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Transcript:

00:00:00 Michele Goodwin: 

Fans and friends, welcome to The Book Club, part of our On the Issues with Michelle Goodwin at Ms. magazine platform. You know we report, rebel, and we tell it just like it is. Spring marks the launch of this special Book Club series at Ms. magazine and Ms. Studios featuring four incredible authors, Professor Dorothy Roberts, Patricia Williams, Khiara Bridges and Keisha Blaine. Their pioneering works span history, memoir, art, health, family, politics, law and reproductive justice. 

We bring this special series together highlighting the significant contributions of these four award-winning authors, among whom are two MacArthur fellows, otherwise known at MacArthur Genius Awardees. Their path-breaking research and storytelling showcase the hidden, forgotten and overlooked, giving a breathtaking look at the unexamined and the under explored. This book club series is one of our ways at Ms. Studios to reflect on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence through a lens that centers women and explores the experiences of Black women. We present to you the Ms. Book Club Spring Edition. 

Welcome to this episode of the Spring 2026 Ms. Book Club featuring my conversation with Professor Keisha Blaine, author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights. From the jacket, Without Fear tells how during American history Black women made human rights theirs from worldwide travel and public advocacy in the global Black press to their work for the United Nations. They courageously and effectively moved human rights beyond an esoteric concept to an active organizing principle.

Acclaimed historian Keisha N. Blain tells the story of these remarkable women from the well-known, like Ida B. Wells, Madam C.J. Walker and Lena Horne, to those who are still lesser known, including Pearl Sherrod, Aretha McKinley and Marguerite Cartwright. Blain captures human rights thinking and activism from the ground up with Black women at the center working outside the traditional halls of power. 

I’m your host, Michele Goodwin, and in this episode, I speak with Professor Keisha Blain about crafting and storytelling, and lifting up the visible and also the hidden stories about Black women. So, listeners sit back and take a very close listen. 

It is such a pleasure, Professor Keisha Blain, for you to be with me. Thank you so much for joining us for our Ms. Studios platform where we have both our On the Issues and our Fifteen Minutes of Feminism platforms. And as we say on Fifteen Minutes of Feminism, we count the minutes in our own feminist terms. Our guests are used to that. They’re never quite 15 minutes at all. 

You’ve written a very important book and it’s Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights. Can you…let’s level set. What’s the inspiration behind this book?

00:04:04 Keisha Blain:

Well, I started writing this book shortly after I finished my previous book on Fannie Lou Hamer, and one of the things that became quite clear to me as I was writing a biography of Hamer is that it’s important to think not only of the ways that Black women have helped to advance rights in terms of civil rights and citizenship rights, but also to grapple with the ways that they have been at the center of conversations around human rights. Rights that extend far beyond the borders of the United States, rights that are God-given protections that ultimately apply to all people everywhere. 

And I started grappling with this question when I came across a quote that Fannie Lou Hamer gave sometime in the early 1970s in which she said, “I’m no longer fighting for equal rights, I’m fighting for human rights.” And sometimes she would say it differently to suggest that she’s no longer fighting for civil rights, but she’s fighting for human rights. And I was struck by the phrase, the framing of it all. I was struck by what she explained as a shift in her perspective, in her approach, and it made me wonder what it would look like to essentially write a book that would tell the history of human rights centering Black women’s ideas and experiences. And so, that’s what I set out to do, and I’ve been able to tell this story moving far beyond Hamer. Really beginning in the early 19th century and taking the story to the 2000s. 

00:5:36 Michele Goodwin: 

So, there’s been terrific press about your book already. I’m thinking on the Smithsonian Magazine and the headline, “During the Great Depression This Black Educator Looked to Conflicts Abroad for Lessons on Fighting Racism at Home.” In the Alabama Reporter, “How Black Women with Ties to Alabama Shaped Modern Human Rights,” and Black Perspectives, “Black Women and the Making of Human Rights.” 

What’s the story, the distinction then, for those who would be unfamiliar with the distinction between what fighting for human rights happens to be in an international platform versus civil rights, especially given that there is so much American essentialism, which is that it’s right here at home, which is where it is. This is where you want to get the laws reshaped, reclassified. What’s the urgency of a human rights agenda?

