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Lelia Amos Pendleton (b. 1860) was an African-American community activist, writer and a teacher in Washington’s public schools. She was the founder and president of the Alpha Charity Club of Anacostia and the Social Purity Club of Washington, DC. She is known for her the non-fictional A Narrative of the Negro, which was published in 1912.

Table of Content:

• Biography
• Career
• Literary Works
• Bibliography

Biography

Leila Amos Pendleton was born in Washington, D.C in 1860 to Joseph and Marie Louise Amos.

She attended and graduated from a Washington, D.C public high school. She was also a teacher

in a few of those Washington public schools for 4 years; from 1889. She married Robert Lewis

Pendleton, a publisher in 1893 and left teaching that same year. After that, she concentrate on her

social, community, political activism, and philanthropy through membership in various

charitable organizations and women's clubs. She also founded organizations in Washington: the

Alpha Charity Club, the Social Purity League, Northeast Federation of Women's Clubs (Vice

President), National Association of Assemblies of the Order of the Golden Circle, and Auxiliary

to the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Pendleton, 1971). The date of her death is unknown.

Career

As a school teacher, Pendleton paid attention to the education progress of the Black children in

the United States. Despite the difficulties and challenges that confronted her, she moved ahead.

Challenges like the attack on teachers and the students. The school building was violated coupl

with the lawsuits to shut down the school. She condemned racial violence both in the North and

South and cited examples where violence took place. A place like Connecticut in 1830s which

forced some Blacks schools to be closed down. This all happened before her marriage.

Literary Works

Pendleton’s most famous work is her school textbook, entitled A Narrative of the Negro (1971),

which was used as a textbook in Washington, DC public schools. This textbook is under a

chronological order where it starts with the African American history in ancient Africa to the

early 1900. The textbook's first seven chapters is towards the study of the African Diaspora,

focusing much on Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. The next fifteen chapters focused

on African American history, and are followed by colonial history and a section dedicated to the

events shaping the early twentieth century. Pendleton also emphasized the many White allies

who had assisted African Americans through oppressive moments in history. She wrote

positively of the Quakers, William Lloyd Garrison, George Peabody, with balanced narratives

concerning White oppression with White advocacy.

One way that Pendleton challenged the morality of White people was through the discourse of

slavery. According to the dominant narrative, slavery was seen as a system to help "civilize"

Black people and to support this ideology, religion was used as justification.Pendleton's

narratives showed acts of resistance that exemplified African Americans' unhappiness toward

slavery. Pendleton provided several examples of how African Americans used the judicial

system to dismantle slavery.

Besides that, in her Narrative, she included that the African American soldier is symbolic

because a soldier represented a type of citizenship that had been traditionally excluded and who

were civic contributors to American democracy. Pendleton expressed that although African

Americans were initially not accepted as soldiers, once they were permitted, they were loyal and

willing participants to die for freedom. Pendleton's gender amplified her influence due to her

presentation of Black women in the public imagination and K-12 schools. A Narrative of the

Negro was written specifically for "all the colored children" in classrooms to celebrate their

history and culture. This book was intended to educate others on the culture and background of

African Americans.

Pendleton’s other works, included An Alphabet for Negro Children (Mather, 1915), Our New

Possession-'The Danish West Indies (1917), a published autobiography about Frederick

Douglass (1921a), and two short stories published in the Crisis magazine, "The Foolish and the

Wise: Sallie Runner is Introduced to Socrates" (1921b) and "The Foolish and the Wise: Sanctum

Meets Cleopatra" (1922). She also wrote the first children's book about Tubman in 1912 in

which she profiled a number of important African Americans, including Tubman, Sojourner

Truth, and Ellen Watkins Harper. In the Foolish and the Wise:Sallie Runner is Introduced to

Socrates, through Sallie (the main character), Pendleton show[ed] how white people have

presumed to 'own,' not only human beings, but all significant human attainments, and have

complacently assumed that anyone who achieves a great deal must, as a matter of course, be white. Pendleton’s gender and ethnicity made her works more authentic and inspirational because it was rare for a Black woman to be even slightly recognized or taken seriously. Therefore, Pendleton is an inspiration and an impotent historical figure.

seriously.