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Robert Russ. Troy, N.Y.: Whitson, 1997, 239–247.
Colored Woman in a White World, A
Mary Church Terrell(1940)
“This is the story of a colored woman living in a
white world,” declared the teacher, activist, femi-
nist, and women’s club leader MARY CHURCH
TERRELLin the introduction to her compelling au-
tobiography. “It cannot possibly be like a story writ-
ten by a white woman. A white woman has only
one handicap to overcome—that of sex. I have
two—both sex and race” (Terrell, Introduction).
Published when Terrell, a native of Memphis, Ten-
nessee, was in her late seventies, the book pro-
vided rich and detailed accounts of her life and
activism, and the prevalence of American racism.
Originally entitled A Mighty Rocky Road,the
autobiography contains 42 chapters that offer
richly informative accounts of her early life,
schooling, family life, marriage to Robert Terrell,
the first African-American municipal judge in
WASHINGTON, D.C., and her career. In addition,
chapters such as “Notable Lecture Engagements,”
“With Frederick Douglass and Paul Dunbar at the
World’s Fair,” and “The Secretary of War Suspends
Order Dismissing Colored Soldiers at My Request”
provide engaging and illuminating accounts of her
social improvement work, community leadership,
and political activism.
In her account of how she came to join the
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE-
MENT OFCOLOREDPEOPLE, Terrell remembered
that she “traveled a thousand miles to attend its
first meeting in New York City.” Although she was
lecturing in the South when she received the invi-
tation to join the organization’s meeting in New
York, Terrell recalled, “eagerly did I respond to that
call. Such an organization was sorely needed at
that time,” she insisted, and “it was my duty, as it
certainly was my pleasure, to render any assistance
in my power” (Terrell, 194).
In addition to the accounts of positive experi-
ences, however, Terrell endeavors to remind her
readers that she has been “obliged to refer to inci-
dents which have wounded my feelings, crushed
my pride, and saddened my heart.” She does insist,
however, that in spite of these accounts she does
“not want to be accused of ‘whining’” (Terrell, In-
troduction). “I have not tried to arouse the sympa-
thy of my readers by tearing passion to tatters, so
as to show how wretched I have been. The many
limitations imposed upon me and the humiliations
to which I have been subjected speak for them-
selves” (Terrell, Introduction).
H. G. Wells, the prolific English author whose
works included The War of the Worlds,knew Terrell
well. He agreed to become the “godfather of her
literary offspring” and to write the preface to her
memoir. Wells accepted, despite the fact that he
was well known for his “obstinate refusal[s] to
write prefaces for books” and his strong opinion
that “generally... a Preface does a book more
harm than good” (Wells, Preface). Writing from
London, he characterized Terrell as one who had
“lived her life through a storm of burning injus-
tices” and invited readers to “[t]urn over the pages
of this plucky, distressful woman’s naive story of
the broadening streak of violence, insult and injus-
tice in your country, through which she has been
compelled to live her life” (Wells, Preface). Wells
did seem to contradict Terrell’s own claim that her
story was unique because of her race. “[I]f she had
been born a sensitive and impressionable white girl
in a village on some English estate,” he wrote,
“destined normally to be an under-housemaid and
marry an under-gardener, she would have had al-
most the same story to tell, if not in flamboyant
colors then in aquatint.... She would have strug-
gled to independence and self-respect against
handicaps less obvious but more insidious” (Wells,
Preface). He also recognized that Terrell would
challenge this idea and imagined that she would
retort, “the fact remains that the colours of the in-
feriority and superiority struggle in Europe are not
so intense as in the American scene, that the con-
trasts... see[m] to be fading” (Wells, Preface).
Scholar Nellie McKay notes that Terrell’s bi-
ography “has much to teach us about the complex-
ity of black life in this country and it helps us to
better comprehend the many roles that black re-
formers, women and men, played in shaping the
politics that led to the black explosions of the86 Colored Woman in a White World, A