Cherisse Jones-Branch - Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Black Womens Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1914-1965

I would never have been able to write this book without the help and advice of friends, colleagues, and family. Elizabeth Griffin Hills scholarship was among the first I read about Arkansas home extension clubs that piqued my interest in rural Black women members. She very generously shared her digitized research from the Department of Agriculture Extension Service records housed at the National Archives in Fort Worth, Texas. John Kirk at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock unknowingly provided me with the first forum to talk about African American home demonstration agents employed by the Arkansas Agricultural Cooperative Extension Service. Further, I am extremely grateful that I was able to find my tribe when giving my first and subsequent papers at the Agricultural History Society and Rural Womens Studies Association meetings.

Soon after those early meetings, I realized that my research was going to become a book. I so appreciate the staff at Special Collections of the University of Arkansas Libraries (Fayetteville), the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock, University of Central Arkansas Archives, Conway, and the Arts and Sciences Center for Southeast Arkansas, Pine Bluff, for helping me locate little-known information about Black womens activism in rural Arkansas. The help I received from the Arkansas State Archives and the Archives Research Center, Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library in Atlanta, Georgia, proved critical to helping me flesh out my analysis of Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers, as did scholarship by Valinda Littlefield.

Melissa Walker read an early draft of the manuscript and provided substantial feedback. Her scholarship, along with that of Lu Ann Jones, Linda Ambrose, Joan Jensen, Carmen Harris, Debra Reid, and others, profoundly influenced my understanding of the rich layers and textures embedded in rural womens history. Thank you, Michael Pierce, for the information on Ethel B. Dawson. Because of the very large zip file of information you sent me, I was able to present her life as an agrarian activist at the 2019 European Rural History Organisation meeting in Paris, France. I send a special shout-out to the Delta women writers who read my essay on Dawson. Your sharp eyes and brains helped me think deeply about the many ways to frame herlife and convinced me that I am establishing a new way of exploring Black womens experiences in the rural Jim Crow South.

I certainly could not have finished this book without the staff at Arkansas State Universitys Archives and Special Collections and the Dean B. Ellis Library. They have been wonderfully patient with my many interlibrary loan requests, as well as the large volume of books I have checked out over the years. I promise to return everything as soon as this book is published!

My thanks to the readers, who labored over a very rough draft of my manuscript. I appreciate you tolerating my many mistakes and oversights. Your substantial feedback makes this a much better book.

David Scott Cunningham, I so appreciate your support of this project from the very beginning and your urging me to get it done so it could be published in 2021. I have done that. I thank you and the University of Arkansas Press for providing me with the opportunity to write about this overlooked aspect of Arkansas history.

Dr. Anes Wiley Abraham, thank you for sharing your home archives with me. Your generosity and that of my sisters in the Blytheville Social Arts Club have enriched my knowledge of Black womens activism in Mississippi County and Arkansas. To my Sorors in Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Incorporated, thank you for welcoming me back into the fold after such a long absence. You truly represent Greater Service, Greater Progress. My family and friends, of course, are more important to me than anything else in the world. Thank you for your love and support throughout this process. You inspire me more than you will ever know, and I always strive to represent you well. I hope I have made you proud.

Finally, I dedicate this book to Annie Zachary Pike, who welcomed me into her home in Marvell and into her heart. Thank you for sharing your story with me. You are a phenomenal woman, and the world should know that.