Black Settlement Houses and Oppositional Consciousness

Due to the failure of the mainstream American settlement house movement to assist Blacks moving to cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a parallel movement was developed by Black female activists and reformers. As a historically oppressed group, African Americans used nonconfrontational strategies to fight for racial uplift and equal rights. This article posits that Black settlement houses provided a propitious environment for culturally based empowerment initiatives that contributed to the development of oppositional consciousness in the Black community. The article examines how Black female leaders’ activism was influenced by the extent of social control the settlement houses were subject to. It argues that the culture of resistance developed in Black settlement houses foreshadowed and contributed to subsequent social movements in the African American community.