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African American mother and children in peach vignette, c. 1885. Smithsonian American Art Museum. As Black parents attempted to reunify their families in the wake of gradual emancipation, institutionalization, and indenture in the early nineteenth century, the discourse on Black child-rearing evolved to reflect their daily activism. The treatment of African American children and the activism of their parents were often led by Black women, who renegotiated racialized constructions of motherhood depicting “deviant,” powerless Black mothers. In their actions and discourse, northern African American women represented Black motherhood in ways that led to the development of radical forms of abolitionist activism and early Black feminism. Within their gendered constraints, northern African American women challenged the very constructions of motherhood by assigning political authority to their embodiments of maternal care.

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