Author: Sarah Weissman

This July, our Chautauqua living history series goes virtual as Maryland Humanities raises the voices of four notable women who took action to secure their right to vote. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Arthuretta Holmes Martin, the actor-scholar who will play Fannie Lou Hamer. At Wednesday at 1:00 p.m., we will stream the performance and host a live Q&A with Martin starting at 2:00 p.m. The performance of Hamer will be available July 27–August 1 and the stream and Q&A will occur Wednesday, July 29. (CW for racist violence, reproductive injustice)

“She [Fannie Lou Hamer] helped to raise me to womanhood,” says Arthuretta Holmes Martin, who will portray Hamer. “There are some people whose personas were a part of my entire life. Fannie Lou Hamer is one of those people,” she says “I grew up in the sixties and seventies. The battle to end segregation, obtain voting rights, and stop racism was led by Fannie Lou.”

Martin’s work with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizer may be making an impact on the performer even without Martin always noticing it. “I became a Virginia State Delegate not thinking about the connection between this Chautauqua work and my advocacy work,” she says. “It didn’t connect until I authored a resolution on Racism being a Public Health Crisis that I made the connection.” Martin says she and Hamer share a “similar churning inside that keeps me strong—despite the hardships and struggles.”

Martin first performed as Hamer five years ago, at the request of the National Baptist Convention, to reenact Hamer’s speech to the Mississippi Democratic Convention 1964 Freedom Summer. “At some point, it felt like Fannie Lou showed up and I was observing.”

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Hamer was arrested after returning from a voter registration workshop when she sat in a segregated bus station restaurant. Jailers force two Black inmates to beat Hamer, which gave her a limp and liver damage. Hamer is lauded, but her place in disability history is not always highlighted.

“This erasure speaks volumes about how our society recounts stories of disabled people and the narrow lens through which stories are told, particularly those involving disability,” writes social worker Vilissa Thompson, a Black disabled woman, in ReWire News. “Our history is forever incomplete if we fail to highlight and respect the identities of Black and disabled heroes and trailblazers.”

Before Martin began her research on Hamer, she didn’t know of other violence Hamer faced. “I didn’t know she was sterilized,” says the performer, who finds inspiration in Hamer. “To find out that a woman was beaten as she was and still had the courage to speak truth to power, and to know that structural racism did its best to stop her from procreating as I knew it had done to other women was heartbreaking. Finding out it happened to Ms. Hamer, too, validates the reality of the strength she and others whose names I do not know [had].” Martin is also inspired by how Hamer had “the priceless support of the community. Her life reminds me of the power of community and the power of love.   Her ‘why’ was the unconditional love she had for Black people.”

Martin was also unaware of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s fear of Hamer and calls it “the most interesting facet to me….” Hamer spoke about her beating before a credentials committee of the 1964 Democratic National Convention: the speech was televised. The hearing was to decide “whether the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party or the all-white Mississippi delegation of party regulars should be seated,” wrote Nicolaus Mills in The New York Times, shared by Martin. Johnson “worried that his re-election chances would be hurt by a Southern walkout over the Mississippi question and tried to divert attention from her by calling an impromptu news conference while she was still speaking.”

Martin says that “This woman with a 6th-grade education was so powerful that the President of the United States pre-empted her testimony.”

Despite all the obstacles Hamer faced, Martin makes sure to take a cue from Hamer and inject humor into her portrayal. It’s what she says is the most enjoyable part of the performances. “Her testimony was gut-wrenching,” Martin says. “But as she evolved as a speaker, she was able to speak to everyone [by] infusing lightheartedness.”

Martin discusses today’s voting rights struggle. “The battles she had for voting rights continue. While disenfranchisement isn’t race-based in law, it is race-based in practice,” she says. “Barriers to voting continue to be erected. State, Local and Federal Governments are unequal and inconsistent in their responsibility to ensure all people eligible to vote can vote in this country. The humanity of Black people is as much a matter of public crisis as it was 40 years ago. It was the police that brutally beat Fannie Lou Hamer. And it is the police who continue to brutalize and murder unarmed Black people for doing everyday actions. She, like the host of witnesses like her today, speak to those of us still here: ‘keep pressing forward’.”

