“The rights of biracial woman are like a carrot on a stick, dangling just out of reach. With help and progress, you could have these rights, but you'll never get them within your lifetime.

Dedication Page :

The Progressive Era, a time of reform and progress for industrialized, corporate America lasted from 1896-1917. A woman like me wrote this autobiography and while we don't have her name, we have a few pages of her life during these times.

As a seventeen-year-old in the modern day, I still feel the same hopelessness that I would’ve felt in the Progressive Era. I’m thankful for the progress that has been made but when looking at the candidates and politicians, I feel a sense of dread. Thinking of which candidate I would vote for is similar to choosing how I want to die when both options seem miserable. There’s a chance for change and small progress is made but every time we take two steps forward we take a step back as well. It’s slow progress and makes me worry that I won’t see the positive changes I hope for within my lifetime. 

( My home of Chicago, Illinois ) 

My family used to live in the North and while we did face racial discrimination, it wasn't until we moved to the South that we saw just how cruel some people could be. Lynching, segregation, and the Jim Crow laws that followed Plessy vs. Ferguson's verdict of "separate but equal" infected the South. The racist prejudices of before are now justified and practiced through segregation, making it harder for me and other African Americans to not only get a job but to find homes, go to school, and even drink water. Me and my siblings may have white fathers, but we are nothing but black children in white eyes. I worry for my family, with the horrors of the South it could be any one of us to get killed because of the color of our skin.

While injustice rages in the South, leaving violence and misery in its path, people are fighting for change. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are two activists pushing for equality, though they have different approaches. Booker T. Washington wanted gradual equality and for us to compromise with our white counterparts, but I prefer Du Bois's approach. He wants African Americans to earn their education and gain higher positions so that white people can't deny our influence and power. His approach is about demanding equality now. The reason I try to go to school and work so hard to earn my education is so that I can become a journalist, using my words and illustrations to speak out against inequality and bring about change. If other journalists can make changes to the industries through their papers, then I have faith that I can help make the same change for equality.

This is W.E.B. Du Bois, he preferred a more immediate approach to equality compared to Booker T. Washington.