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DARLENE CLARK HINE 
...on black women and the right to vote
320k WAV audio file
992k QuickTime movie
...on black women in the Old West
...on raising families
"A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America"
The History of black women
Author seeks to broaden scope of history
(CNN) -- If the story of the Amistad -- a slaveship in rebellion, its "passengers" appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court and winning the right to be free -- is a story rarely told in this country, the countless tales of black women have been very nearly completely ignored.
But not because Michigan State University American History professor Darlene Clark Hine has been silent. Hine has written or edited numerous books on the subject, including the two-volume "Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia" in 1993.
Published this month by Broadway Books, Hine's latest work "A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America" (co-authored with Katherine Thompson), brings the stories of African-American women in from the fringes and into the center of American history.
Hine spoke with CNN Morning News anchor Daryn Kagan on February 12.
KAGAN: We've all taken the history lessons. We've all learned very many familiar stories. And yet there are areas of American history where black women were important, and we haven't heard about them. Let's start with the American West.
HINE: One of the favorite chapters in the book deals with the role that black women played in settling some of the Western towns. And there were quite a few colorful figures, like Mary Fields, who was called "Stagecoach Mary" -- six feet tall, 200 pounds, smoked cigars and carried a .38, also delivered postal mail on a stagecoach for about eight years.
KAGAN: What about the suffragette movement and the effort to get all women the right to vote?
HINE: Well, white women played a major role in trying to persuade the black community to support -- black men who had the vote -- to support women's suffrage, but they were also active suffragists themselves. Even though at one point white suffragists did not welcome their participation and pursued a Southern strategy. Black women knew that women -- all women -- needed the right to vote.
KAGAN: And what about in the military? There's some great pictures in the book from World War II.
HINE: Well, World War II is fascinating because black women had to struggle with the War Department to get the right to serve in the Army and Navy nurse corps. So there are lots of stories in the book about their efforts to participate in the military.
KAGAN: An interesting point that comes from the book: so much is made today of women -- young women -- trying to figure out how do you work, how do you raise a family. Black women have been doing this for generations.
HINE: Well, from 1619...black women came over here -- well, they didn't come over here voluntarily, but they came over as workers. And so they have had to work for the past 380 years, juggle a family, support the community and maintain an inner-life, as well as create institutions to enable the community to survive.
So it's a history in achievement and struggle, and it's a history that also teaches the important values black women had to develop. And, of course, most importantly black women never gave up hope. So in spite of slavery, in spite of the oppression of reconstruction, the lynchings and the rape and the violence and the poverty, they never ever gave up hope.
KAGAN: And that's something that we can all learn from and be inspired by, no matter what race, no matter gender.
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