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Register for the Hamer performance and Q&A

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

This July, our Chautauqua living history series goes virtual as Maryland Humanities raises the voices of four notable women who took action to secure their right to vote. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Sherrie Toliver, the actor-scholar who will play Mary Church Terrell. Each Wednesday at 1:00 p.m., we will stream the performance and host a live Q&A with the performers starting at 2:00 p.m. The performance of Terrell will be available July 20–26 and the stream and Q&A will occur Wednesday, July 22.

“What drew me to her was that she reminded me of my mother in many ways,” says Sherrie Tolliver about Mary Church Terrell, who Tolliver portrays. “My mother believed very strongly in the ‘Lifting As We Climb’ philosophy of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs,” which Terrell helped found and eventually led as the group’s first president. Terrell also helped found the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Tolliver’s mother was “a member of several women’s civic organizations, and some of my fondest memories are of the ladies in their hats and gloves at their meetings raising money for community needs,” she says. “They were very elegant, very educated, and very serious about being of service and getting their voices heard, just like Mary Church Terrell and her colleagues.”

Tolliver’s mother is also partly responsible for her discovering the historic figure. She first learned about Terrell in Profiles of Negro Womanhood, part of a ten-volume set from the 1960s Tolliver’s mom purchased called The Negro Heritage Library. “I was struck by her [Terrell’s] noble appearance, and her long list of accomplishments,” Tolliver says. “She’d lived a life that most people would not imagine a Black woman could have lived at that time, which was very eye-opening.”

Tolliver then speaks on Terrell’s relationship to motherhood: she had three children who all died as infants. “With all her wealth and privilege, she could not protect her babies from the scourge of race prejudice,” Tolliver says. This issue is not confined to the past. In 2017, the Office of Minority Health at the Department of Health and Human Services reported that Black Americans have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as non-Hispanic whites.

Terrell’s children “died because she was denied access to adequate medical care. What struck me even more was her willingness to say that she almost lost her mind and her life to depression as a result. Here she was, an educated, middle class, ‘Strong Black Woman,’” an archetype that still persists. “She was supposed to be able to cope with that, but she admitted to having suicidal thoughts. But her honesty in exposing that myth showed more strength, in my opinion,” Tolliver says. “Then, too, fast forward 100 years and you still have women not being properly treated for postpartum depression, you still have a higher rate of infant mortality and maternal deaths for African Americans.” In 2019, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. A 2017 report from the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute, revealed the disparity in postpartum treatment of Black women.

While sadness pervaded Terrell’s life—she was widowed longer than she was married—“she loved to dance,” Tolliver reveals. She describes her favorite part of portraying Terrell: “I love portraying a woman who is so self-assured and so self-defined… Early in her life she had a clear understanding that she wanted to develop every gift and talent she had.” Tolliver describes Terrell and her husband, Judge Robert H. Terrell, as “such a terrific power couple.” Judge Terrell was the first Black judge in the Washington, D.C. Municipal Court and—like his spouse—a suffragist.

Although commenting on the “Strong Black Woman” trope, Tolliver still describes Terrell as a fighter: she adds layers and dimensions so her portrayal of Terrell isn’t reductive. “I was fascinated by the fact she spent two years studying and traveling in Europe. Her father was wealthy enough to give her that gift. She knew it was a great privilege,” Tolliver says. “She was very deliberate in documenting the ways race prejudice did and did not impact her life while she was there. So, the fact that she chose to return to the US even though she knew she could have lived a life of ease as an expatriate really impressed me. She chose to return to the battlefield, and she stayed on the battlefield until the end.”

