Maria W. Stewart: America's First Black Woman Political Writer : Essays and Speeches (Blacks in the Diaspora)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent slice of Obscure History
Review: Maria Stewart was not as well-remembered as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, but she is an important person nonetheless. Fortunately, she left behind a lot of written materials of her own life and there also exist other accounts form her contemporaries. There are all well edited by Marilyn Richardson into a concise volume that tells a pretty good story of Maria Stewart and what she was all about. Great job and an inspiring read.

Rating:
Summary: Really brings history to life
Review: This is the first and only study that gives a solid account of the life and work of this important early 19th century African-American writer. Stewart was a radical abolitionist, a feminist activist and a powerful public speaker. She was the first American-born woman of any race to lecture in public on political themes and leave extant copies of her texts. She preceded the better known Grimke sisters by five years. Before Frederick Douglass, before Sojourner Truth, Stewart, who lived in Boston in the 1830s, was arguing for black rights, North, and South. Her collected lectures are published here for the first time in this century, along with fascinating research on the life and career of this extraordinary woman.