? Also, for Black women around the diaspora? These are the questions I pose to you this week. I thought about it myself, many times what I would like to happen for or with Black women.
Imagine this: living freely as we are and as who we are – proud of not only our history but the history we’re creating now as a very special and “above average” (to poke fun at the late Kevin Samuels’ description of us) group of women.
No restrictions.
No microaggressions, passive aggressiveness, or snide marks from non-Black women.
Our voices are always heard.
Most importantly, the men in our community stop encouraging us to lower our dating standards to “meet them where they’re at!
Let me tell you about a Black woman in history on this rainy Monday where I am, who had a clear vision for us as women. Her name’s Paulette Nardal. The name may not mean anything to you, I was once in your position, that said she for sure is a name for the history books when it comes to Black women who were visionaries and worked up until her last breath to shape a future for us.
The Black Woman Visionary— Paulette Nardal (October 12th 1896—February 16th 1985)
After reading the translated works of the francophone black woman writer, journalist, and editor Beyond Negritude: Essays From Woman in The City (1945) what can be concluded about Paulette is:
· She was a woman with a conscious and key clear morals on how she felt society needed to be reshaped on the Caribbean island of Martinique, once women were given the right to vote courtesy of the French president Charles de Gaulle.
Via her writings for the editorial section of her Black woman focused publication, Femme de la Ville (Woman in the City) between 1945-1948, in just fourteen selected essays, translated from French to English by T. Denean Sharpley- Whiting we see Paulette Nardal’s vision for society, her ideology around the treatment of Black people and the lower classes, and most importantly the liberation of women playout.
What she did the year she set up Femme de la Villeand started to circulate the publication across the Caribbean island of Martinique, once women gained new voting rights in the Caribbean, could be seen as very similar to what her African-American equivalent Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin did, when she set up the Black woman focused publication Woman’s Era fifty- one years before Paulette Nardal created Femme de la Ville
For example, her first editorial essay she penned for Femme de la Ville in 1945 just as women across the island gained a tiny amount of liberation, her blueprint is very clearly laid out for the readers of her journal/newspaper.
In her essay titled Woman in The City ( January 1945), Paulette made it clear that she saw “Christian humanism,” as the way to cure the ills of society on the Caribbean island at the time. Her message to women was to set about their, “natural duty as a woman” by embracing Christianity (not in a religious way but via charity and values) to carry out social work which she referred to as being in the “natural nature of women” due to “the natural order of things.” Paulette it appears from reading her essay believed in basic terms that women were there to “serve.”
As a modern woman reading this, this is not something I'd agree with (women's sole purpose to be to serve) but we can forgive Paulette for her very narrow and rigid view on the role of a woman due to two things.
The era she lived in and how limited women were regardless of race
Her heavy dependency on religion, which was also another keyway of life then, that she was born into in 1896, after all, her life’s work didn’t flourish until the turn of the twentieth century. She had a lot of years influenced by religion, before she started her campaign to get Black women to vote.
This stance Paulette had about the role of a woman, natural order, and what women are placed on this Earth to do are the only things a modern Black woman reader of her work may disregard. Apart from this, there’s plenty we can learn from to unite as women!
Old Skool Black Woman’s Philosophy for Today’s Modern Black Woman?
By her fourth editorial essay she published for her journal/newspaper in the spring of 1945 (May), Paulette had developed what I would call a long term plan for black women across the Caribbean island. Almost like an extension to her January writing which she named, “Poverty Does Not Wait.” Paulette poses the idea of social work within the Black, French Caribbean Community she writes:
“Martinican Women must act, must perform charity as a commitment to social action and justice, as a function of fulfilling their duties as both women and citizens, as rational and moral beings.”— Beyond Negritude: Essays From Woman in The City (1945) pg. 37.
She goes on to assert that,
“No woman worthy of the name 'Woman' Should remain Indifferent to it.”
This brought many questions to my mind regarding the state of Black women globally currently— is Paulette Nardal's vision/desires via her Women's Assembly she set up ( and her views on 'social work' something that can be applied today? To the social state of Black women currently across the globe?
Personally, on the face of it I would agree yes, because her encouragement of “'social work” is something that can be done within the community. Meaning social work (in the twenty first century context) for Black women can (if we are willing to try as a united group of women across the diaspora, no matter where each Black woman resides), can be done. How this might look as a starting point is: if we were to identify what “social work” or reform looks like for us, for example:-
1. What issues do women who identify as being of African descent face? In the UK, Canada, Caribbean islands, USA, Ireland, France, all over the world, what do we face?
This could be a starting point and a question posed among Black women to not overwhelm ourselves and maximise our chances of success. Three to five commonly experienced key issues Black women face, could be brought to the table. By this I mean our table, not anyone else’s’— strictly Black women, with no outside influences on what issues we face are key. No taking cues from other groups of women on what a woman’s plight looks like today—as this focus is on one demographic of women only, Black women.
This could be how our “social work”, reform, and unity as Black women around the world could start, using Paulette Nardal’s previous viewpoint and vision she had for Black women. This approach would not follow her blueprint on what is or was facing Black women then, or how we should go about managing it, as we’re living in a different century to Paulette. It’s simply applying her approach of focusing purely on us, and having a central place to bring our issues to for wider circulation. Which to me as I read through all fourteen essays shared in her translated work, seemed reasonable regardless of it being written in the first fifty years of the twentieth century.
My Personal Reflection…
As I wrote this I reflected on if this is why I created the Substack newsletter Notes on Black Women, I laughed, (even though I had created it before I read her work), was it a calling knowing that we all face common issues but can be isolated by time, space, and location, even though we all Black women.
