Class and Resistance Among African‐American Women in the Jim Crow South

Abstract

This dissertation explores how social class shaped the resistance strategies of African American women in the Jim Crow South (1877–1964). By comparing Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help (2009) and Margot Lee Shetterly’s biographical history Hidden Figures (2016), the study aims to demonstrate how class disparities within the segregated South determined the strategic possi- bilities and limitations of Black women’s agency and activism. Drawing on intersectionality, the matrix of domination, everyday resistance, and epistemic injustice, the argument is that class po- sition was a key factor in determining whether resistance took the form of covert infrapolitics or direct institutional engagement. Domestic workers in The Help, facing high economic vulnerabil- ity, relied on hidden transcripts and everyday sabotage to navigate exploitation. In contrast, the professional mathematicians in Hidden Figures used their educational qualifications and organiza- tional leverage to demand desegregation and professional recognition. Furthermore, the analysis highlights how Stockett’s white-authored narrative tends to reproduce white-savior tropes, whereas Shetterly’s Black-authored biography actively reclaims Black women’s epistemic authority. Ulti- mately, this study highlights the necessity of a class-conscious Black feminist literary criticism, demonstrating that class is a key determinant in how Black women’s historical agency is both ex- ercised and represented.