On Common Ground: The Relationship Between Negro Home Demonstration and 4-H Clubs and Rural Women’s Community Leadership, 1920-1980

Abstract

This dissertation examines how rural African-American women and girls in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi developed leadership skills through their participation in United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cooperative Extension home demonstration and 4-H clubs. It argues that from the 1920s to the 1960s, black home demonstration agents used empowerment pedagogy to cultivate self- confidence, citizenship rights consciousness, and leadership skills among women and girls, and that some women and girls parlayed these valuable skills into their involvement in the Black Freedom Movement and participation in community leadership from the 1960s through the 1980s. It focuses on home demonstration agents, home demonstration club leaders and members, and 4-H club leaders and members.