Nellie Francis: Fighting for Racial Justice and Women's Equality in Minnesota

Description

The life and work of an African American suffragist and activist devoted to equality and freedom At her last public appearance in 1962, at 88 years old, a frail, deaf, and blind Nellie Francis was honored for her church and community service in Nashville, Tennessee. No mention was made of her early groundbreaking work as an activist in Minnesota and nationally. Even today, while her advocacy for women's suffrage and racial justice resonates through current issues, her efforts remain largely unrecognized. In telling Nellie Francis's complete story for the first time, William D. Green finally brings the remarkable accomplishments of her complicated life into clear view, detailing her indefatigable work to advance the causes of civil rights, anti-lynching, and women's suffrage. Green's account follows Francis's path from her first public event (giving a speech on race relations to a white audience at her high school graduation) to her return to Nashville and retirement from the national stage. In the years between, she campaigned in Minnesota for racial dignity, women's suffrage, an anti-lynching law (after the infamous lynching in Duluth in 1920), and interracial collaboration through the women's club movement. She came to know most of the prominent civil rights leaders of the twentieth century and met three presidents and countless business leaders of both Black and white societies. But she also faced intense and vicious reprisals, as when, as leader of the local chapter of the NAACP, she and her husband, a prominent African American civil rights lawyer, experienced the fury of the Ku Klux Klan after moving into a white neighborhood in St. Paul. Green retrieves Nellie Francis's story from obscurity, giving this pioneer for gender and racial equality her due and providing a long-awaited service to the history of Black activism and civil rights, both regional and national. His book offers welcome insight into the universal, yet often unacknowledged, challenges that strong and engaged Black women are forced to endure when their drive to enact justice confronts racism, cultural pressure, and societal expectations.

William D. Green is professor of history at Augsburg University and author of A Peculiar Imbalance: The Rise and Fall of Racial Equality in Minnesota, 1837-1869, as well as Degrees of Freedom: The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1912 and The Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity in Minnesota, 1860-1876, both of which received the Hognander Minnesota History Award. All of these books are published by University of Minnesota Press.

"William D. Green's book is a must-read. The life of Nellie Francis and her struggle for racial justice reflects the stories of many African American women in the United States. Nellie's story also reminds us of the limited friendship and courage many 'white friends' have when that courage is critically needed. I urge everyone to read this book and study the lessons shared."-Josie R. Johnson, author of Hope in the Struggle "Strikingly relevant . . . William D. Green explores [Nellie Francis's] life in great detail, touching on the importance of family bonds, the Black community, and advocacy in the face of racism and sexism."-Minnesota Monthly "Nellie Griswold Francis' amazing 95-year life long has been eclipsed by Billy Francis' equally remarkable story. Now Augsburg University history Prof. William D. Green has written a book that puts Nellie front and center."-Star Tribune "Green's book gets in-depth into the context of the times - which offers historical weight to the issues we still face today."-Minnesota Women's Press "[An] intense, in-depth study of this complex woman, her accomplishments, and the milieu of African Americans in Minnesota during the late 19th and early 20th centuries."-Insight News "One of the oddest-and ultimately most thrilling-aspects of reading this biography involves marveling at how Green reconstructs Francis' psyche by exploring the themes and events that swirled around it... In showing her purposes for lingering at times in the background, Green has moved Francis back to the center of the frame where she belongs."-Community Reporter