Jump to content

Jessie Daniel Ames: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
 
(26 intermediate revisions by 17 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{short description|American civil rights activist}}
⚫
{{Infobox person|name = Jessie Daniel Ames|birth_date = {{birth date|1883|11|2}}|death_date = {{death date and age |1972|2|21 |1883|11|2}}|birth_place = [[Palestine, Texas]], U.S.|death_place = [[Austin, Texas]], U.S.|alma_mater = [[Southwestern University]]|occupation = activist}}'''Jessie Daniel Ames''' (November 2, 1883 &ndash; February 21, 1972) was a suffragist and civil rights activist based in Texas, who built a movement in the Southern [[United States]]. She was one of the first Southern white women to speak out and work publicly against [[lynching]] of blacks, murders which white men claimed to commit in an effort to protect women's "virtue." Despite risks to her personal safety, Ames stood up to these men and led organized efforts by white women to protest lynchings. She gained 40,000 signatures by southern women to oppose lynching, helping change attitudes and bring about a decline in these murders in the 1930s and 1940s.<ref>Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. "Antilynching Campaign" excerpted from ''The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States.'' [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm] Accessed 15 January 2008.</ref>
{{Infobox person
| name = Jessie Daniel Ames
|image=Jessie Daniel Ames, Texas Suffragist, 1883-1972.jpg


| birth_date = {{birth date|1883|11|2}}
⚫
== Biography SMELLS ==
| death_date = {{death date and age |1972|2|21 |1883|11|2}}
Born Jessie Daniel in [[Palestine, Texas]], she attended local schools before going to college. She studied at [[Southwestern University]], and thereafter, despite her father's objection, converted to [[Methodism]] following her mother and sister. She had joined them in church activism from an early age. In 1905, she married Roger Post Ames, a doctor with the [[United States Army]]. During much of their married life, he worked on assignment in [[Central America]], fighting [[yellow fever]] with [[Walter Reed]]. Among the reasons the military was struggling to control this and other tropical diseases was that planning for construction of the [[Panama Canal]] had been renewed. Historically, workers had suffered extremely high death tolls due to tropical diseases. Roger Ames died in Central America in 1914.
| birth_place = [[Palestine, Texas]], U.S.
| death_place = [[Austin, Texas]], U.S.
| burial_place = I.O.O.F. Cemetery, [[Georgetown, Texas]]
| alma_mater = [[Southwestern University]]
| occupation = Suffragist and Civil Rights Activist
| known_for = Founder of [[Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching]]
}}
⚫
'''Jessie Daniel Ames''' (November 2, 1883 &ndash; February 21, 1972) was a suffragist and civil rights leader from Texas who helped create the anti-lynching movement in the American South. She was one of the first Southern white women to speak out and work publicly against [[lynching]] of African Americans, murders which white men claimed to commit in an effort to protect women's "virtue." Despite risks to her personal safety, Ames stood up to these men and led organized efforts by white women to protest lynchings. She gained 40,000 signatures of Southern white women to oppose lynching, helping change attitudes and bring about a decline in these murders in the 1930s and 1940s.<ref>Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. "Antilynching Campaign" excerpted from ''The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States.'' [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm] Accessed 15 January 2008.</ref>


⚫
== Biography ==
Ames, then a 31-year-old widow with three children to support, moved in with her mother and helped with the family business. She also became involved with several Methodist women's groups. This led to her participating in the [[women's suffrage]] movement.
Ames was born Jessie Harriet Daniel in [[Palestine, Texas]], on November 2, 1883. Her mother was Laura Maria Leonard and her father was James Malcolm Daniel. In 1893, the family moved to [[Georgetown, Texas]].<ref name=":0">Jon D. Swartz, “Jessie Harriet Daniel Ames” in Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, ed. ''Texas Women and the Vote.'' Austin: [[Texas State Historical Association]], 2019, pp. 13-14.</ref> Ames was admitted to the Ladies Annex of [[Southwestern University]] at the age of 13 and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1902. After graduation, she moved with her family to [[Laredo, Texas]].<ref name=":0" /> Ames followed her mother and sister and converted to [[Methodism]] despite her father's objection as a nonbeliever. She had joined them in church activities from an early age.<ref name=":1">Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, ''Revolt Against Chivalry''. New York: [[Columbia University Press]], 1993.</ref>


