Rediscovering THE Pauline Hopkins

Apr 11

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A literary luminary

Katie and Yves highlight the legacy of Pauline Hopkins, whose story was buried then unearthed by scholars.

Pauline Hopkins was a literary pioneer in the science fiction, fantasy, romance, and detective genres. When she was in her twenties, she became the first Black woman to write and star in her own dramatic work. Her book “Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South” was the first 20th-century novel by a Black American woman.
Hopkins wrote plenty of short stories, essays, books, and plays. And as is the case with many Black women writers from the 19th and early 20th centuries, Hopkins’s work fell into relative obscurity. But thanks to the work of scholars like Dr. Claudia Tate, Dr. Mary Helen Washington, and Ann Allen Shockley, Hopkins is now getting recognition for being the literary pioneer that she was.
There are many more pieces to Pauline’s puzzle that have yet to be found. But the rediscovery of Pauline’s legacy is an ongoing labor of love, and there are still plenty of people on the job. So much of what Pauline Hopkins said still rings true today.

“Some people considered Pauline an agitator. They were critical of the candidness with which she talked about taboo subjects like sexual violence, of her frank condemnation of practices like lynching and imperialism, her clarity in linking issues of race with issues of class, and her refusal to mince words in her expression.”

— Yves, "Rediscovering THE Pauline Hopkins"

“I think conservatives are always in opposition to your freedom and autonomy and your liberation. So anything in opposition of that, they’re they’re down for.”

— Katie, "Rediscovering THE Pauline Hopkins"