1922–1930s: (The ICWDR Study Clubs and Black Women’s Intellectual Tradition — The ICWDR Beginning “Study Clubs” Inviting Members and Nonmembers to Read Texts…

1922–1930s: (The ICWDR Study Clubs and Black Women’s Intellectual Tradition — The ICWDR Beginning “Study Clubs” Inviting Members and Nonmembers to Read Texts by African-Descended People Throughout the World Strengthening the Darker Races Through Familiarity of Self and One Another, This Self-Study Being a Central Component to Developing the Black Women’s Intellectual Tradition, the Nardal Sisters in 1930s Paris Hosting a Cercle d’Amis Establishing Similar Women’s Spaces, the ICWDR Creating an Alternative Curriculum with Research Projects Centering Black Women, Holly the Most Sought-After Speaker Talking to Young Girls About Haitian Women’s History in Both the US and Haiti, Women Collecting Newspapers and Photographs — Holly Showing Washington’s Picture to a Girls’ Club in Port-au-Prince as an Example of an “Inspirational” Black Woman): The ICWDR began study clubs in which members would invite fellow members and nonmembers to read texts by African-descended people throughout the world, ultimately strengthening the darker races through familiarity of self and one another. This self-study was a central component to developing the Black women’s intellectual tradition. Several years later in 1930s Paris, the Nardal Sisters, Jane and Paulette, hosted a cercle d’amis where they similarly established women’s spaces to consider the future of African-descended people in the modern world. The ICWDR created an alternative curriculum with research projects that centered Black women. This body of work also included public lectures, with Theodora Holly as the most sought-after speaker. She talked to young girls and women about the history of Haitian women and culture in both the United States and Haiti. In addition to Holly’s public lectures, the women collected newspapers and photographs of Haitian and US African American women. In a letter to Margaret Washington, Holly illustrated the significance of this print media exchange, explaining that she had given a lecture to a girls’ club in Port-au-Prince and showed the young women Washington’s picture as an example of an inspirational Black woman. The photograph traveling from the United States to a girls’ club in Port-au-Prince was itself a technology of resistance — an image circulating through feminine networks that the occupation could neither intercept nor comprehend, carrying with it the promise that Black women’s dignity was not a local condition but a global inheritance.