“Leave that slavery-cursed republic”: Mary Ann Shadd Cary and Black feminist nationalism, 1852–1874

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study argues that Mary Ann Shadd Cary theorized and practiced Black feminist nationalism as she edited the newspaper that she founded, the Provincial Freeman, and wrote a variety of pieces throughout her career. The decades-long union between her editorship and writing allowed her to craft a Black feminist nationalism that infused her writings, speeches, and activism during and after the newspaper’s publication. An examination of how the Provincial Freeman and Shadd Cary herself fostered public discourse on Black people’s labor and women’s rights reveals how Shadd Cary practiced and theorized Black feminist nationalism. The union between Shadd Cary’s resistance strategies – editing and writing – illustrates how Black editorship in the early Atlantic world created opportunities for editors to not simply disseminate, but produce knowledge. It affirms that editing was an inherently political practice that allowed activists to fashion themselves as both editors and intellectuals.