00:06:34 Keisha Blain:

Well, I think when we talk about civil rights, we are very much thinking about the relationship between the individual, certainly the citizen, and the state. We’re thinking about protections that might come from, for example, the Constitution, which of course is pivotal in all of these conversations. And part of what I think African Americans were arguing, especially following the end of the Civil War, was that they needed to be treated as citizens. They needed to be recognized as such. They needed to be given access to the vote, as just one example, because that’s what all citizens should have, the ability to cast a ballot. 

And so, a lot of the conversation around the expansion of rights within U.S. history has very much been about, to your point, to make changes in the law, helping people recognize the citizenship status of Black people. And even though we understand the dynamics of race, we understand the legacies of slavery in the way that Black people have not been treated equally, and not been treated with full dignity and respect in the American society there was still an ongoing struggle to be able to make those claims and an ongoing struggle to ensure that Black people would have rights that are guaranteed to them because of their citizenship status essentially. 

Now, that is a very important conversation to have, but part of what the book is doing is moving beyond that. Not discounting the fight for civil rights and that’s part of what I’m arguing in the book is that many of these activists are thinking at multiple levels. They’re grappling with the need to expand rights on U.S. soil, that is true, but they are linking I think that particular struggle with a broader struggle and that is a question of how should someone be treated simply because they are human. And when you ask that question it means that the kinds of rights and protections you should have really move far beyond the Constitution of the United States. And so, that’s why I think the framing is so important. 

00:08:46 Michele Goodwin:

Is it also a part of the failure of the framing at home? You know, and also the exposing. Now I think about, for example, Ruby Bridges’ mom. I think that that’s not a national story that she’s trying to tell. I think that she’s trying to tell a story, she’s doing a Project 2025 before Project 2025 was thought of, but for progressive means. Right. She’s seeing…I’m going to engage in a narrative that the rest of the world is going to see and it’s going to have to force a light on the United States as to why it is that this child is having to be accompanied by people with guns in order to protect her as she goes into school and then outside of it is a mob of people, men and women, who are threatening to lynch her, you know. Would you say that part of this international project, this human rights project, right, that one as you say is even the contestation of Black people as human – 

00:09:46 Keisha Blain:

Right.

00:09:47 Michele Goodwin: 

…and we can talk about that, right. But also, it’s let the world see because we’ve tried. 

00:09:53 Keisha Blain:

Yeah.

00:09:54 Michele Goodwin:

But now you need the pressure from the rest of the world given that what’s being purported is a democracy, but can there really be a democracy when there are hoses and dogs and threats against people doing what otherwise are constitutionally protected things?

00:10:11 Keisha Blain:

Absolutely. And I think when we look at to the longer history and certainly in the aftermath of the…I think establishment of the United Nations is one pivotal example, we see so many efforts of African Americans really shaping the United States to this point, pointing out the way that Black people are not being treated with dignity and respect even as United States present itself to the rest of the world as some beacon of freedom and democracy. 

What’s interesting I think about the story that I tell, Without Fear, is that these efforts are taking place much earlier. I talk about in the 1830s decades before the abolition of slavery in the United States as someone like Maria Stewart from Boston doing exactly that, calling out to the United States, making an argument that, in fact, the way Black people are treated when we think about slavery as an institution that that in of itself is a violation of human rights. And she’s talking about human rights long before the term becomes popular in our everyday lexicon. 

So, that’s part of the story that I tell, as well as that it’s happening and it’s happening not solely in the 50s and 60s, which tend to be a lot more recognizable I think to many of us, but it’s happening decades before…decades before Black people are even recognized as citizens, before they have access to the vote as we know. I think that part of the story is just as important to emphasize. 

00:11:44 Michele Goodwin: 

Well, let’s talk about that point of human, right. Because that trajectory over time from the Antebellum Period on through Civil War and reconstruction, post Reconstruction, you begin the early part of the book, for example, in Chapter 1 talking about 1898, Ida B. Wells. So, we’ve gone through Civil War, we’ve gone through reconstruction, now we’re post Reconstruction and Ida B. Wells is having to shine a light again. So, let’s start off with the question about human. What’s the challenge there during the Antebellum Period with regard to Black folks. And I position it that way because it turns out a lot of people really seem to just not know.

00:12:26 Keisha Blain:

Yes. And here is where, of course, it’s important to talk about slavery as an institution and one of the things that’s so clear when we focus on this Antebellum Period is that quite simply Black people, certainly those who are enslaved, but I think this is extended broadly throughout the United States, they are not viewed as human. Certainly, for those who are enslaved the very framing is that they are property. We see this certainly in the context of the law, but even beyond the law and the way that people are being treated on a day-to-day basis, there is no recognition of the enslaved person’s will or decision-making process. 

