A Cord of Three Strands is not Quickly Broken: The Fortitude of Arkansas Women's Activism

Laura L. Hennings

Mainstream attention to Arkansas women’s activism often emphasizes work that aligned with the status quo, rather than subverting it. The key figures in this project were mothers who advocated for improvements to public health, education, and justice reform, and non-parent maternal figures who hoped to make life more equitable for all families. I scoured over one thousand pages of primary and secondary source material to determine those factors that were most vital to the successes of organizations such as the Women’s Emergency Committee, the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union, and the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. Within these groups, women of different races and socioeconomic statuses connected over shared experiences; this was not always harmonious, but it was an avenue for experiential- and sentimental- maternal ideas to blossom into successful activism.