Madame Marie Selika Williams was born Marie Smith in 1849 in Natchez, Mississippi. The Natchez area of Mississippi had the largest number of free blacks in the state, but the hardships they faced were no different than those of their enslaved brothers and sisters. Not long after she was born, Marie’s family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where a wealthy patron enabled her to study music. She is also reported to have studied the Italian style of singing with Antonio Farini in Chicago. In the 1860s, she moved to San Francisco, studied with a Signora G. Bianchi, then made her debut in 1876 as a concert soprano. She married fellow concert artist Sampson Williams. They remained married until his death in 1911.

Together with her husband, Marie toured and performed in the US, Europe, and the West Indies. Newspaper accounts proclaimed her a “colored vocalist of rare ability.” She is said to have added “Selika” to her stage name from the heroine of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s 1865 opera, L’Africaine.

Thanks to an introduction from Frederick Douglass, whom President Rutherford B. Hayes had appointed Marshall of the District of Columbia, Marie performed in the Green Room of the White House for Hayes, his wife and others on November 17, 1878. This made her the first African American to perform in the White House. After she performed, her husband also sang. A Washington Post article stated, “The several pieces showed to great advantage the remarkable power, sweetness, and versatility of madame’s voice and accomplishments, the “Staccato Polka” especially proving her worthy of her title as ‘Queen of Staccato.'”

That same year she performed at the New York Academy of Music and in 1879 at New York’s Steinway Hall. She toured Europe twice, first from 1882-1885 then again from 1887-1892. Her performances were warmly received there as well. Benjamin Brawl in his book The Negro Genius quotes this from the Figaro of Paris, “She has a strong voice of depth and compass and trills like a feathered songster. Her range is marvelous, and her execution and style of rendition show perfect cultivation.” During the first tour, she gave a command performance for Queen Victoria in 1883.

In 1893, she performed with her husband at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. In October 1896, she performed at Carnegie Hall with two well-known African American women singers, Flora Baston and Sissieretta Jones.

Besides touring, Marie taught at a music studio which she opened in Cleveland, Ohio. She retired from the stage when her husband died. At age 67 she accepted a teaching position at New York’s Martin-Smith School of Music. She died in New York, aged 87 in 1937.

Once again, I stand in awe of women like Marie Selika Williams. For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share your thoughts in the comments.

One Breath Away
by Michal Scott

Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. She’s never been courted, cuddled or spooned, and now no man could want her, not when sexual satisfaction comes only with the thought of asphyxiation. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.

From One Breath Away…

He really wanted to dance with her. She blinked, speechless. A warning voice protested.

Resist.

Her heart countered.

Surrender.

She firmed her lips, heaved a sigh then accepted his invitation. Felicity’s sputtered shock and Widow Hawthorne’s happy cackle accompanied them to the middle of the dance floor.

He placed his fingertips respectfully but firmly above the rise of her buttocks and held her in place against him. A tickle invaded the wool of her skirt where the tip of his middle finger rested at the head of her crack. Pleasure tripped up her spine and trickled between her thighs. But, from the recesses of remembered experience, a voice of caution persisted.

He wants something, Mary. Beware.

“Why—why do you want to dance with me?”

He smiled with the serpent slyness that probably charmed Eve. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

“I might.”

He turned his head slightly. “Really? Your practiced calm says otherwise.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Practiced calm?”

“The face you present to the world until something touches your heart.” He gestured to his right. “Like when that baby there cried. Your expression changed to one of concern, then changed to one of contentment when his mother satisfied his hunger.”

Mary blew a breath through her mouth. This man was studying her. Really studying her. Should she be flattered or worried?

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UPDATE: The winner is…Mary McCoy!
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It never ceases to amaze me how the African American women of the 19^th century did not allow societal limitations to keep them from pursuing and obtaining their dreams. Josephine Silone Yates is another of them. Born in 1859 in New York on Long Island in Suffolk County, by the time Josephine Silone Yates died in 1912 she had been a professor, a writer, a public speaker, an activist, and the first African American woman to head a college science department. Many of the works written on her life focus not only on her work as a pioneering African American female chemist but also as an advocate for early care and education for young African American children.

