Journal of Transnational American Studies

This article centers on Mary Church Terrell’s membership in the first transnational feminist organization following World War One and the ways race shaped the participation of this prominent African American feminist with extensive ties to Germany – and that of other African American women’s participation – in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In tracing Terrell’s activities, the article unpacks her response to Germany’s Rhineland Campaign – which erupted into an international scandal and debate on race, sex, and claims to national citizenship after World War One. Terrell’s intervention made her a broker of German-American transatlantic diplomacy via conversations about race. Of equal importance, the essay explores the complex threads of the “schwarze Schmach” (Black Shame), as it unearths the motives that precipitated white American and European feminists’ willing involvement. With African American participation in World War One and its aftermath as the backdrop to Terrell’s intervention in the Rhineland Campaign, the article traces the arc of African American women’s activism from a domestic-focused agenda to an international-focused agenda. It argues that Terrell’s approach to the international arena redefined African American women’s potential role in transnational organizations and debates.