Talbert’s Anti-Lynching Activism

Talbert earned her place in history through her work with the NACW and NAACP to end lynching. After the Civil War, black and white women created literary and self-improvement clubs to teach those denied a college education. In the 1890s, this club movement evolved from social and literary pursuits to social justice and activism following the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow and lynching. For black women, the black women’s club movement was an intellectual discourse in response to the idea that the black race was inferior and marked an organized effort towards racial uplift. One such club was the National Association of Colored Women, established in 1896. The club’s motto, “lifting as we climb,” reflects the organization’s commitment to raise public perception of black women and to uphold their moral integrity. Talbert fought for first-class citizenship as a committed member and two-term president of the NACW, as well as the vice president and director of the NAACP.

At the time Talbert was active, to take a stand against white terror is a huge risk. After their military defeat, many members of the Confederacy and white terror organizations were able to gain positions of power in local politics and work their way up to the federal level. Through the use of intimidation, threats, sexual violence, public beatings, home invasions, torture, mutilation, lynching, and arson, Southerners defined the meaning of freedom for African Americans in the South. Strategically designed to be spontaneous and to strike fear, Southerners used white terror to undermine African American autonomy and reestablish a social system in which African Americans were placed at the bottom. Protected by their political positions of power, perpetrators of white terror were not held accountable for the violence they inflicted. Talbert worked tirelessly in the last years of her life to hold the perpetrators of white terror and the passive American government accountable, both nationally and internationally, for the widespread mob violence and rampant violations of African American rights.

In her 1920 speech presented to the International Council of Women, Talbert argued that African Americans would enjoy freedom and equality in America either through black resistance to white efforts to subjugate them or through a change in white behavior long overdue. Talbert first defined democracy as, “a country where just laws are enforced and color should not count.”[2] She then described the problem America faces: “To our shame, we have permitted the government, in a section of our country, to sanction violence and mob law.”[3] Based on her definition, the American government had failed in being a democracy by sanctioning violence and mob law and failing “to enforce the law of the nation, the Constitution, impartially in every section of the country”.[4] Talbert continued, asserting that, “Here is where our strength will be shown in its greatest might…Mob law will go for many reasons, just because those who are being mobbed will no longer submit to it.”.[5] In this statement, Talbert rejected an accommodationist strategy for racial uplift and implied that the black race had also given accommodation up. No longer would African Americans rely on self-help and accept segregation, inequality, and discrimination. Instead, she claimed African Americans would embrace an integrationist strategy and actively resist the racial subjugation white Americans employed with violence and mob law.

But Talbert’s words went further than just indicating her subscription to integrationist thought. They also revealed the lengths to which she was willing to go for freedom. With her next breath she said that, “They are determined that mobbing must cease or the government must fail”.[6] In this sentence, Talbert threatened white America, and the white Southern delegates in attendance, with rebellion. Either white Americans stopped using violence and mob law against African Americans, or the government would fail as a result of black resistance. That Talbert meant the government would fail due to the actions of African Americans is clear from her use of the word “determined”. Saying that African Americans are “determined…the government must fail” implies there will be resolute action on the part of the subject.

She further argued that, “What he helped to do for others that they may be free [in World War I], he will do the same and more for himself, in order that he and his people may live and enjoy real democracy as other races.”[7] It is clear from this sentence that unless white America recognized and treated African Americans as equals, the fight for the freedom of others that African American soldiers began in World War I would continue at home. As she served in the war as a Red Cross nurse, and thus “helped to do for others that they may be free”, Talbert implicated herself in the coming rebellion. Returning from the war to a country entrenched in white anti-black violence that was sanctioned by the government and destined to both keep and remind African Americans of their subordination, Talbert would have found that the idealistic rhetoric of fighting to make the world safe for democracy rang false for African Americans. Her most recent experience with the white Southern delegates would have only increased this feeling.    

            Talbert offered as another reason for why the end of mob law in America is imminent, that, “The spirit of righteousness and fair play in the majority of the white race will not permit it to live a lie, but will see to it that every race in America will have self-determining democracy on the same basis.”[8] This statement may, at first glance, seem to show Talbert contradict herself; she threatened rebellion if the white race should fail to meet her demand for freedom then proclaimed with absolute conviction that the majority of the white race will not permit racial inequality in America to continue but “will see to it”. If she truly believed this was the case, then why warn white Americans of the consequences of their inaction? Talbert spoke with such conviction here not because she believed the majority of white Americans to be righteous, but as a strategic move.