She attended several schools in her youth and didn’t allow the fact that she was often the only African American student keep her from excelling. At a young age, Josephine showed an aptitude for physiology and physics. By the time she attended the Rogers High School in Newport, Rhode Island, her science teacher was so impressed that he allowed her to do chemistry labs. She graduated from Rogers in 1877 as her class’s valedictorian. Her teachers urged her to go on to university, but she chose the path of teaching instead. In 1879, she graduated from the Rhode Island State Normal School and became the first African American certified to teach in that state’s public schools.

She moved to Jefferson Missouri to teach at Lincoln University either in 1879 or 1881, depending on your sources. There she taught chemistry, botany, drawing, elocution, and English literature. She was promoted to the head of Lincoln’s natural Sciences department in 1886, making her the first African American woman to head a college science department. This also made her the first African American woman to be a full professor at any college or university in the United States. All the while she was teaching, she wrote newspaper and magazine articles under the penname R.K. Potter. By 1900, she was publishing poetry, too.

When she married William Ward Yates in 1889, she resigned from her university position, moved to Kansas City with her husband, and had two children. While he served as a principal there, she blossomed as an activist. Like many African American women of her time, she became active in the African American Women’s Club movement. She helped found the Women’s League of Kansas City in 1893. When the League joined the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), Josephine served in various offices from 1897 to 1901. She promoted the establishment of kindergartens and day nurseries through the NACW to help prepare African American children for a post-emancipation society where they would not be taught to be subservient second-class citizens.

Lincoln University asked Josephine to return in 1902 to head their English and history department. She did this until 1908 when she offered to resign because of ill health. Her resignation was refused, so she remained as an advisor to women until 1910. She continued championing education and advancement for African American women, helping to found the first African American Young Women’s Christian Association in Kansas City a year before she died.

Looking back on women like Josephine I am inspired by how their drive stems from wanting as many people as possible to benefit from their accomplishments. I hope someday the same can be said of me.

For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share your thoughts in the comments.

Better To Marry Than To Burn by Michal Scott

Wife Wanted: Marital relations as necessary. Love not required nor sought…

A bridal lottery seems the height of foolishness to ex-slave Caesar King, but his refusal to participate in the town council’s scheme places him in a bind. He has to get married to avoid paying a high residence fine or leave the Texas territory. After losing his wife in childbirth, Caesar isn’t ready for romance. A woman looking for a fresh start without any emotional strings is what he needs.

Queen Esther Payne, a freeborn black from Philadelphia, has been threatened by her family for her forward-thinking, independent ways. Her family insists she marry. Her escape comes in the form of an ad. If she must marry, it will be on her terms. But her first meeting with the sinfully hot farmer proves an exciting tussle of wills that stirs her physically, intellectually, and emotionally.

In the battle of sexual one-upmanship that ensues, both Caesar and Queen discover surrender can be as fulfilling as triumph.

Excerpt:

Queen Esther Payne arrived at noon on September fourteenth and proved to be a paragon indeed.

Caesar gawked at the copper-toned Amazon who emerged from the stagecoach like royalty descending from a throne.

Queen. Her name definitely suited. Only Cleopatra could have fit better. Maybe Sheba.

The afternoon sunlight crowned her with rays of gold. Kinky black ringlets covered her head, declaring she had a Nubian pride befitting the woman he’d want to wed. She used her bonnet to fan away dirt dusted up by the stagecoach’s departure. Her twisting and turning revealed an hourglass waist above curvaceous hips.

At his approach, her eyebrow curved over a gaze brimming with criticism. “Caesar King?”

He removed his hat and extended his hand in greeting. “At your service, Queen.”

She donned her hat and examined him with that regal air. “Miss Payne, if you please. You may call me Queen after the nuptials.” She finished tying her hat’s long ribbons beneath her chin. “Although, even then, I’d prefer Mrs. King.”

“You don’t say?” He chuckled, taking her measure from head to foot. “Well, Miss Payne it is…for now.”

She filled her face with a frown. “I don’t appreciate being examined like some newly purchased cow, Mr. King.”

He pulled back. Amusement wrestled with annoyance. “I’m making sure you measure up, Miss Payne.”

“Pray, to what criteria?” She shoved her valise against his chest. Caesar grunted, surprised but pleased by her strength.

She crossed her arms, causing her lovely bosom to swell. “I doubt there’s a standard for marriages of convenience.”