Terrell faced obstacles many Black women face today: Tolliver has no doubt that Terrell would be involved in current activist and political movements. “She made it clear that ‘Colored women,’ as she called us, had an obligation to be engaged, informed, and involved in politics. So there’s no question in my mind that she would be doing the same things now that she did then—writing editorials, making speeches, and organizing people to address the pandemic, police brutality, education, the pandemic’s on impact African Americans.” Catch a snapshot of Terrell in her own time the week of July 20–26.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

This July, our Chautauqua living history series goes virtual as Maryland Humanities raises the voices of four notable women who took action to secure their right to vote. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Liz Cannon and Joanna Guy, the actor-scholars who will play Alice Paul, over email.  Each Wednesday at 1:00 p.m., we will stream the performance and host a live Q&A with the performers starting at 2:00 p.m. The performance of Paul will be available July 13–19 and the stream and Q&A will occur Wednesday, July 15.

Elizabeth Cannon and Joanna Guy offer a first after 26 years of Maryland Humanities’ living history series: not simply a dual performance, but one performed by a mother-daughter duo. Cannon and Guy will portray Alice Paul at different stages at her life.

“As mother and daughter, we share many physical traits and mannerisms, yet we are separated by a generation,” Cannon and Guy write. “We realized that this gave us a unique opportunity to embody Alice Paul at different stages in her life while preserving the illusion that she is the same person.” Guy portrays the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) author in August 1920 at the end of the suffrage campaign and Cannon portrays Paul in 1972, when the ERA was passed by Congress.

“In addition to covering a wide expanse of time, the two-actor format enables the audience to view Paul through different lenses,” Cannon and Guy write. “In the 1920 flashback we see Paul’s public persona, as she recaps the controversial battle for suffrage to an audience of devoted staff and supporters. In 1972, while preparing for a series of oral history interviews that she reluctantly agreed to record, Paul reminisces privately about her lifelong fight for equal rights.”

The pair discusses different elements of this year’s Chautauqua, not only the two-actor element but a filmed video performance as opposed to a live one. “The viewer experience is much more intimate as a result, and that was a wholly unexpected benefit of the medium, they say. “We were fortunate to have the professional assistance of Joanna’s friend Derek McDonnell, who spent countless hours filming and editing our performance.”

Cannon and Guy hope audience members will appreciate Paul’s work in the broader context of American history and multiple movements for change. “An innovator in methods of social change,” they call her. “Paul combined discipline and humility with an exceptional ability to organize, lead and inspire others. Her use of peaceful protests, holding politicians in power accountable, and staging grand public spectacles—what one historian calls ‘bold visual rhetoric’—were groundbreaking and often risky tactics.”

The pair became interested in Alice Paul eleven years ago through Maryland History Day, another Maryland Humanities program. Guy, who competed for three years and then later served as a judge, developed a performance, “Militant Quaker: Alice Paul and the Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage.” Guy progressed to the National History Day level after succeeding in the statewide competition.

“The concurrence in 2020 of the Nineteenth Amendment centennial and passage of the ERA by the final state needed for ratification made Alice Paul an obvious choice for this year’s Chautauqua,” the pair writes. “We were impressed with Paul’s strong leadership, bold creative vision, and single-minded dedication to women’s equality,” they add. “We were intrigued by some of the seeming contradictions in Paul’s personality.” One of those contradictions is the way Paul perpetuated inequality, which the pair brings up unasked. “Like so many of her contemporaries, including fellow suffragists and politicians at all levels, she did not always stand up for the equality principles that she espoused.”

Cannon and Guy knew they wanted to address Paul’s handling of race, “yet we struggled with how to explore it accurately and sensitively in her voice.” Cannon’s portrayal of the older Paul addresses when white women threatened to withdraw from the fight for suffrage due to Black marchers. This was compounded by press coverage. “Paul ultimately chose to discourage the Black women from marching and endorsed a plan to segregate those who did. While Paul candidly related the facts and motivations for this and similar incidents, she offered only a rationalization and never an apology for her words and actions.”

“Especially right now, it seems that we need to re-think how best to remember our heroes in history—how to both honor them for their achievements and hold them accountable for their failings.”

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Register for the Alice Paul performance and Q&A

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

This July, our Chautauqua living history series goes virtual as Maryland Humanities raises the voices of four notable women who took action to secure their right to vote. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Mary Ann Jung, the actor-scholar who plays Margaret Brent.  Each Wednesday at 1:00 p.m., we will stream the performance and host a live Q&A with the performers starting at 2:00 p.m. The performance of Brent will be available July 6–12 and the stream and Q&A will occur Wednesday, July 8.