We certainly talk about it now. I think as scholars we write about these themes, but when we pay attention I think to the larger history, it’s clear that those who were enslaved did not have a say and were constantly met with unrelenting violence and dehumanization. That was the essence of the slave system, the institution of slavery. So, to come from that and then talk about the need for human rights, it really is I think a powerful story and quite frankly that’s part of one of the…I think it’s one of the reasons why Maria Stewart in the 1830s faced so much resistance to her speeches and her writings and threats of violence because of her making this point. Because she was showing that this system is not only immoral, unethical, but quite frankly that there was no logic to it. Right. That ultimately all people should be treated equally and then there’s certain rights and certainly dignity and respect that all should have on the basis of their humanity and slavery as an institution attempted to strip away Black people’s personhood and certainly paid no regard to Black people’s humanity. 

Maria Stewart calls it out and then decades later we see someone like Ida B. Wells calling that out in the context of lynching and drawing the connections between the acts of lynching taking place in the U.S. and other human rights abuses that are taking place globally. 

00:14:44 Michele Goodwin:

Well, let’s talk about Ida B. Wells for a moment and her story. Ida B. Wells is really the thought leader and narrator for anti-lynching in the United States. Now, I think of Ida B. Wells as having sacrificed so much but being brilliant in her journalism and being moved to action because of what she sees around her. Could you narrate just a little bit then about starting with her in Chapter 1. Why is that? Why did you make that choice?

00:15:16 Keisha Blain:

I decided to start with her because I wanted to start with someone who would be more familiar to the reader and part of what I’m doing is reframing the narrative and helping people I think see historical figures in a new light. And so, it was important to talk about Ida B. Wells, her anti-lynching campaign, which I think so many people certainly know about. But oftentimes the way we talk about Ida B. Wells and her efforts to bring an end to lynching has a lot to do with her making appeals of the federal government asking essentially for protection. And this is very much tied to a larger discussion of citizenship rights and of course this is important for the context of the post-Civil War era. 

And what I do in that chapter is I pay attention to her writings, specifically her writings that are drawing connections between what’s happening in the United States and what’s happening in parts of the Caribbean, what’s happening in other parts of the globe because part of what she’s arguing that I think we need to pay more attention to is that acts of lynching are not only a violation in terms of citizenship rights and protections that one should expect of the federal government, but also a violation of human rights and in fact can be compared to acts of genocide that are taking place in other parts of the globe. 

She actually makes that case in several of her writings and speeches, and says so in the Black press, certainly talking to many…as she’s traveling throughout the United Kingdom. And that particular aspect of her story, I think, is important to show that once again even though the history of human rights as we know it, the mainstream narratives that are told, do not center someone like Ida B. Wells, that they should. They absolutely should because we see her drawing the connections, going far beyond U.S. borders and thinking globally in order to make a case that lynching is wrong and it’s wrong at multiple levels.

00:17:22 Michele Goodwin:

In the chapter that you began with Fannie Lou Hamer, then you also suggest that here there’s a…while we can talk about her important work, you also then go back to Elizabeth Freeman and how Elizabeth Freeman basically launches a campaign for freedom that ultimately leads to Massachusetts abandoning slavery as she articulates for her own freedom. Can you express a little bit more about that?

00:18:00 Keisha Blain:

Yes. This was important I think because even though I talk about Maria Stewart in the 1830s and Ida B. Wells in the late 19th century, part of what I’m trying to get people to see is that the claims of Black women are making that, one, it’s very much tied to even an earlier period in the history, especially when the context of the American Revolution and thinking about the discourse around liberty and part of what I’m doing and emphasizing Elizabeth Freeman’s story is to show that even though the very vision of human rights thinking around the classification of the human, that those who espoused these ideals in the 1700s, they are not thinking about Black people. 

Black people are not in the calculus, which is to say that the very framing of human rights as a concept is one in which Black people are not included from the beginning and yet someone like Elizabeth Freeman is able to stand up and say, you may not see me as part of this narrative, you may not actually believe that when you say freedom that is applies to me, but indeed it does. And to say so in a bold way and to use the law as a strategy by which to not only make this claim, but to fundamentally change the law so that there would be broad implications for Black people’s lives certainly in the state of Massachusetts. 