In 1905, Ames married Roger Post Ames, a surgeon in the [[United States Army]], who had worked with [[Walter Reed]] in [[Cuba]] to prove that [[mosquito]]es caused [[malaria]].<ref name=":1" /> During much of their unhappy marriage, Roger Ames lived in [[Central America]] where he worked as a physician to the American Consul and the [[United Fruit Company]].<ref name=":1" /> Roger Ames died in 1914 in [[Guatemala]] from [[blackwater fever]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />
In 1916, Ames organized a local women's suffrage association in Texas; she contributed to the state becoming the first to ratify the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth Amendment]]. In 1919, she was the founding president of the Texas [[League of Women Voters]]. She also served as a delegate to the [[Democratic National Convention]]s of 1920, 1924, and 1928. In 1929 she became the director of the women's committee of the [[Commission on Interracial Cooperation]] (CIC).


Ames had a son and two daughters, the last of whom was born in 1914 after her husband's death.<ref name=":1" /> After the death of her father in 1911, Ames helped her mother run the family's telephone company in Georgetown.<ref name=":0" /> She also became involved with several Methodist women's groups. This led to her initial participation in the [[women's suffrage]] movement.<ref name=":1" />
⚫
In 1930 Ames founded the [[Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching]] (ASWPL). One of their efforts was to appeal directly to white women to help stop this abuse, and they gained the signatures of 40,000 women to their 'Pledge Against Lynching' (see below). Despite encountering hostile community opposition and physical threats, the women conducted petition drives, lobbying and fundraising across the South to work against lynching.<ref>Angela Y. Davis, ''Women, Race & Class''. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p.194</ref>

== Suffrage movement and League of Women Voters ==
In 1916, Ames organized the Georgetown Equal Suffrage League and became its first president. She also wrote a weekly suffrage article in the ''Williamson County Sun'' newspaper called "Woman Suffrage Notes."<ref name=":0" /> Ames became a protégé of [[Minnie Fisher Cunningham]], the president of the [[Texas Equal Suffrage Association]] (TESA). In 1918, Ames was elected treasurer of the TESA.<ref name=":0" />

Texas became the first Southern state to ratify the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth Amendment]] in June 1919. In October 1919, Ames founded the Texas [[League of Women Voters]] and served as its first president until 1923.<ref>Dorothy Brown, “Sixty Five Going on Fifty: A History of the League of Women Voters of Texas, 1903-1969.” MS''.'' League of Women Voters Files. Austin, Texas. 1969. Accessed on April 13, 2019. www.my.lwv.org/texas/history.</ref> In 1923, she represented the national League of Women Voters at the Pan American Congress.<ref name=":0" /> She also served as a delegate to the [[Democratic National Convention]]s of 1920, 1924, and 1928.<ref name=":0" /> Ames served in several other organizations including the Texas branch of the [[American Association of University Women]], Texas Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, and the [[Texas Federation of Women's Clubs]]. She was an officer of the Joint Legislative Council in Texas, also known as the Petticoat Lobby, and was on the Board of Education of the Women's Division of the Methodist Church.<ref name=":0" /> In 1924, Ames became the director of the Texas [[Commission on Interracial Cooperation]] (CIC) based in [[Atlanta]]. In 1929, she moved to Atlanta to become the national director of the CIC Woman's Committee.<ref name=":0" />

== Crockett State School ==
The project to create a home and training school for delinquent African American girls was one of the few instances of interracial cooperation among Texas women. Between 1916 and 1945, the [[Texas Federation of Colored Women's Clubs]] (TACWC) campaigned for the creation of the institution and offered to donate the land.<ref name=":2">“Texas Association of Women’s Clubs,” Texas Woman’s University: Woman’s Collection. &nbsp; www.twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16283coll10.&nbsp; Accessed April 19, 2019.</ref>

In 1923, the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and the Joint Legislative Council, both white women's organizations, endorsed the concept. That year, the TACWC raised $2,000 for the down payment on a home. The organization bought land in [[San Antonio]] and was able to offer $5,500 as a downpayment.<ref name=":2" />

In 1926, Ames toured the state speaking on behalf of the project to white women's organizations. The [[Texas Legislature|Texas legislature]] passed a bill in 1927 creating the home and school for delinquent black girls but made no appropriations.<ref name=":2" />

It took 18 years before the Texas legislature approved funding. In 1945, the legislature appropriated $60,000 to establish the Brady State School for Negro Girls located in a former prisoner of war camp near [[Brady, Texas]]. In 1950, the school relocated to [[Crockett, Texas]], and was renamed the [[Crockett State School for Girls]].<ref name=":2" />

== Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching ==
⚫
In 1930, Ames, with the CIC's financial help, founded the [[Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching]] (ASWPL) with headquarters in Atlanta.<ref name=":3">Ruthe Winegarten, ''Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph.'' Austin: [[University of Texas Press]], 1995.</ref> The organization excluded African American women<ref name=":3" /> and appealed directly to white Southern women to stop lynching. The ASWPL secured the signatures of 40,000 Southern women on its 'Pledge Against Lynching' (see below). Despite encountering hostile opposition and threats of violence, the women conducted petition drives, lobbying and fundraising across the South to work against lynching.<ref>Angela Y. Davis, ''Women, Race & Class''. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p.194</ref> By 1940, more than 100 women's organizations had joined the movement against lynching.<ref name=":3" />


Pledge:
Pledge:
<blockquote>We declare lynching is an indefensible crime, destructive of all principles of government, hateful and hostile to every ideal of religion and humanity, debasing and degrading to every person involved...[P]ublic opinion has accepted too easily the claim of lynchers and mobsters that they are acting solely in defense of womanhood. In light of the facts we dare no longer to permit this claim to pass unchallenged, nor allow those bent upon personal revenge and savagery to commit acts of violence and lawlessness in the name of women. We solemnly pledge ourselves to create a new public opinion in the South, which will not condone, for any reason whatever, acts of mobs or lynchers. We will teach our children at home, at school and at church a new interpretation of law and religion; we will assist all officials to uphold their oath of office; and finally, we will join with every minister, editor, school teacher and patriotic citizen in a program of education to eradicate lynchings and mobs forever from our land.</blockquote><ref>Angela Y. Davis, ''Women, Race & Class''. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, pp. 194-195</ref>
<blockquote>We declare lynching is an indefensible crime, destructive of all principles of government, hateful and hostile to every ideal of religion and humanity, debasing and degrading to every person involved...[P]ublic opinion has accepted too easily the claim of lynchers and mobsters that they are acting solely in defense of womanhood. In light of the facts we dare no longer to permit this claim to pass unchallenged, nor allow those bent upon personal revenge and savagery to commit acts of violence and lawlessness in the name of women. We solemnly pledge ourselves to create a new public opinion in the South, which will not condone, for any reason whatever, acts of mobs or lynchers. We will teach our children at home, at school and at church a new interpretation of law and religion; we will assist all officials to uphold their oath of office; and finally, we will join with every minister, editor, school teacher and patriotic citizen in a program of education to eradicate lynchings and mobs forever from our land.<ref>Angela Y. Davis, ''Women, Race & Class''. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, pp. 194-195</ref></blockquote>Ames opposed a federal anti-lynching law and advocated instead for individual state laws outlawing lynching.<ref name=":1" /> Senators from the South [[filibuster]]ed the proposed federal [[Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill]], which was advocated by an African American women's group called the Anti-Lynching Crusaders. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had created the Anti-Lynching Crusaders in 1922 to mobilize support for the Dyer Bill.<ref name=":1" /> White Democrats from the [[Solid South]] commanded powerful congressional positions due to the [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchisement]] of African Americans across the South. Senator [[Tom Connally]] of Texas used a letter written to him from Ames to show widespread Southern opposition to the federal bill. Ames intended the letter to be private in order to allow her to speak out in opposition to lynching when the bill failed.<ref name=":1" />


Ames served as the director of the ASWPL until 1942. By February 1937, 81 state, regional and national organizations had endorsed the anti-lynching platform of the ASWPL. That year, the CIC was replaced by the [[Southern Regional Council]].<ref name=":0" /> The number of lynchings decreased as the [[Great Depression]] came to an end, although notable lynchings took place in the postwar era, including of black men in uniform.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans|title=Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans|website=Equal Justice Initiative|language=en|access-date=2019-09-23}}</ref>
Ames opposed a federal anti-lynching law, however. She believed that it would be better to get state laws enforced against lynchings than have the national government step in. Southern Senators filibustered the proposed federal law, in any case. White Democrats of the [[Solid South]] commanded powerful congressional positions due to having [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most blacks]] across the South, but Senator Tom Connally of Texas used a letter written to him by Ames to show widespread Southern opposition to the anti-lynching bill. Ames meant the letter to be private, and wanted to speak out in opposition to lynching when the bill failed.


