1. A History of Black Women and Technology, or Badges of Oppression and Positions of Strength

Abstract

Listening to Black women requires engagement with complicated histories and complex arguments. In this chapter, Steele considers how Black women’s specific institutional and social oppression—which began long before the advent of digital technology—has resulted in their continued strength with communication technology. In a white supremacist and patriarchal arrangement, Black women are effectively at the bottom of the state and economic power structure while simultaneously serving as the foundation upon which the U.S. builds an empire. Therefore, the labor, creativity, and ingenuity of Black women are foundational to the fabric of the U.S. Relying upon historical texts, including narratives, historical reconstructions, and existing literature about Black women’s technology use in the antebellum period through the twentieth century, this chapter documents Black women’s labor and a relationship with communication technology and a circumstance of its use that is the most generative.