Utz McKnight has done a masterful job in providing a comprehensive and theoretical framework for Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s life and work. A rich body of four novels, numerous essays, several volumes of poems, speeches, and letters marks Harper’s life of 40 years of political activism. Through McKnight’s lens, Harper’s political thought and ideology of radical equalitarianism come to light, illuminating her ideas of racial equality, freedom, and justice. Harper emerges as one of the most significant political thinkers of the nineteenth century and beckons us to define and redefine our notions of a democratic vision of America. As the historical retrieval of Harper’s corpus of work has been moving apace over the last couple of decades, and certainly McKnight’s work will be part of that renaissance effort, Harper’s forceful critique concerning gender and racial equality still holds sway. Shaped by her passion and ardor in the midst of the struggle for Black freedom, Harper’s thesis was that African Americans, free or enslaved, were inextricably linked to each other and, in that unity, could both fight for the freedom of the slaves, a goal central and paramount to Harper’s view of justice and righteousness, and embrace a democratic vision for all Americans. Frequently lending her support for mass political action, it was Harper who contributed monies and words of comfort to John Brown’s widow after his death. Equally so, it was Harper who sent funds to the other men who had been a part of John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry. Seen as far more progressive than some of the other activists of her day, Harper believed that political violence would be necessary to achieve the immediate emancipation of the slaves.

The historical retrieval of the life and writings of France Ellen Watkins Harper by Black feminist scholars, researchers, and librarians has heightened attention to Harper’s political activism and her place at the epicenter of the struggle for social causes in the nineteenth century. Occupying many vantage points as a public speaker, writer, novelist, poet, organizer, and activist and known for her “fiery” speeches, Harper was a noted voice in the public square of meetinghouses, lecture halls, and churches where few women stood their ground. Making strategic use of the public space, Harper’s triple passions—ending slavery and achieving racial and gender equality—became her hallmark. She was a favorite among the abolitionists, and announcements of her coming speeches brought the crowd out. Men and women gathered and bought her books of poems as well. Along with Sojourner Truth, with both women often appearing in a double bill, she would also find a ready audience for the narrative of her life and the images it conjured. As McKnight shows, through Harper’s passion, commitment, and zeal, she became one of the dominant political thinkers of her time. A tireless advocate for abolitionism and the women’s rights movement, she provided her labors as well to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

Aptly subtitled A Call to Conscience, McKnight’s book centers Harper in the midst of the political discourse on the freedom struggle that shaped the antebellum and postbellum eras and the second half of the nineteenth century. She counted such activists as Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Jarena Lee, and Zilpha Elaw as friends. Honed by decades of struggle, Harper’s analysis of a flawed democratic nation that was grounded in slavery, racism, and sexism still has contemporary relevance. Her notions of equality still run counterpoint to the exclusionary practices of racism and sexism that continue today. It is the silence of the texts over the last half-century and the corresponding resurrection of Harper’s work by feminist scholars that inform Utz McKnight’s work, giving it such depth of scholarship.

As McKight carefully chronicles, Harper was born a free Black woman in 1825 in Baltimore, where she grew up in an environment steeped in racial conflict and the oppression of Black people. On the one hand, America grappled with slavery and the status of free Blacks that had yet to be clearly defined, and on the other, the nation espoused a burgeoning democratic ideal. Black life in Baltimore was heavily circumscribed by these complexities, and few free Blacks could escape the double burden it imposed on the collective psyche. Free blacks living in a slave state had the double burden of fighting for the freedom of slaves and becoming stalwart champions for the emancipatory causes of guaranteeing citizenship rights to free Americans. With their fight for citizenship rights starting in the antebellum era, free Blacks would need decades of struggle to see their dreams realized.

As a young woman, Harper’s developing social consciousness was imbued with the tentative social status of free Blacks and a social mission to free the slaves. Living with her aunt and her uncle William Watkins, a well-known abolitionist and speaker, Harper benefited from their home library, as well as the cross-fertilization of ideas of abolitionists who were frequent guests. It was the fusion of abolitionism and the challenge to black women posed by ecclesiastical sexism in the Black church that grounded and expanded Harper’s analysis not only of racism but also of the sexism that had such a great impact on Black life. Such visitors as Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman shaped many of her ideas and thinking about these issues. All of these women were public speakers, but Jarena Lee and Zilpha Elaw were also itinerant ministers and partners on the “Sisters in God” circuit, preaching around the country and spreading the good news. Feeling empowered by God, not man, these female evangelists spoke out on the issues of slavery, racism, and sexism to biracial audiences. Frequently harassed by law enforcement, as well as by other whites, these women remained firm in their resolve.

McKnight describes how, although influenced by the moral suasions argument that the American conscience would be awakened by the immorality of slavery, Harper advocated participating in mass political action, economic boycotts, and civil disobedience as means that would help end slavery. Harper believed that it was not enough to offer sympathy: one must engage in action to bring down the institution. Her reputation as a public speaker was fueled by her wildly popular book, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, which sold thousands of copies and by 1871 was into its twentieth edition. African American newspapers such as the Frederick Douglass’ Monthly, the Anglo-African Magazine, and The Christian Recorder carried her essays, short stories, and serialized novels. Harper donated most of the article fees she received to William Still, dubbed the “Father of the Underground Railroad,” to aid in the cause.

As McKnight shows, although the struggle for emancipation was central to Harper’s political activism, the struggle for women’s rights captured her passion as well; she also integrated her advocacy for temperance into her speeches. Harper joined both Black and white women’s organizations. Although she acknowledged the racism in white women’s groups, she saw the usefulness of coalition building and was an active participant in the American Equal Rights Association, as well as the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women’s Christian Temperance Union. For Harper, the grace was in political struggle. Utz McKnight’s book has done justice to her ongoing legacy.