Born less than a year after the end of the Civil War, the memory of slavery was barely even a memory yet in American society. For slavery to have existed up until so recently, the majority of the white race could not have had a “spirit of righteousness and fair play”. Talbert made this assertion instead to strategically trap the white race in a binary which threatens their idea of their identity. If the majority of the white race wanted to consider themselves as virtuous, or with a “spirit of righteousness and fair play”, then they had to resist and “see to it that every race in America will have self-determining democracy on the same basis”. If truly virtuous, then that spirit white Americans claimed to possess would not “permit them to live a lie” and sit idly by in silence. Unless action was taken to remedy the inequality in America, the majority of the white race could not be considered fair or righteous. Talbert was taking advantage of white people’s moral righteousness, namely white Northerners, to force them to action or face their hypocrisy, which would have the effect of undermining their identity.

Moving from addressing white Americans more specifically, Talbert appealed to the world at large when she said that, “The black race of America is asking that the races of the world recognize them as part of God’s great human family–possessed with the same endowments of reason, virtue and ambition that others have.”[9] She argued that, “Because of the superior opportunity you women of the other races have, you are duty bound to lift your voices against the ills that afflict your sisters of color, both in America and elsewhere.”[10] Talbert’s statement that African Americans are “asking” for the recognition of their humanity implicitly gave those being asked all the power, as they get to decide the identity of African Americans as humans. However, in the next sentence with the use of the phrase “duty bound”, she informed the women of the other races that they have no power over whether they recognize African American humanity. Yet again Talbert used language which left her directed audience no room for any choice or action other than what she argued the black race deserves and will get. Through this language, Talbert both asserted her individual power and the power of the black race in general, as well as informed the non-black races in the audience of their lack of power over the question of African American freedom and humanity.

The strategic rhetoric Talbert deployed in her powerful message had a significant impact on the anti-lynching cause. As the NACW noted, “this speech secured for her and for us, the opening of the daily papers, in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and other foreign countries.”[11] These publications spread Talbert’s words to the wider international community, allowing her to speak on behalf of the civil rights cause to more than the women in attendance. The dissemination of her speech inspired international support, increasing the pressure on America to make a change in the face of rising international criticism.[12]

Talbert translated the sentiment she expressed so powerfully in Norway into action in 1922 when, as Chairman of the NAACP’s Anti-Lynching Committee, she launched a crusade for the end of lynching with the passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. In a 1922 letter to W.E.B. Du Bois, saved in his archive, Talbert detailed what progress she had made in the anti-lynching crusade. She wrote that “I believe that I am going to put this crusade across. I may not get a million women but I will come pretty close to it…I am now working on the white women and I have lassoed all of the Colored women.”[13] Talbert’s words reveal the crucial role she had in the national campaign to end lynching. Her use of “I” instead of “we” indicates that she is the leader mainly responsible for the efforts to support the Anti-Lynching bill. Her use of “I” again when stating that she is “working on the white women” and has already “lassoed all of the Colored women” indicates that the success of these efforts is solely due to her “work” and “lassoing”. Since she stated she is close to her goal of one million women and is now, after securing the support of black women, going to turn her attention to white women, the nearly one million participants she had rallied must be majority black. To rally nearly a million women, the majority of whom are black, to resist white terror in this time period is an incredible feat. As the public leader spearheading the Dyer Anti-Lynching Campaign, Talbert risked her safety, as did every participant in this resistance campaign. Southern hostility towards the NAACP was formidable, as the political, economic, and social life of the very people whom Talbert was attempting to organize was largely controlled by whites.[14] That Talbert was able to “work on” and “lasso” nearly a million black women to also risk their lives is therefore a testament to Talbert’s skill and influence. It is also an example of her importance in and impact on the civil rights movement, as uniting nearly a million women to fight for civil rights is hugely helpful to the cause.  

[1] Talbert, Mary B. Letter from Mary B. Talbert to W. E. B. Du Bois, August 31, 1922. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

[2] Morris, Aldon D. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. The Free Press. 1984. Pp. 15

[1] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The International Council of Women”. The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Vol. 21, no. 2. Dec. 1920, pp. 57

[2] Speech at Norwegian Storting, September 1920, by Mary B. Talbert. In National Association Notes, Vol. 23, no. 1-3, Oct.-Dec. 1920, pp. 11-13

[3] Ibidem

[4] Ibidem

[5] Ibidem

[6] Ibidem

[7] Ibidem

[8] Ibidem

[9] Ibidem

[10] Ibidem

[11] Ibidem

[12] Ibidem

[13] Talbert, Mary B. Letter from Mary B. Talbert to W. E. B. Du Bois, August 31, 1922. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

[14] Morris, Aldon D. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. The Free Press. 1984. Pp. 15