He inhaled against the pull of desire throbbing in his privates. “The same criteria as you, I suspect—my own self-worth and what I deserve.” He dropped the bag at her feet. “So, by that token, I don’t appreciate being treated like some fetch-and- carry boy.”

She lowered her gaze. But for the set of her jaw, he’d have taken the gesture for an apology.

He leaned forward and whispered, “If you ask me nicely, I’d gladly carry your bag.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t need to be asked.” Her tone dripped with disdain. “A gentleman would simply take it.”

“I do many things, Miss Payne.” He pushed up the brim of his hat and grinned, fired up by the hazel flame sparking in her eyes. “Pretending to be a gentleman doesn’t number among them.”

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UPDATE: The winner is…Diane Sallans!
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The phrase “fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree” describes Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin perfectly.

Born Josephine St. Pierre in 1842 in Boston, her middle-class parents sent her to integrated schools in Charlestown, Salem, and New York rather than accept the segregation imposed by Boston’s school system. No wonder she lived a life predisposed to fighting injustice on her own as well as on the behalf of others.

She married George Lewis Ruffin in 1858. A pioneer in his own right, the first African American to graduate from Harvard Law School and the one of the first African American judges in a Northern state. They lived in England for six months then returned and helped recruit volunteers for African American Civil War regiments like the Massachusetts 54^th.  He died in 1886.

A member of the New England Women’s Press Association, Ruffin wrote for the Courant, a weekly paper for African Americans. She founded the Women’s Era, the first newspaper published by and for African American women. She and her daughter, Florida, published this illustrated monthly for seven years.

Her fight for women’s suffrage showed she understood the concept of intersectionality. She is quoted as saying, “We are justified in believing that the success of this movement for equality of the sexes means progress toward equality of the races.” Ruffin served as president of the West End League of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.

She was the first African American member of the New England Women’s Club. In 1893, she founded The Woman’s Era club for African American women. Living up to its motto, “Make the World Better,” their activities promoted and fundraised for self-help activities to “uplift the race.” Ruffin believed a national organization for African American women’s clubs was needed and organized a conference in Boston to that end. Women from ten to fourteen states attended. They formed the National Federation of Afro-Am Women. This in turn merged with the Colored Women’s League, forming the National Association of Colored Women.

In 1900 at the meeting of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Southern women on the credentials committee opposed her representing both white and African American clubs.  They would only accept her credentials for the white clubs. She refused and was excluded from the meeting. The incident was nationally covered by the press.

Ruffin continued her fight for racial equality, and in 1910, became a founding member of the Boston NAACP. She died in 1924. In 1995, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. A bronze bust of Ruffin is one of six famous Massachusetts women which stand in the Massachusetts State House.

Once again, the accomplishments of women like Josephine awe and inspire me to do all I can with the opportunities I have. For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, leave a comment on Josephine and other women who have inspired you.

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Freed Man seeking woman to partner in marriage for at least two years in the black township of Douglass, Texas. Must be willing and able to help establish a legacy. Marital relations as necessary. Love neither required nor sought.

Excerpt:

She sidled up to him, cupped his erection and fondled his balls.

“Ready for bed or ready to bed me?”

He moaned, placed his hand atop hers and increased the pressure. Already hard, he hadn’t imagined he could get any harder.

“Is that beautiful brass bed new?”

He gulped. “Ye—yes. Bought it—bought it for the honeymoon.”

“I’m ready to be bedded now,” she whispered. “Or is that something we must negotiate?”

All thoughts of dinner vanished.

“No,” he rasped, leaning forward, as hungry for her lips as he was to be inside her.

“Good.” She stepped back, out of reach. “But, let’s be clear…” She bent over, so her butt protruded toward him.

She massaged each buttock so her crack parted invitingly.

“Tonight, it’s the Greek way or no way.”

He blinked, stunned by this demand to be taken anally. His master had had books filled with drawings, depicting naked Greeks wrestling. Those pen and ink depictions flashed before him now. Arms constrained by arms, legs entwined with legs, butts and groins enmeshed in snug contortions.

He’d love to take Queen that way, experience first- hand the erotic intimacy etched in the men’s struggle-laden features.

