Reformer Lily Hardy Hammond (1859-1925), who was in her time the South's most prolific female writer on the "race question," has been marginalized. This volume reprints In Black and White, the most important of Hammond's ten books, along with a sampling of the dozens of articles she published.
Our problem is not racial, but human and economic. . . . We hold the Negro racially responsible for conditions common to all races on his economic plane. The writings of reformer Lily Hardy Hammond (18591925) are filled with such forthright criticisms of southern white attitudes toward African Americansenough so that her stature as a southern progressive thinker would seem assured. Yet Hammond, who once stood at the intellectual center of the southern womens social gospel movement and was in her time the Souths most prolific female writer on the race question, has been marginalized.