== Death and legacy ==
The number of lynchings decreased as the strain of the Depression eased, although notable lynchings took place in the postwar era, including of black men in uniform. Ames' group disbanded in 1942 and merged back into the CIC.
Ames retired to [[Tryon, North Carolina]], before returning to Texas in 1968 to live with her younger daughter.<ref name=":0" /> Jessie Daniel Ames died of pneumonia on February 21, 1972, in [[Austin, Texas]]. She is buried in the family plot in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Georgetown, Texas.<ref name=":0" />


In 1985, the Jessie Daniel Ames Lecture Series began at Southwestern University. Her career as an activist for suffrage and against lynching was the subject of the Freshman Symposium at Southwestern University in 1985 and the Brown Symposium at the university in 1986.<ref name=":0" />
Jessie Daniel Ames died on February 21, 1972 in [[Austin, Texas]].


== References ==
== References ==
Line 24: Line 54:
==Sources==
==Sources==


*Brown, Dorothy. “Sixty Five Going on Fifty:&nbsp; A History of the League of Women Voters of Texas, 1903-1969.” ''Manuscript.'' League of Women Voters files, Austin, 1969. Accessed on www.my.lwv.org/texas/history 4.13.2019.
*Bowman, John S. ''The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography''. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995) p.&nbsp;15
*Davis, Angela Y. ''Women, Race & Class''. (New York: Vintage Books, 1983, pp.&nbsp;194–195)
*Bowman, John S. ''The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography''. New York: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1995. P.&nbsp;15.
*Davis, Angela Y. ''Women, Race & Class''. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. Pp.&nbsp;194–195.
⚫
*Reid, Daniel G. et al. ''Dictionary of Christianity in America''. (Westmont, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1990). {{ISBN|0-8308-1776-X}}.
⚫
*Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. "Live Through Time: Second Thoughts on Jessie Daniel Ames", pp.&nbsp;140–158 in ''The Challenge of Feminist Biography: Writing the Lives of Modern American Women'', Sara Alpern, Joyce Antler, Elizabeth Perry Israels, and Ingrid Winther Scobie, eds. Urbana, IL: [[University of Illinois Press]], 1992.
*Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. ''The Revolt Against Chivalry''. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974/ reprint University of North Carolina Press, 1993, pp.&nbsp;239–249)
*Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. ''Revolt Against Chivalry''. New York: [[Columbia University Press]], 1993.
⚫
*Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. "Live Through Time: Second Thoughts on Jessie Daniel Ames", pp. 140-158 in ''The Challenge of Feminist Biography: Writing the Lives of Modern American Women'', Sara Alpern, Joyce Antler, Elizabeth Perry Israels, and Ingrid Winther Scobie, eds., (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992)
*"Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans." ''Equal Justice Initiative.'' Retrieved 2019-09-23. Accessed at https://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans.
⚫
*Reid, Daniel G. et al. ''Dictionary of Christianity in America''. Westmont, Illinois: [[InterVarsity Press]], 1990. {{ISBN|0-8308-1776-X}}.
*Swartz, Jon D. “Jessie Harriet Daniel Ames” in Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, ed. ''Texas Women and the Vote.'' Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2019, pp.&nbsp;13–14.
*“Texas Association of Women’s Clubs.” ''Texas Woman’s University: Woman’s Collection''. &nbsp; www.twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16283coll10.&nbsp; Accessed April 19, 2019.
*Winegarten, Ruthe. ''Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph.'' Austin: [[University of Texas Press]], 1995.


==External links ==
== External links ==
'''Government & Non-Profit Sites'''
*[http://www.georgetown-texas.org/Jessie_Daniel_Ames.htm Historical Sketch]
*[http://www.georgetown-texas.org/Jessie_Daniel_Ames.htm Historical Sketch]

{{Lynching in the United States}}
{{Lynching in the United States}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}
Line 44: Line 79:
[[Category:Converts to Methodism]]
[[Category:Converts to Methodism]]
[[Category:Southwestern University alumni]]
[[Category:Southwestern University alumni]]
[[Category:Suffragists from Texas]]

Latest revision as of 02:26, 26 March 2024

Jessie Daniel Ames
Born(1883-11-02)November 2, 1883
Palestine, Texas, U.S.
DiedFebruary 21, 1972(1972-02-21) (aged 88)
Austin, Texas, U.S.
Burial placeI.O.O.F. Cemetery, Georgetown, Texas
Alma materSouthwestern University
Occupation(s)Suffragist and Civil Rights Activist
Known forFounder of Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching

