Kristin Waters - Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought

MARIA W. STEWART
and the
ROOTS of BLACK POLITICAL THOUGHT

Kristin Waters

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of University Presses.

Copyright 2022 by Kristin Waters

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Waters, Kristin, author.

Title: Maria W. Stewart and the roots of black political thought / Kristin Waters.

Other titles: Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies.

Description: Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2021. | Series: Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021029519 (print) | LCCN 2021029520 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-4968-3674-8 (hardback) | ISBN 978-1-4968-3675-5 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-4968-3676-2 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4968-3677-9 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4968-3678-6 (pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4968-3673-1 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Stewart, Maria W., 1803-1879. | Walker, David, 1785-1830. | African American women political activists. | African American womenHistory19th century. | African AmericansHistoryTo 1863. | African AmericansReligion. | Antislavery movementsUnited States. | African AmericansPolitics and government19th century. | African American women abolitionists.

Classification: LCC E185.97.S84 W38 2021 (print) | LCC E185.97.S84 (ebook) | DDC 323.092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021029519

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021029520

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

by Regie Gibson

Regie Gibson

Do not be fooled by paint and window frame.

Nor by landing and step the stream of electric light

by door way by concrete and tempered glass.

This building is more than building. It is body. It is bone.

It is a breathing, living ancestora soul that knows and feels.

It asks us to open ourselves to all it has witnessed.

It asks us to listento see what it has seen.

See the emaciated, newly self-emancipated

shambling through its aisles small bundles beneath

their quivering arms. See the bloodshot fear in their eyes

as they look over their shoulders for paddyrollers:

slave patrollers who would send them back into chain.

See their branded backs latticed from bullwhip

their manacle-mangled feet torn by travel and travail. Now

see the woman walk toward them

her hand a kindness of food and water.

She opens her mouth: Here and HEAR:

this Meeting House is now YOUR harbor and home.

This building that is more than building

wants us to hear the children of the Abiel Smith School

learning their lettersdeciphering the code

of written language that had been kept from their grasp.

Imagine their eyes widening as their minds

slowly unweed and begin blooming into blossom.

Feel Mariah Stewarts feminist fire. Her words: burning and blistering

invocations demanding the full and untethered inclusion of women

into the decision making body of this Republic.

Hear David Walker appealing for a vigorous black confrontation

of slavery, and insisting that whites christianize their actions

rather than merely their rhetoric!

Hear William Lloyd Garrisons abolitionist canter calling for an end

to ALL chains whether they be put on man or woman

On bodyor mind!

And, see Fredrick Douglass! Bear witness to his untamable graying head

lathered in lamplight. His determined face tight with nostril-flare

as he indicts this country for not becoming its creed.

Yes, this building is more than building!

More than brick and board.

More than wainscot and two by four.

More than hammer pound and rounded pew.

This building that is more than building is of flesh and blood!

It is an opened mouth singing of freedom!

Is black hands clapping out the rhythm

of this countrys collective heartbeat.

Is Thursday evening prayer meetings and Sunday morning saint-shouts

from congregations punctuating the preachers message

that we so much need to hear now:

Unity of purpose! Respect for each other! Resistance to injustice.

No do not be fooled these pews are still peopled by spirits!

And every rafter and wall is weighted with voices waiting to break into us

and lend us the strength to clench our separate selves into a fist raised

against

the fences erected between Justice and For ALL

Yes, this building is more than building!

It is an ancestor filled with ancestors calling us to see!

Calling us to witness!

Calling us to act.

Listen!

Her Life and Thought

I feel almost unable to address you; almost incompetent to perform the task.

Maria W. Stewart, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality (1831)

In 1831 Maria W. Stewart, ne Miller (18031879), a nearly destitute twenty-nine-year-old widow appeared at the Boston office of William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, publishers of The Liberator, a periodical destined to become the most influential antislavery newspaper in the United States. Garrison later recalled his thoughts when the young woman whom he might have presumed to be barely literate, placed:

into my hands, for criticism and friendly advice, a manuscript embodying your devotional thoughts and aspirations, and also various essays pertaining to the conditions of that class with which you were complexionally identifieda class peeled, meted out, and trodden underfoot. You will recollect if not the surprise, at least the satisfaction I expressed on examining what you had writtenfar more remarkable in those early days than it would be now, when there are so many more educated persons of color who are able to write with ability. I not only gave you words of encouragement, but in my printing office put your manuscript into type, an edition of which was struck off in tract form, subject to your order. I was impressed by your intelligence and excellence of character.