Assessing the Roles and Visibility of Women in the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” Campaign (1968-1971) within the Context of Women’s Liberation and Racial Identity

Introduction

The purpose of this archival project was to trace the role and (in)visibility of women involved in the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign in Tacoma, WA between the years of 1968-1971. As a distinctly male-dominated service project catering specifically to black businessmen in the greater Tacoma area, the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign on the surface appeared to be instigated, controlled, and orchestrated entirely by men, for men. This is evident in the masculine pronouns that saturate the discourse of the campaign, with consistent refrains of “Help a Brother Help Himself” and “His Future is in Your Hands”. Additionally, the Black Businessman’s Association charged with reviewing business proposals were predominantly if not all men, as was the head orchestrator of seed capital fundraising events at the University of Puget Sound, Dale Bailey.

While it would therefore be tempting to attribute much of the activism occurring at this time to the actions of men with little regard for the role of women, a closer observation of archival evidence in the form of yearbook photos, news articles, and letter correspondence surrounding the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign strongly implicates women as not only dynamic but critical actors in the orchestration of the campaign. Indeed, the white wives and sisters of society men involved in the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign appeared to perform a number of roles in fundraising events: hosting dinner parties, organizing social service events, performing at fundraisers, and offering gracious amounts of money towards the campaign. In observing letters of correspondence made out to UPS professor and donation organizer Dale Bailey regarding the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign, a majority of donations, well wishes, and invitations to community service events were sent by women, further implicating their critical role in organizing and disseminating information about the campaign to the public.

Furthermore, white women involved in the UPS Black Student Union performed at various fundraising events for the NML campaign (Kristin Schutte and Robin Gleason), indicating a high level of activism even at the student level. This underlying but dynamic social activism of women at this time may be linked to movements of second-wave feminism growing in the American social consciousness of the late-1960s.

Erasure of Black Women and Second-Wave Feminism

However, with these socially-constructed interactions between black businessmen, white male activists, and their white wives, the question arises: where are black women? Indeed, the distinct absence of black women in archival documents surrounding the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign indicates their effective historical erasure from the project, indicating a lack of intersectionality between second-wave feminism and racial identity in Tacoma during this time period. In our analysis of archival documents from this time period, we found several interesting visual and textual indices that point to the fragmentary forces that divided the women’s liberation movement during the same time. The already scant representation of second-wave feminism in mainstream media, the movement is often reduced to key moments and figures such as the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment, pornography, and Gloria Steinem. One of the most crucial controversies (and failings of the movement was its lack of intersectionality. That is, the unique struggles faced by black women were completely overlooked by white feminists. Historically, black women have faced a severe double-bind in regards to having their marginalization recognized, as racism was viewed as the “black man’s problem” and women’s liberation as a “white woman’s issue”. Toni Morrison offers an in-depth analysis of why the Women’s Liberation movement provoked feelings of distrust and indifference amongst African-American women that we found particularly useful to our analysis. This suspicion, she notes, is derived from the way in which black women view themselves and how this view shapes their white women. Morrison points out that the freedoms many white women were fighting for had already been forced upon black women, and which contributed to a sense of superiority amongst black women, a feeling that white women were “ignorant of the facts of life” [Non-Archival 11]. Morrison concludes by proposing that the battlefront of human rights rather than sexual rights is far more conducive to real interracial collaboration [Non-Archival 11].

The Media’s White Gaze

Evidence of second-wave feminism’s lack of intersectionality and its silencing influence on African-American participation in the movement are present in archival documents associated with the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign. Nearly every Tacoma News Tribune article showcasing “society dinners” and fundraising events depict smiling white women in fancy dress (assumed to be the wives of campaign sponsors and advocates) involved in a variety of hosting functions: polishing silver before an event, playing guitar and laughing with company, serving dinner to guests, and utilizing their collective “ingenuity as hostesses” to produce successful and lively social gatherings.

In contrast, black women are never featured as hosts or guests at these dinners in any media depictions. The only mention of an African-American woman at a fundraising dinner was in a letter by a white hostess who admits she allowed her guest to cook them dinner; “she wanted to, so we let her cook us the most delicious soul food dinner” (Tacoma News Tribune). It is interesting (and perhaps telling) that the only involvement of a black woman at a social dinner merely reproduced historical relationships of race and power, highlighting the sharp absence of intersectionality between race and gender at this time period; while white women stole the spotlight, black women were only further pushed to the periphery of the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” Campaign.