So, I wanted people to just think about what it means to be left out of a framework and yet attempt to shift the perspective in order to ensure that your voices are heard, even when you occupy a marginalized position. And we see the way that Black women are constantly pushed to the margins and yet, like Elizabeth Freeman, they constantly push back and they constantly assert their political power even when other people try to keep them in positions that effectively try to keep…to hold the power away from them, they still find ways to assert their agency. 

00:20:12 Michele Goodwin:

So, your book is not confined to the legacies of history, which are so critically important. You canvas throughout. So, you tell us stories that are really important to disrupt historical narratives and bring about the very clear case that Black women are articulating for freedom, for human rights, and human rights that extend not just to themselves as individuals, but they’re actually doing this collective advocacy. They may be the ones that are articulating or articulating with others, but they’re looking for the very broad application of this human rights framework that could affect and uplift others. And so, when I think about the various names throughout your book there are some that people may not have heard of and so I’m hoping that you might be able to just share one or two of the stories from people who have been important to how we are coming to understand or advocate for human rights agenda, but people don’t know their names.

00:21:18 Keisha Blain:

Yes. I introduce so many women in this book who I think really should be at the center of these conversations even though they have not been. And one of the women who I talk about in the book is a working-class Black woman by the name of Pearl Sherrod who was living in Detroit in the 1930s. I really focus on the way that someone with limited formal education, but also limited resources, how she is thinking about human rights at such an early period in the history, decades before the establishment of the United Nations, for example, but also how she’s attempting to insert her voice in a larger dialogue that’s happening transnationally. 

And she does this in a very concrete way in 1937. She travels from Detroit to Vancouver, Canada, to disrupt a conference that’s taking place. It’s a Pan Pacific [and Southeast Asia] Women’s Association conference taking place. It’s unclear how Pearl Sherrod finds out about it. She’s not invited. In fact, Black women are not invited to this gathering. It’s a gathering primarily of white women and Asian women and they’re talking about rights. They’re certainly talking about women’s rights. They’re grappling with all of these important concerns for the moment, but they don’t talk about race. They’re not thinking about racism. They’re not thinking about the legacies of slavery and all of these concerns. And yet, Pearl Sherrod shows up. 

She walks to the front, goes to the podium and she disrupts the gathering and delivers this powerful speech and it’s captured. People talk about it later. Journalists write about the moment. And the speech essentially is one in which she is calling out these women. She’s telling them this is not how you’re going to advance of peace and unity and liberty. You cannot talk about human rights if you are not also including in your calculation the experiences of Black people. And so, it’s a moment in which she admonishes them. And she points out to them, you are missing a voice here in this discussion. It makes a difference. Of course, some people are embarrassed, some people are shocked by what they’re hearing, but it moves them to actually make a change. 

And I talk about it in the book how by the following gathering they do, in fact, invite Black women to attend. And that’s a small thing in many ways, but it just shows the way that at the grassroots level an ordinary Black woman who doesn’t have a lot of resources and influence shows up in a space, speaks true to power, and it helps people see that any kind of vision of human rights isn’t completed if we’re not taking into account all the people who should be involved, especially marginalized groups and especially people of African descent who are facing a number of challenges in the 1930s certainly and throughout U.S. history. 

And so, I tell her story in this book as one way to challenge the top-down kinds of narratives to show that human rights…that the work of human rights isn’t just the work that’s taking place at the United Nations or with Amnesty International or through diplomats or those who hold official positions of power, but oftentimes an ordinary person who sees a gap in the analysis and stands up and says something.

00:24:45 Michele Goodwin:

It’s like a Fannie Lou Hamer. 

00:24:46 Keisha Blain:

Absolutely. 

00:24:48 Michele Goodwin: 

You know, as depicting that, right. And I just want to give our listeners a shoutout about that book, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, which is such an important powerful book. She is certainly one of my she-roes, heroes, all of the roes. Fannie Lou Hamer. And I’m wondering did your time with her, investigating, looking through the archives and her work, you know, did that influence how you approached the writing of this book? Was it in part inspiration for this book, especially as you have noted that she really was a global thinker and a human rights activist?