He took one step toward her then stopped. No. One day, he would…but not tonight. Not their first time. Their first time would be the nose-to-nose, chest-to-breast, cock-to-vagina coupling he’d hungered five years for.

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UPDATE: The winner is…BN!
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UPDATE: The winner is…Jennifer Beyer!
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UPDATE: The winner is…Sara D!
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While sources differ on the year, Hallie Quinn Brown was born on March 10, 1850, to former slaves who migrated first to Canada then returned to the US and settled in Wilberforce Ohio. By the age of sixteen, she had graduated from the Chautauqua Lecture School and for the rest of her life gained renown as an eloquent elocutionist in Europe and America, speaking on the issues of temperance, women’s suffrage, and civil rights.

In 1873, she received a degree from Wilberforce College and lived a life dedicated to education as resistance. She taught in schools for the formerly enslaved in Mississippi and South Carolina. From 1885 to 1887, she taught at Allen University, Columbia, South Carolina, and also served as their dean. From 1892 to 1893, she served as Dean of Women at Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee Alabama. An interesting side note was provided my research by this Facebook video, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=586553582391209, where Ohio oral historian Kweku Larry Franklin Crowe shares that Hallie Brown not only taught at Tuskegee but literally helped build it “sitting on a mule and dragging logs.” (The video is only 2 minutes long!)

She returned to Ohio to teach elocution at Wilberforce from 1893 to 1903. In the late 1890s, she frequently spoke on African American issues in London.

A firm believer in community action, she founded the Colored Woman’s League in 1896, served as president of the Ohio State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs from 1905 to 1912, and the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) from 1920 to 1924.

As head of the NACW, she helped spearhead African American opposition to a monument proposed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which would have depicted a Black woman caring for a white infant. The “Mammy” statue sought to foster the defeated South’s Lost Cause lie of slavery being beneficial to Blacks. Ms. Brown wrote “slave women are brutalized, the victims of white man’s caprice and lust. Often the babe torn from her arms was the child of her oppressor.” The bill proposing the monument died in the House of Representatives. Ron DeSantis and other Floridian history revisionists should take note.

Ms. Brown wrote four important works during her lifetime, the first, Bits and Odds, in 1880 and her fourth and most popular, Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, a collaboration with over twenty other women in 1926.

She died on September 16, 1949, in Wilberforce, Ohio. I stand in awe of women like Hallie Brown who not only inspired by her own example but also shared the accomplishments of others as well. I hope in my own small way with these blogposts I’m following in her footsteps.

For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card share something about Hallie’s story that has inspired you.

The Spirit to Resist by Michal Scott
from Hot and Sticky: A Passionate Ink Charity Anthology

A woman may be made a fool of if she hasn’t the spirit to resist, but what does she do if, for the first time in her life, being made into a fool is exactly what she wants?

Excerpt from “The Spirit to Resist”

The fellows had terms for girls like Florence who made them hard and offered no relief.

Flirt.

Pee wee player.

Worst of all, vanilla.

Flirts and pee wee players were little girls in burgeoning bodies who tested the limits of their newly acquired womanhood. Timid and coquettish, they longed for, but feared, sexual experience.

Not vanillas.

Proudly defiant and unafraid, vanillas reveled in the effect their teasing had on their targets. The skill with which Florence taunted him proclaimed her Queen of the Vanillas. She’d be heading back to Brooklyn tomorrow. Today’s soiree was his last chance to obtain relief and release from this adept tormenter.

“Mother you’ve got to use every influence at your disposal to make sure Florence attends this Sunday’s soiree.”

His mother shook her head. “I doubt she’ll be making social rounds with all the packing she has to do. Honestly, you surprise me. I got the impression you two didn’t like each other.”

“That’s just a game we’re playing.” His mouth dried as if suddenly stuffed with cotton. He swallowed to free his tongue and spoke the unwelcome truth. “I like her a lot.”

A conspiratorial glint lit up his mother’s eyes. “Alright. We’ll make the Walters family guests of honor. That’ll insure her mother’s cooperation.”

Knowing his mother, her ploy would succeed. Florence would attend and he’d get his chance to put Florence’s teasing to the test.

Smirk away, Florence Walters. Your days as Queen of the Vanillas are over.

*~*~*

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UPDATE: The winner is…Mary Preston!
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