Frances Ellen Watkins Harper wore many hats throughout her illustrious life. The pioneer is not well known but during the 19th century, she was a household name. 

Here we retell only a fraction of this trailblazer's extraordinary life. 

Resources:

1. Bell, Janet Dewart. “Blackbirds Singing: inspiring Black women's speeches from the Civil War to the twenty-first century.” pp. 25-34 New York: The New Press, 2024. 
2. Petrino, Elizabeth A.  "We are rising as a people": Frances Harper's radical views on class and racial equality in Sketches of Southern Life" (2005). English Faculty Publications. 71.  https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/english-facultypubs/71
3.  Still, William. “The underground railroad. A record of facts, authentic narratives, letters &c., narrating the hardships, hair-breadth escapes, and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom.” Philadelphia, Pa., Porter & Coates, 1872.
4. Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn.  “African American Woman and the Struggle for the Vote, 1850 - 1920,” Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press,1998.

Black Suffragist in the Spotlight is written and produced by Jennifer Rolle. Music: “Passage” by Moija (Uppbeat); “Future” and “Good Feelings” by Aleksandr Shamaluev (Ashamevalue Music).  Cover art: Photographs of Hallie Quinn Brown and Helen Nannie Boroughs courtesy of the Library of Congress.