WOMEN IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1800; MARY ANN SHADD CAREY P/25

 

In this post I will continue to share the story of Mary Ann Shad Carey. She lived from 1823 - 1893. In 1851, Mary Ann opened  a school for the growing refugee population in Canada and taught racially integrated classes 100 years prior to the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling desegrated U.S. schools. In addition to teaching, she published her words broadly, encouraging Black people to emigrate from the United States to Canada while advocating for integrated education.

Mary Ann's public arguments against segregated schooling caused a rift between her and the publishers of "Voice of the Fugitive," Canada's first Black-owned abolitionist newspaper.

After losing support from their publishers and the American Mission Association, which funded her school, Mary Ann began her own newspaper, "The Provincial Freeman." This made her the very first Black woman to publish a newspaper in North America. "The Provincial Freeman" was the foremost voice of Black communities but, by 1859, she could no longer afford to publish.