I then glanced around the café I was sat in writing on that cool but bright Saturday morning. I noticed ten women (including myself) present amongst three men. Of course was the only Black woman at the café, the other Black lady departed with her white male companion around thirty mins ago.
The pause was not to notice this but to reflect on what would need to happen following the identification of Black women’s global needs, our organisation, and one central base to connect at—if this is to be an international collaboration which Paulette did attempt.
Her newspaper publication Femme de la Ville was exactly that central base. It reminded me of the creation of Woman's Era the first national newspaper published by and for Black women in the USA in 1894, as mentioned earlier, which was created when Paulette herself was just two years old as the central base or news outlet for African-American women.
In 2024 (as I write this) I wonder if this would be an adventurous thing to duplicate for Black women? Sure, we have magazines with Black women as the target market, but do we have news outlets that give a less glamourous and more realistic look at the lives of Black women across the diaspora?
Sure, since Josephine’s and Paulette’s efforts across the Americas and Caribbean islands to provide this, and support Black women, Black women have definitely been liberated in a way I'm sure both these women would have only dreamed of. That does not mean we don’t have work to do, or key issues we face that even fabulous organisations such as UN women don’t address.
Paulette's leadership
Paulette was an excellent leader, even in the face of adversity against her publication, circulating news focused on women, their right to vote, and especially she hostility heavy in the air towards Black women in general.
This showed in both essay two of Femmes de la Ville, Setting The Record Straight (February 1945), and essay five Martinican Women and Social Action ( October 1945), she wrote. During the first year of operation and circulation of her publication, Paulette came under attack as an early twentieth century Black woman advocating for social reform for Black people, and heavily focused on the inclusion and encouragement to vote directed towards Black women on an island that colonisers had “set free,” and at the time started to “recognise” as part of the European country France. Her struggles were hardly a surprise to read about, given the latter.
Our Sis, she handled all the naysayers with her high intellect, boldness, and frank openness about her dedication to the cause of Black people, I loved this! In the face of adversity, Paulette stayed on code for her people but most importantly women, and did not let any white person throw her off track as they attacked her vision, idea, plan, publication and tried to use the slave master’s oldest trick in the book—fear.
But this time it was not fear of African practices, or even African spirituality our ancestors carried with them to not just the Caribbean but the Americas also, it was fear over what this Black woman could potentially achieve for women. Her potential and efforts were not directed at the “delicate flowers”— white women and their docile minds or silent compliance with the mistreatment of the foremothers of those of Caribbean descent. The white people especially the men were shit-scared of the rise of Black women, as that’s where Paulette focused.
“The Mammies” for my American friends and “Las Madamas” for us of Caribbean descent could have been influenced in a way that colonisers did not want, via Paulette Nardal’s viewpoints, writing, and vision for Black women who she clearly did not see as just Mammies or Las Madamas, regardless of her being born into an upper-middle classed Black family of Martinique.
Essay five Martinican Women and Social Action ( October 1945), clearly shows this and how Paulette calmed the white folk down. She made her and her journal/newspaper’s political neutral stance clear. This seemed to work as her publication continued to be published and widely circulated for six years across that particular island.
That said by essay five and six (And Now, What are Our Objectives? (November 1945)) her leadership skills and charisma set in, her attention turned to the “non- believers” or those of no faith. Paulette’s approach really resonated with me seventy nine years to date, after she penned this essay. In my opinion as a twenty first century reader of her essays Paulette very clearly (or maybe even strategically on her part), removed the need to be a “believer” or follower of God to become part of the movement she was creating with her writing, in favour of being a believer in what is morally right, to help reform the societal ills of the time on the French Caribbean island.
This clearly had the potential to engage a wider readership for her publication, and women who wanted to be part of the islands’ “new Martinique.” In her writing Paulette’s passion for reform shines, her blueprint and vision are clear, in fact generally speaking this is one of the most admirable things about not just her work across Martinique for Black people and especially Black women, but also admirable about Paulette herself. She becomes very likeable and relatable, even to someone who is reading her work seventy nine years ( at the time of writing this) after Paulette penned it.
In closing as a closer observation about Paulette as a person, she never married or had children, she lived until she was eighty eight years old, she passed in 1985. To me this is not that long ago considering I was born in 1983. I guess as a person she was married to her cause for the Black people who now had the “right” to call themselves 'French' now that France had adopted the island as one of their mainland departments not an overseas colony.
For those unaware, France is a lot like the USA in that every area is considered a department (State) and has a postal code attached to it. Martinique’s new status meant that it was now part of said departments. This fight for Black people’s well-being, and the heavy encouragement she gave to women to vote and exercise their new rights, and her publication Femme de la Ville was her baby she birthed instead of naturally producing a child, and nurtured this along with the cause of Black people from 1945 for six years. Her dedication to uplifting Black women continued once the paper no longer circulated, until she left died in 1985.
A lady to never forget.
So back to my opening question, just as Paulette Nardal had a vision for Black women, what’s your vision for us, as women? Do you think that Paulette Nardal’s idea of social work and reform ( in a non-religious context) could be something that Black women around the diaspora could achieve for us based on our needs?
Let me know with a comment
or even in the group chat for Notes on Black Women.
What about your vision for yourself? Have you thought about it?
Have a ponder about this and next Sunday I’ll share a free twelve week planner to help create and shape your own personal vision as we move through 2025.
Much love
The Black Woman Essayist
xoxo
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Pps. I always love to share this, if you love Black history as much as I do check out Urban Intellectuals’ range of Black history flash cards here, they even have a deck especially for Black women.