Similarly, black businesswomen appeared to be significantly marginalized both in terms of racial and gender identity. Although the Tacoma Business and Professional Women’s Club was active during this time frame, and there were professional women of color involved in this association, white businesswomen and African American businesswomen were marginalized in many ways during the “Now Mr. Lincoln” campaign of 1969. However, while white hostesses were widely praised for their activism, black women breaking ground in a traditionally male-dominated field were doubly-disadvantaged; subsequently, only one black businesswoman in a field of ten black businessmen received seed capital for her business.

Marginalization of the Black Student Union

Perhaps most ironically, black voices within the Black Student Union (established at Puget Sound in 1969) also took a backseat to white students and performers involved in fundraiser events for the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign. While black students and black women in particular had a critical role in the orchestration of these campus and community events (a photo of the BSU in 1969 shows a total of eight black women), these individuals were often treated as supplementary to white women performers. Indeed, at an event held in Kilworth Chapel for the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign, only white women performers and members of the BSU (Kristen Schutte and Robin Gleason) were interviewed for the event (The Trail, February 28th, 1969) even though several other non-white members of the BSU were involved in hosting the fundraiser. An exception to these silenced female black students was acting major Brenda Wade; however, even she was shadowed within her own spotlight.

Conclusions

Our archival findings suggest that women played a much more dynamic role in the orchestration of the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign than might be assumed based on the dominance of male leadership within the project. Wives, sisters, students, and community leaders effectively took up the mantle of social leadership and dedication to promoting the success of black businessmen in the greater Tacoma community. These (predominantly) white women were widely-praised for their activism by both the media and sponsors of the program, indicating the growing influence of second-wave feminism on the American consciousness. However, the very power relationships and social structures thus produced by the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign - white “virtuous” and “ingenious” women working to benefit the lives of black businessmen - inherently recall colonial-historical dependencies between the “white savior” and the “black benefactor”. Therefore, while it may be tempting to simply praise white women’s active involvement as empowered feminism, doing so without acknowledging the assumed power relationships between white and black communities threatens to effectively white-wash the social dynamics informing the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign.

The broad coverage of white women’s activism and gracious involvement in the NML campaign stands in stark contrast to the silence and near invisibility of black women, who continued to be marginalized by the media and corporate business realms. Even those black women who did play active and critical roles in the campaign were effectively footnoted to the white female performers and black businessmen who dominated these social and corporate spheres. This nearly wholesale silencing and sidelining of black women during the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign of the late-1960s reflects their social immobilization due to an absence of gender and racial intersectionality; neither white women nor black businessmen, they were effectively excluded from the social and corporate realms of each.

This being said, black businessmen were by no means empowered by the financial support of the Tacoma community; indeed, they also were effectively silenced, although by a slightly different means. While black women existed only on the periphery of the media’s attention to the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign, black businessmen found themselves in the spotlight as the objects of white compassion and generosity, at times replicating historical narratives of the “white savior-black beneficiary” relationship. Indeed, while the recipients of the NML capital seed funds were featured often in pictures and articles, very few of them were interviewed or were given a voice in the coverage of the campaign. Additionally, one may not equate the fleeting financial support of black businessmen with their corporate success; a vast majority of the businesses funded were ultimately unsuccessful and closed within a year of their launch [Archival 6]. Therefore, while this archival project highlighted the comparative invisibility of black women, black businessmen were also effectively silenced and objectified by the media’s often paternalistic gaze with little evidence of their substantive empowerment.

One area of research this archival compilation does not examine is the role of black men involved in the orchestration of the “Now, Mr. Lincoln?” campaign. Specifically, Mel Conerly was instrumental in the running of the campaign, acting as an intermediary between the Black Businessmen’s Association and the University of Puget Sound. Therefore, in order to create a more holistic understanding of the role and visibility of black individuals involved in the NML campaign, more research should be conducted on the black men intimately involved in the organization and running of the campaign.