00:25:40 Keisha Blain:

Absolutely. One of the things that I learned while writing the book is that Hamer traveled to Guinea in 1964. I did not know that when I was initially starting the process of writing the book. And she talks about how transformative that experience was for her to leave the United States, to meet people, you know, on the African continent. Specifically, to have dialogues with Guinean leaders. And one of the things that I also grappled with is how it changed her political perspective. 

When she came back to the United States, she started drawing the connections between what was taking place in Mississippi and what was happening in the Congo, as just an example. And I just spent so much time thinking through how someone would essentially draw these connections, how they would think about the context in which they’re living and recognize that it’s not an isolation with what’s happening globally and see that, yes, circumstances are certainly different and Mississippi is not the Congo. 

At the same time, when we think about the larger forces, we think about legacies of slavery, legacies of Colonialism, there’s a way in which it’s simply impossible to grapple with one without at least considering the other. And I think her ability to do that really helped me think about how I might approach these women’s lives and you know I paid a lot of time, I’ve been going through women’s writings and speeches, paying close attention to how they too were thinking globally even as they were attending to the local concerns and the national concerns. So, it’s not abandoning one for the next, but it’s just having a deep sense of the, you know, I think a recognition that all of these concerns are deeply intertwined. 

And so, writing the Hamer book made all of that clear to me and also, I think impressed upon me the importance of centering ordinary Black folks. You know, it’s great to talk about those who had all kinds of education, opportunities, and they certainly show up in the book. I write about professors. I write about people who are very accomplished, but I place them alongside others who don’t necessarily have the same educational background but are equally important to the narrative.

00:28:00 Michele Goodwin: 

Right. I’m thinking about Ms. Diallo, Kadiatou Diallo, is also mother of Amadou Diallo, who was brutally slain, and you conducted extensive interviews with her. As we begin to wrap up, because time goes by way too quickly, I want to ask about what these times represent for you as an author of powerful books that tell the stories of, again, she-roes, heroes, who happen to be Black women and that as Black women thinking through democracy in ways that perhaps others were not.

I’m thinking through human rights and ways that others were not. That even comes to mind in the space of elections when you think about how Black women vote. It seems that there is something in a viewpoint that’s not been tapped by mainstream media, strangely enough, when you look at just how intense those voting blocs are and not unpacked for what is it that Black women are seeing when you have 92 percent voting the same way in a presidential election, 96 percent voting in the same way. What are they predicting? What are they seeing? What’s intergenerationally weighing on their minds? And it looks like you have some thoughts about this.

00:29:23 Keisha Blain:

Yes, absolutely. I think…I talk about the fact that Black women are so uniquely positioned to confront injustice in society, and I think that becomes quite clear in this history, but certainly when you pay attention to what Black women have endured. And of course, it’s impossible to talk about Black women’s experiences without even grappling with the concept of intersectionality and the way that they experience multiple forms of oppression that are overlapping and intersecting in all of these ways whether we’re talking about racism alongside sexism or whether we’re also talking about classism, as just a few examples. 

And I think because of their positioning, because they have experience, and they know what it means to live without civil rights and without human rights for much of this history, they understand the urgency. And they also understand that human rights are not permanent, which is to say that as much as you can make strides and you can accomplish things, you can also lose the very things that you have gained over time. We see that literally happening at this moment. So, there is a sense of urgency, and they bring it to the ballot box, I think. And I think this larger history shows the legacy on which these women are building. And even though these are very difficult times and can be very discouraging times, I do find a sense of inspiration in these women’s narratives. 

00:31:00 Michele Goodwin:

That is such a powerful note for which to end on because I do believe their voices matter and you’ve done a brilliant job of lifting up the voices of women, Black women, who are known and who’s histories you have brought to light and have written. Not yet to be written, you’ve actually been doing that work of writing their histories. Professor Keisha Blain, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s really a pleasure and an honor. Thank you.

00:31:30 Keisha Blain: 

Thank you for having me. 

00:31:32 Michele Goodwin: 

Fans and friends, thank you for joining us for this special Ms. Book Club Spring Edition. Be sure to check out the other books and authors that are being featured. The Ms. Book Club is a special feature of our Ms. Studios platform. Our executive procedure is Michele Goodwin. Our producers are Allison Whelan, Roxy Szal, Oliver Haug and Mariah Lindsey. Our sound engineer is Natalie Hadland. Art and design are by Brandi Phipps. Our assistant producer is Emersen Panigrahi.