Listen to co-curator Erica Ciallela relate the story of Belle Greene’s mother, Genevieve, and discuss the uneven survival of documents related to women’s history
GENEVIEVE’S SOCIAL LIFE
Few archival traces of Belle Greene’s mother, Genevieve, have been preserved, as is unfortunately typical with the lives of historical African American women. This rare advertising flier lists “Mrs. R. T. Greener” second on a roster of “The Ladies of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church.” Other notable women here include the educator and Colored Women’s League member Ella Barrier, the teacher Sarah Ann Martin, and the teacher, activist, and poet Charlotte “Lottie” Forten Grimké, the minister Francis J. Grimké’s wife. Charlotte Grimké was well known for her writing and political activism, helping to form both the Colored Women’s League and the National Association of Colored Women.
Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church
“The Ladies of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., Will Hold a Fair, Beginning December 22nd . . . ”
[Washington, DC, ca. 1880]
Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division; Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 207, Folder 4a
ERICA: Tracing the life of Belle Greene’s mother has been a challenging task. Born Genevieve Ida Fleet into the prominent Fleet family of Georgetown, Washington, DC, Genevieve became a music teacher and educational administrator. She followed in the footsteps of several family members who taught or performed music, most prominently her father James H. Fleet. Unlike her more famous husband, Richard, whom she would marry in 1874, Genevieve’s life is captured in fleeting glimpses, preserved in newspaper articles, census documents, city directories, and ephemera, like this flier. No photographs of her as a student or Washington, DC resident survive today, and only a few of her letters are extant. This is fairly typical of women’s history, especially when tracing the lives of Black women, as their records were not as carefully preserved.
Genevieve came from a proud family that had been part of Georgetown’s free black community since the early nineteenth century. Many of the Fleet family members attended Mount Zion United Methodist Church, the oldest Black church in Georgetown, whose congregation formed in 1814. But Genevieve’s family attended the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in DC proper, presided over by influential abolitionist minister Francis J. Grimké, who implemented colorist policies in the church. This history reveals the complexity of the elite Black community in DC at this time, a story that is still being uncovered through research by Fleet descendants in DC and elsewhere today. We are grateful to Audri Cabness of Washington, DC—a Fleet family descendant—for sharing more about her family history with the exhibition’s curators.