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The Agitators. By Dorothy Wickenden.
《鼓動者》，作者：多蘿西·威肯登
Abraham Lincoln had his team of rivals, but they were all white men with high opinions of themselves. Female alliances also worked to end slavery and perfect the union in 19th-century America. In “The Agitators” Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker profiles three neighbours who sought women’s rights and freedom for African-Americans. They banded together at a time when society mistrusted female activists. A newspaper published a letter calling one of their gatherings a “tabernacle of mischief and fanaticism”.
亞伯拉罕·林肯有很多對手，但他們都是自視甚高的白人男性。而在19世紀(jì)的美國，女性聯(lián)盟也同樣致力于結(jié)束奴隸制并完善美國聯(lián)邦制。在《鼓動者》中，《紐約客》作家多蘿西·威肯登刻畫了三位為非洲裔美國人爭取女性權(quán)利和自由的鄰居。她們是在社會不信任女性活動家之際集結(jié)在了一起。曾有一家報(bào)紙刊登了一封信，稱她們的一次集會是“胡鬧狂熱的圣所”。
Even for the time, that was an overreaction. As Ms Wickenden shows, the trio’s success depended on middle-class respectability. Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker and mother of six, found her voice writing anti-slavery essays for the North Star, an abolitionist paper published by Frederick Douglass. Her friend Frances Seward was married to William, governor of New York and a future secretary of state. With a pinched smile she entertained southern grandees and their charming wives. Mindful of his career prospects, William watched Frances’s social agitation with concern, once forbidding her from publicly supporting a school for black students.
即使在當(dāng)時(shí)，這樣的反應(yīng)也算是小題大做。正如威肯登女士所講述的，這三位女性的成功取決于她們在中產(chǎn)階級的聲望。瑪莎·科芬·賴特是一位貴格會教徒，也是六個(gè)孩子的母親，她在為弗雷德里克·道格拉斯出版的《北極星》報(bào)紙撰寫反奴隸制的文章時(shí)找到了真正的自我。她的朋友弗朗西斯·蘇厄德則嫁給了紐約州州長兼未來的國務(wù)卿威廉。她強(qiáng)顏歡笑地招待南方政要和他們迷人的妻子。礙于自己的職業(yè)前景，威廉密切關(guān)注著弗朗西斯造成的社會騷動，還曾經(jīng)禁止她公開支持黑人學(xué)生的學(xué)校。
The third member of the group is the best known, and the most radical. Harriet Tubman, hailed as Moses, led hundreds of slaves north to freedom along the underground railroad. Her face may soon adorn the $20 bill, according to a spokesperson for Joe Biden’ s administration. Tubman found allies in Wright and Seward, both of whom volunteered their homes in upstate New York as underground-railroad stops. “Women, underrated as a matter of course, were less likely to fall under suspicion,” Ms Wickenden writes. The three became friends and comrades.
這個(gè)團(tuán)體的第三個(gè)成員是最有名的，也是最激進(jìn)的。她就是被譽(yù)為摩西的哈利特·塔布曼，曾帶領(lǐng)數(shù)百名奴隸沿著地下鐵路一路北上獲得自由。喬·拜登政府的一位發(fā)言人表示，塔布曼的臉很快就會印在20美元的鈔票上。塔布曼與萊特和蘇厄德結(jié)成了盟友，因?yàn)樗齻兌硕甲栽赴炎约涸诩~約州北部的家作為地下鐵路站。威肯登女士寫道，“當(dāng)然，常常被低估的女性不太可能受到懷疑。”三人漸漸成了朋友和同志。
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