Elsie Johnson McDougald on "The Double Task: The Struggle of Negro Women for Sex and Race Emancipation"

Abstract: Through a range of political, social, and organizational venues, African-American women struggled to participate in the racial awareness and pride that characterized the "New Negro" movement of the 1920s. Alain Locke's important 1925 compilation of Harlem Renaissance writings, The New Negro , included an essay by Elise Johnson McDougald, a prominent black educator, social investigator, and journalist. McDougald's essay, originally published in the Survey , employed socioeconomic analysis to explore the particular problems, as well as contributions to society, of four groups of black women, from wealthy to working-class. Seeking to repudiate the monolithic way in which black women were perceived and represented by white America, McDougald not only focused on economics but also challenged stereotypical representations of blacks in the arts and advertising, as well as those surrounding black women's sexuality.

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