“You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a…” — Frances E. W. Harper

“You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael.”

She draws attention to the lived experience of racial injustice within the wider struggle for women's rights. · Speech, We Are All Bound Up Together, 1866

Frances E. W. Harper

About Frances E. W. Harper

24 September 1825–22 February 1911

In the rich tapestry of nineteenth-century American literature and reform, few figures shine as brightly—or with as enduring a flame—as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Born into freedom yet forged in the fires of racial injustice, she emerged as a poet of profound moral vision, a tireless abolitionist lecturer, a…

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