Jessie Daniel Ames (November 2, 1883 – February 21, 1972) was a suffragist and civil rights leader from Texas who helped create the anti-lynching movement in the American South. She was one of the first Southern white women to speak out and work publicly against lynching of African Americans, murders which white men claimed to commit in an effort to protect women's "virtue." Despite risks to her personal safety, Ames stood up to these men and led organized efforts by white women to protest lynchings. She gained 40,000 signatures of Southern white women to oppose lynching, helping change attitudes and bring about a decline in these murders in the 1930s and 1940s.[1]

Biography

[edit]

Ames was born Jessie Harriet Daniel in Palestine, Texas, on November 2, 1883. Her mother was Laura Maria Leonard and her father was James Malcolm Daniel. In 1893, the family moved to Georgetown, Texas.[2] Ames was admitted to the Ladies Annex of Southwestern University at the age of 13 and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1902. After graduation, she moved with her family to Laredo, Texas.[2] Ames followed her mother and sister and converted to Methodism despite her father's objection as a nonbeliever. She had joined them in church activities from an early age.[3]

In 1905, Ames married Roger Post Ames, a surgeon in the United States Army, who had worked with Walter Reed in Cuba to prove that mosquitoes caused malaria.[3] During much of their unhappy marriage, Roger Ames lived in Central America where he worked as a physician to the American Consul and the United Fruit Company.[3] Roger Ames died in 1914 in Guatemala from blackwater fever.[2][3]

Ames had a son and two daughters, the last of whom was born in 1914 after her husband's death.[3] After the death of her father in 1911, Ames helped her mother run the family's telephone company in Georgetown.[2] She also became involved with several Methodist women's groups. This led to her initial participation in the women's suffrage movement.[3]

Suffrage movement and League of Women Voters

[edit]

In 1916, Ames organized the Georgetown Equal Suffrage League and became its first president. She also wrote a weekly suffrage article in the Williamson County Sun newspaper called "Woman Suffrage Notes."[2] Ames became a protégé of Minnie Fisher Cunningham, the president of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA). In 1918, Ames was elected treasurer of the TESA.[2]

Texas became the first Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment in June 1919. In October 1919, Ames founded the Texas League of Women Voters and served as its first president until 1923.[4] In 1923, she represented the national League of Women Voters at the Pan American Congress.[2] She also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1920, 1924, and 1928.[2] Ames served in several other organizations including the Texas branch of the American Association of University Women, Texas Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, and the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs. She was an officer of the Joint Legislative Council in Texas, also known as the Petticoat Lobby, and was on the Board of Education of the Women's Division of the Methodist Church.[2] In 1924, Ames became the director of the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) based in Atlanta. In 1929, she moved to Atlanta to become the national director of the CIC Woman's Committee.[2]

Crockett State School

[edit]

The project to create a home and training school for delinquent African American girls was one of the few instances of interracial cooperation among Texas women. Between 1916 and 1945, the Texas Federation of Colored Women's Clubs (TACWC) campaigned for the creation of the institution and offered to donate the land.[5]

In 1923, the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and the Joint Legislative Council, both white women's organizations, endorsed the concept. That year, the TACWC raised $2,000 for the down payment on a home. The organization bought land in San Antonio and was able to offer $5,500 as a downpayment.[5]

In 1926, Ames toured the state speaking on behalf of the project to white women's organizations. The Texas legislature passed a bill in 1927 creating the home and school for delinquent black girls but made no appropriations.[5]

It took 18 years before the Texas legislature approved funding. In 1945, the legislature appropriated $60,000 to establish the Brady State School for Negro Girls located in a former prisoner of war camp near Brady, Texas. In 1950, the school relocated to Crockett, Texas, and was renamed the Crockett State School for Girls.[5]

Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching

[edit]

In 1930, Ames, with the CIC's financial help, founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL) with headquarters in Atlanta.[6] The organization excluded African American women[6] and appealed directly to white Southern women to stop lynching. The ASWPL secured the signatures of 40,000 Southern women on its 'Pledge Against Lynching' (see below). Despite encountering hostile opposition and threats of violence, the women conducted petition drives, lobbying and fundraising across the South to work against lynching.[7] By 1940, more than 100 women's organizations had joined the movement against lynching.[6]

Pledge:

