From staff reports
The diary of Frances “Frank” Rollin Whipper, known as one of the earliest by a Southern Black woman, is a snapshot of post-Civil War African American society and politics. It is representative of the fundamental role that women played in the story of Reconstruction.
On Monday, Dec. 4 at 6 p.m., William and Mary University Professor Jennifer Putzi, editor of a forthcoming edition of the 1868 diary of Frances Rollin Whipper, and USC Beaufort (USCB) Professor Mollie Barnes will discuss Rollin Whipper’s life and work as an acclaimed writer and activist.
Born in Charleston in 1844, Rollin Whipper served as a Freedmen’s Bureau teacher, worked as a writer – often under the pen name “Frank” – and editor of newspapers including the Beaufort Tribune and advocated for women’s suffrage alongside her sisters.
Following the Civil War, she published a biography of Black nationalist and Union Maj. Martin R. Delany.
Married to Rep. William J. Whipper of Beaufort, she, and her husband were members of Beaufort’s Welsey United Methodist Church, where a marker memorializing their burials at the church, was dedicated this past Summer.
This interactive presentation and conversation – presented by USCB’s Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era, (ISRE), is free and open to all. For more information visit www.uscb.edu/isre.
