Carrie Belle Kearney (March 6, 1863 – February 27, 1939) was an American temperance reformer, suffragist, teacher, white supremacist, and the first woman elected to the Mississippi State Senate.[1] A Democrat, she served in the state senate in 1924 and 1926. She lived in Flora, Mississippi, and represented Madison County.[2]
Belle Kearney | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the Mississippi Senate from the 18th district | |
| In office 1924–1932 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 6, 1863 Flora, Mississippi |
| Died | February 27, 1939 (aged 75) Jackson, Mississippi |
| Political party | Democratic |
Early life edit
Kearney was born on her family's plantation in Flora, Mississippi. Her father, Walter Guston Kearney, was a slave-owning planter who suffered significant financial losses after the Civil War.[3]
Belle Kearney attended Canton Young Ladies' Academy, but was forced to leave due to the cost of tuition. She educated herself, and opened a private school in a spare bedroom of the plantation house. She later began teaching in the public school system.[3]
Activism, beliefs and works edit
Kearney was a Methodist, and a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She was also active in the American suffrage movement, and was hired as a speaker and lobbyist by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In this role, she traveled throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, and was a respected orator.[1]
Kearney was a white supremacist, and used her public speaking events to advocate her racial views. While delivering an address at the National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention in 1903,[4] she said that women's suffrage would bring about "immediate and durable white supremacy, honestly attained".[3]
Kearney authored two novels: A Slaveholder's Daughter (1900), and Conqueror or Conquered: Or, the Sex Challenge Answered (1921). She also edited Mama Flower (1918).[5]
Elected office edit
In 1922, Kearney ran unsuccessfully for the office of U.S. Senator from Mississippi.
In 1924, she was elected to the Mississippi State Senate as a Democrat representing Madison County, the first woman in Mississippi to hold that office.[1]
Death edit
Kearney never married and had no children. She spent her last years on the family plantation in Flora, and died of cancer in 1939 at the home of a friend in Jackson. She was buried in Kearney Cemetery near the family plantation.[5]
See also edit
- Nellie Nugent Somerville, first woman elected to the Mississippi Legislature, elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1924.
References edit
- ^ a b c "Carrie Belle Kearney". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved May 27, 2014.
- ^ Women State and Territorial Legislators by Elizabeth M. Cox page 167
- ^ a b c Lemon, Armistead; Henderson, Harris. "Belle Kearney, 1863-1939". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
- ^ Program of the Thirty-Fifth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. p. 16.
- ^ a b Gandy, Sheena (January 2008). "Biography of Belle Kearney". Mississippi Writers & Musicians. Archived from the original on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2014-05-27.