In Black and White

Our problem is not racial, but human and economic. . . . We hold the Negro racially responsible for conditions common to all races on his economic plane. The writings of reformer Lily Hardy Hammond (1859-1925) are filled with such forthright criticisms of southern white attitudes toward African Americansenough so that her stature as a southern progressive thinker would seem assured. Yet Hammond, who once stood at the intellectual center of the southern womens social gospel movement and was in her time the Souths most prolific female writer on the race question, has been marginalized. This volume reprints In Black and White, the most important of Hammonds ten books, along with a sampling of the dozens of articles she published. Elna C. Greens biographical introduction tells of Hammonds marriage to a prominent Methodist minister and educator. It also traces Hammonds career within the context of prevailing gender and racial attitudes in the Jim Crow South. Hammond, who had roots in Methodist home mission work, was also active in such secular and ecumenical organizations as the Southern Sociological Congress, the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Hammond worked alongside blacks to promote education, improve living conditions, and stop lynching. As a suffragist and temperance advocate, she urged the leaders of those largely white womens movements to partner with African Americans. Historians of religion, social science, and race relations will welcome the reintroduction of this remarkable but virtually forgotten figure.