Margaret Brent, both the first female landowner and first female lawyer in America, demanded the right to vote nearly three hundred years before the Women’s Suffrage Act, when America still consisted of colonies. Brent (1601–1671), a resident of Saint Mary’s County in Maryland, “used her relationship to Lord Baltimore and his wife Lady Anne Arundel to accomplish things women after her time did not,” says Mary Ann Jung. Jung will portray Brent next week for Maryland Humanities’ Chautauqua living history series.

“It’s clear from the 1649 General Assembly letter to Lord Baltimore praising Margaret Brent that without Brent’s strong decisive actions after the Plundering Time (also known as Ingle’s Rebellion), there might not be any Maryland at all!” Historic Saint Mary’s City describes “Plundering Time” as “that period of conflict in early Maryland history from 1644-46 when the English Civil War spilled over into the New World. Protestants under Captain Richard Ingle took over St Mary’s City in the name of Parliament and destroyed the Catholic Chapel and many Catholics’ homes as well as either destroying or stealing livestock and goods of the Catholics who supported the Calverts,” she explains. “Margaret Brent had to hide with friends and her brother Giles and the Jesuit priest Father Andrew White were sent in chains back to England. It ended when Governor Leonard Calvert was able to recapture the colony using mercenary soldiers he’d hired in Virginia.”

When researching historic figures, Jung says she always started at her local library, especially since her research began prior to widespread internet access. “There was very little on Brent at that time other than a paragraph in a few Maryland history books,” Jung says. She also discovered Dr. Lois Green Carr’s article on Brent in the Maryland Archives

“So much has been lost from her story due to the political and religious conflicts of her time, which destroyed many early records of the colony. Nothing exists that belonged to her,” Jung says. “What I wouldn’t give for a diary or painting or description to turn up in somebody’s attic. Then we could better understand more about a fearless and formidable lady and why she did what she did.”

Jung reflects not only on what’s missing from Brent’s own story, but from early Maryland history as a whole. “It also saddens me that while the Maryland Colony started out with bright promise trying to be more kind and fair to Catholics, women, servants, and the Native people, that was all lost due to greed and hatred,” she says. “Slavery would grow instead of using indentured servants who could become free. The Catholics would again lose their rights, the Native people would lose their culture and languages, and women wouldn’t even think of pressing for legal equality until centuries later.”

Jung says how Brent raised and helped educate a Piscataway princess at the request of the girl’s father, Tayac [the Piscataway word meaning ‘Emperor’ or ‘ruler of all the chiefs] Kittamaquund. “I also loved learning that some Native tribes in our area had women chiefs, so I put that in the performance. I don’t think most of us know that, and I love surprising my audience,” she says. “When I met Mervin Savoy—the Tayac of the Piscataways—years ago, she told me they still hold Margaret Brent in high regard. According to their oral tradition, Margaret Brent continued to teach anyone how to read and write even when it became illegal to educate enslaved people or Native people.”

Jung also speaks about when why Brent deliberately broke laws. “She seemed to appreciate how important education was as a road to equality and a better life. Equality in education for everyone, especially during the pandemic, as well as freedom from police brutality is very much at the heart of today’s protests. I believe that Mistress Margaret Brent, like myself and so many of us, would be heartbroken and outraged that we are not further along the road to equality for all.”

Jung talks about breathing life back into the historic figure. “Her emotions are why I love doing a show and not a lecture about her,” she says. “Acting allows us to inhabit the character, whose feelings and emotions are universal. Who hasn’t felt frustrated and angry? Clearly Brent was when the Assembly turned down her right to vote. And although I have to guess at some other points what she was feeling since there are no records, it’s reasonable to assume she was proud of her education and accomplishments, sad when her friend Leonard Calvert died, and worried when it looked like the mutinous soldiers might take over St. Mary’s City. Worried enough to do something no woman had done before—demand the right to vote!”

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Register for the Margaret Brent performance and Q&A

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.