Helen Holman (also known as Helen A. Holman) (1894 - date of death unknown) was an African-American suffragist and political activist. She was active in New York, mainly in Harlem.
Helen Holman was born in 1894 in East St Louis in Illinois, or in St Louis in Missouri. She migrated to New York and was already a known suffragist by 1915. She became known in Harlem through her public talks in favor of womenâÂÂs suffrage, before New York allowed women to vote in 1917.
Holman represents a central component to womenâÂÂs suffrage: she managed to gather important numbers of people and would regularly lecture at locations such as the Harlem suffrage headquarters or the frequented corner of 133<sup>rd</sup> street and Lenox avenue.
During the last week leading to the 1917 vote, she would speak almost daily in the streets of Harlem.The Woman Suffrage party estimated to 15,000 the number of African American women eligible to vote in Harlem, once the law would be passed. To help women gain the right to vote in New York, Harlem women had been very active in campaigning.ÃÂ They were led by Holman who was a "stepladder speaker", and Mary K. Lewis.
HolmanâÂÂs fight for progress, however, was not limited to the subject of womenâÂÂs suffrage. Indeed, she was also a fervent advocate on matters of race and class. Holman justified womenâÂÂs right to vote based not only on the substantial contributions women make in the workplace, the home and society, but because she was also an outspoken activist for racial justice. She argued that âÂÂwom[e]nâÂÂs work has moved from the home to the factories, to the trusts. We must therefore enter politics to rear our race with health. If women donâÂÂt know any more about politics than the average man, IâÂÂll guarantee we will get along.â During this ballot of 1917, it is the Colored WomenâÂÂs Suffrage Club of New York City , of which Holman was a part of, that led "the final push in Harlem".
In Brooklyn, she helped the NAACP target issues surrounding âÂÂDiscrimination, segregation, peonage, lack of industrial opportunity and other questions of vital interestâÂÂ.
Holman was not of the opinion of those in favor of separatism, a subject that she even brought up in her speeches. For instance, in winter of 1918, she met with New York CityâÂÂs mayor as part of a group of fifty interracial women to advocate for the needs of a suffering and starving population.
HolmanâÂÂs activist engagement also included traveling the country speaking for womenâÂÂs voting rights.
During the early 1920s, Holman became a prominent figure in the radical political landscape of Harlem. She was part of a group of activists, including Grace P. Campbell and Elizabeth Hendrickson, known as "stepladder" speakers. These orators delivered public addresses from atop crates or ladders at busy thoroughfares and street corners to recruit supporters and disseminate left-wing ideas.
Professor Irma Watkins-Owens noted that Harlem street corners functioned as vital locations for alternative politics and social movements during this period. Although Black women were often excluded from formal leadership in early leftist organizations, Holman utilized the "stepladder" circuit to influence local radicalism directly. Her presence on the street-speaking circuit represented a departure from the male-dominated political norms of the era, which were often characterized by a "muscular" Black nationalism.
Holman was an active socialist activist: advocating for the Socialist Party in front of an interracial public on Harlem streets and teaching, for instance, the foundations of Socialism at the Rand School of Social Sciences.
In 1919, she was in service of the Kate Richard OâÂÂHare Committee as Executive Secretary. The Kate Richard OâÂÂHare Committee had been created to raise money and set free socialist Kate Richards OâÂÂHare, who following the address of an anti-war speech in North Dakota had been accused of espionage and arrested by the government.
Holman, like other black women activists, linked her activism for womenâÂÂs suffrage to Soviet rhetoric and practice. Because the Soviet Union conveyed the image of a color-blind society, it was attractive to African Americans. Holman joined the Communist Party with her activism in favor of womenâÂÂs suffrage, and with the fact that she became known in Harlem in the 1920' for speaking against Black women opression under capitalism and her appreciation of the Soviet Family Code.
During the First Red Scare, Holman was surveilled by the state authorities alongside other radical Black women of the beginning of the âÂÂOld LeftâÂÂ, such as Grace P. Campbell. It is argued by Erik S. Mcduffie that the monitoring of Holman and Campbell contributed to the creation of a template for how the United States government would later surveil Black Communist women.
Holman probably met sex radicals through her associations, and she maybe had lesbian relationships, however this is up for debate.
Despite a lack of information on HolmanâÂÂs political engagement during World War II, evidence suggests that she could have been part of the National Council of Negro Women.
The scholar Lydia Lindsey attributes the theory of âÂÂtriple oppressionâÂÂ, theorised by Claudia Jones, to the influence of radical Black women who were part of The National Negro Congress (1935-1940). This congress included Helen Holman, alongside Louise Thompson Patterson and Audley Moore. Under the organization, Holman had served as a secretary and even gave lectures.
Letter from Helen Holman to Gretrude Petzold, July 8, 1919 (website of the Missouri History Museum) : https://missourioverthere.org/explore/collections/ohare-frank-p-papers/helen-a-holman-letter-to-gertrude-petzold-july-8-1919/