Inheritors of the Spirit: Mary White Ovington and the Founding of the NAACP [Paperback]

Carolyn Wedin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 1999

"By highlighting the life of a key figure in the NAACP Wedin has given us a welcome addition to the literature of that organization."--Library Journal

"In its densely researched, sensitively interpreted, and crisply written evocation of her subject's career, Professor Wedin's biography opens a wide window onto much of the inner life of the NAACP as it evolves from a virtual one-person show scripted by the incomparable (and sometimes insufferable) Du Bois through the unflappable stewardship of James Weldon Johnson and the manic operational brilliance of Walter White to become, in classic Weberian progression, a well-honed bureaucracy of lawyers, accountants, field secretaries, and lobbyists--and, overwhelmingly, of African Americans . . . a vibrant, valuable chronicle of an eighty-year dedication to economic, racial, and gender justice."--from the Foreword by David Levering Lewis

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Born in Brooklyn in 1865, Mary White Ovington carried, throughout her long life, a fine sense of the abolitionist spirit that had so quickened her parents' generation. A lively but somewhat unfocused intellectual, she drifted through social circles and movements until, at the age of 36, she met the African American educator Booker T. Washington and, shortly afterward, the activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Her eyes, writes Carolyn Wedin, opened wider when she took a tour of the South in 1906, in the wake of a series of bloody race riots. Ovington returned to New York convinced that matters could improve for African Americans only through well-coordinated political organization that would demand, among other things, voting rights and social justice. In 1909, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, Ovington issued a call to renew the struggle for political and civil liberty. Organizing parades, antilynching protests, and conferences, the resultant National Association for the Advancement of Colored People became an important vehicle for the emerging civil rights movement, one whose leaders and members endured many hardships as they spread their message across the country. As Inheritors of the Spirit reveals, Ovington's life stands as an example of moral courage and dedication to a noble cause. --Gregory McNamee

From Library Journal

By highlighting the life of a key figure in the NAACP who until now has been largely treated as a footnote, Wedin (English, Univ. of Wisconsin at Whitewater) has given us a welcome addition to the literature on that organization. Mary White Ovington was born into relative privilege and comfort at the end of the Civil War and like other members of her class had a "hatred of dirt, odor, [and] ill health." But unlike most of her peers, rather than avoid these problems she dedicated her life to doing something about them. Through her work in settlement houses, she saw that the problems facing poor African Americans were different from those facing their white counterparts. Other settlement workers either failed to recognize or failed to act on America's "race problem," but Ovington made it her life's work. As a founding member of the NAACP and a lifelong advocate of integration, she distinguished herself as a leader in the fight for social, racial, and economic equality. Wedin also explores Ovington's lifelong relationship to the organization she helped found and with such notable figures as W.E.B. DuBois and the journalist Oswald Garrison Villard. Highly recommended.?Roseanne Castellino, D'Youville Coll. Lib., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 367 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (February 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471327247
• ISBN-13: 978-0471327240
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,227,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.