We declare lynching is an indefensible crime, destructive of all principles of government, hateful and hostile to every ideal of religion and humanity, debasing and degrading to every person involved...[P]ublic opinion has accepted too easily the claim of lynchers and mobsters that they are acting solely in defense of womanhood. In light of the facts we dare no longer to permit this claim to pass unchallenged, nor allow those bent upon personal revenge and savagery to commit acts of violence and lawlessness in the name of women. We solemnly pledge ourselves to create a new public opinion in the South, which will not condone, for any reason whatever, acts of mobs or lynchers. We will teach our children at home, at school and at church a new interpretation of law and religion; we will assist all officials to uphold their oath of office; and finally, we will join with every minister, editor, school teacher and patriotic citizen in a program of education to eradicate lynchings and mobs forever from our land.[8]

Ames opposed a federal anti-lynching law and advocated instead for individual state laws outlawing lynching.[3] Senators from the South filibustered the proposed federal Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which was advocated by an African American women's group called the Anti-Lynching Crusaders. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had created the Anti-Lynching Crusaders in 1922 to mobilize support for the Dyer Bill.[3] White Democrats from the Solid South commanded powerful congressional positions due to the disenfranchisement of African Americans across the South. Senator Tom Connally of Texas used a letter written to him from Ames to show widespread Southern opposition to the federal bill. Ames intended the letter to be private in order to allow her to speak out in opposition to lynching when the bill failed.[3]

Ames served as the director of the ASWPL until 1942. By February 1937, 81 state, regional and national organizations had endorsed the anti-lynching platform of the ASWPL. That year, the CIC was replaced by the Southern Regional Council.[2] The number of lynchings decreased as the Great Depression came to an end, although notable lynchings took place in the postwar era, including of black men in uniform.[9]

Death and legacy

[edit]

Ames retired to Tryon, North Carolina, before returning to Texas in 1968 to live with her younger daughter.[2] Jessie Daniel Ames died of pneumonia on February 21, 1972, in Austin, Texas. She is buried in the family plot in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Georgetown, Texas.[2]

In 1985, the Jessie Daniel Ames Lecture Series began at Southwestern University. Her career as an activist for suffrage and against lynching was the subject of the Freshman Symposium at Southwestern University in 1985 and the Brown Symposium at the university in 1986.[2]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. "Antilynching Campaign" excerpted from The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States. [1] Accessed 15 January 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Jon D. Swartz, “Jessie Harriet Daniel Ames” in Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, ed. Texas Women and the Vote. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2019, pp. 13-14.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt Against Chivalry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
  4. ^ Dorothy Brown, “Sixty Five Going on Fifty: A History of the League of Women Voters of Texas, 1903-1969.” MS. League of Women Voters Files. Austin, Texas. 1969. Accessed on April 13, 2019. www.my.lwv.org/texas/history.
  5. ^ a b c d “Texas Association of Women’s Clubs,” Texas Woman’s University: Woman’s Collection.   www.twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16283coll10.  Accessed April 19, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c Ruthe Winegarten, Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
  7. ^ Angela Y. Davis, Women, Race & Class. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p.194
  8. ^ Angela Y. Davis, Women, Race & Class. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, pp. 194-195
  9. ^ "Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans". Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved 2019-09-23.

Sources

[edit]
  • Brown, Dorothy. “Sixty Five Going on Fifty:  A History of the League of Women Voters of Texas, 1903-1969.” Manuscript. League of Women Voters files, Austin, 1969. Accessed on www.my.lwv.org/texas/history 4.13.2019.
  • Bowman, John S. The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. P. 15.
  • Davis, Angela Y. Women, Race & Class. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. Pp. 194–195.
  • Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. "Live Through Time: Second Thoughts on Jessie Daniel Ames", pp. 140–158 in The Challenge of Feminist Biography: Writing the Lives of Modern American Women, Sara Alpern, Joyce Antler, Elizabeth Perry Israels, and Ingrid Winther Scobie, eds. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
  • Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. Revolt Against Chivalry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
  • "Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans." Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved 2019-09-23. Accessed at https://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans.
  • Reid, Daniel G. et al. Dictionary of Christianity in America. Westmont, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8308-1776-X.
  • Swartz, Jon D. “Jessie Harriet Daniel Ames” in Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, ed. Texas Women and the Vote. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2019, pp. 13–14.
  • “Texas Association of Women’s Clubs.” Texas Woman’s University: Woman’s Collection.   www.twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16283coll10.  Accessed April 19, 2019.
  • Winegarten, Ruthe. Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jessie_Daniel_Ames&oldid=1215599873"