Overview

Illuminating the activism of Black women during Cuba’s prerevolutionary period In Black Women, Citizenship, and the Making of Modern Cuba, Takkara Brunson traces how women of African descent battled exclusion on multiple fronts and played an important role in forging a modern democracy. Brunson takes a much-needed intersectional approach to the political history of the era, examining how Black women’s engagement with questions of Cuban citizenship intersected with racial prejudice, gender norms, and sexual politics, incorporating Afro-diasporic and Latin American feminist perspectives.Brunson demonstrates that between the 1886 abolition of slavery in Cuba and the 1959 Revolution, Black women—without formal political power—navigated political movements in their efforts to create a more just society. She examines how women helped build a Black public sphere as they claimed moral respectability and sought racial integration. She reveals how Black women entered into national women’s organizations, labor unions, and political parties to bring about legal reforms. Brunson shows how women of African descent achieved individual victories as part of a collective struggle for social justice; in doing so, she highlights how racism and sexism persisted even as legal definitions of Cuban citizenship evolved.

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9781683403739

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Brunson's study of over 75 years of complex change . . . does its intellectual work from a distinct and critical vantage. . . . Her work innovatively centers racial analysis by locating the Afro-descended women contributing to political discourse across a range of mediums and carefully piecing together their contributions. -Hispanic American Historical Review What distinguishes this study of race and gender in early Republican Cuba is its nuanced focus on how Black male veterans, elite white women's civic clubs, and women of African descent shaped different citizenship practices in the public sphere. -Choice In putting together this compelling story, Brunson undertook research in archives in Cuba and the United States. . . . Brunson builds on the work of Latin American and Cuban history as well as Black feminist scholarship to center Black women as critical protagonists in the struggle for Black rights and freedom. -New Books Network

Brunson's study of over 75 years of complex change . . . does its intellectual work from a distinct and critical vantage. . . . Her work innovatively centers racial analysis by locating the Afro-descended women contributing to political discourse across a range of mediums and carefully piecing together their contributions. --Hispanic American Historical Review What distinguishes this study of race and gender in early Republican Cuba is its nuanced focus on how Black male veterans, elite white women's civic clubs, and women of African descent shaped different citizenship practices in the public sphere. --Choice In putting together this compelling story, Brunson undertook research in archives in Cuba and the United States. . . . Brunson builds on the work of Latin American and Cuban history as well as Black feminist scholarship to center Black women as critical protagonists in the struggle for Black rights and freedom. --New Books Network

Author Information

Takkara K. Brunson is assistant professor of Africana studies at California State University, Fresno.

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