After the Civil War, many abolitionists and women's rights activists saw an opportunity to team up and advance equality for all. 

African American author and orator Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was hopeful, too. But she also knew that politics and prejudice could shatter this tentative alliance, with devastating consequences. She wasn’t about to let that happen without a fight.

To help tell Frances’s story, host Laura Free meets up with Sharia Benn, a writer, researcher and theater artist who has spent a decade portraying Frances for public audiences. Laura also spends time with historian Bettye Collier-Thomas in Bettye’s extensive personal archive. Bettye’s research has helped recover Harper’s forgotten contributions to the abolitionist, suffrage, and temperance causes. In this exceptionally emotional episode, Sharia and Bettye paint a vivid portrait of a woman whose vision of liberation resonates deeply today—and whose spirit is still with those who continue the pursuit of justice and equality.

For a transcript and more about this series, visit amendedpodcast.com 

Our TeamLaura Free, Host & WriterReva Goldberg, Producer, Editor & Co-WriterScarlett Rebman, Project DirectorKordell K. HammondNicholas MacDonaldJoseph MurphySara Ogger Antonio Pontón-NúñezMichael Washburn

Consulting Engineer: Logan Romjue Art by Simonair YohoMusic by Michael-John Hancock. Additional music by Emily Sprague and Pictures of a Floating World (CC).Sound effects this episode courtesy of freesound.org

Thanks to this episode’s guests and collaborators, Sharia Benn and Bettye Collier-Thomas. Special thanks to Alison Parker and Manisha Sinha, whose scholarship we relied on to help tell the story of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Amended is produced with major funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and with support from Baird Foundation, Susan Strauss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Phil Lewis & Catherine Porter, and C. Evan Stewart.

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