Born: 1842, United States
Died: 1927
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Working for African Americans’ civil and political rights, Arianna C. Sparrow joined Black women’s organizations to protest racial discrimination and support women’s suffrage.
Beyond census records documenting her birth in Virginia, little is known about Arianna C. Sparrow’s early life.1 According to John Daniels’ 1914 In Freedom’s Birthplace: A Study of the Boston Negroes, Arianna traveled with her mother to Boston in 1852. Daniels, as well as later newspapers, noted that Harriet Beecher Stowe modeled her character Eliza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin after Sparrow’s mother.2 Articles document Arianna Sparrow’s talent as a soprano singer, and she often sung at various public events throughout her life in Boston.
Arianna Sparrow’s earliest known public activities centered on the issue of women’s suffrage. In 1885, she participated in Ward 9 suffrage meetings held in the Beacon Hill/West End neighborhoods. Hosted by the Massachusetts Woman’s Suffrage Association (MWSA), these meetings featured local leaders Lewis Hayden, Lucy Stone, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, and others. In speeches, this group encouraged Black women to register to vote in school committee elections and Black men to vote for local politicians who supported women’s suffrage. During one of these meetings, held at Twelfth Baptist Church, Arianna Sparrow “led the audience in the woman suffrage songs.”3 Two years later, Sparrow helped organize the West End Woman’s Suffrage League, a chapter of the MWSA composed of mostly leaders in the Black community. She became elected as a member of the Executive Committee of the League, and she offered to hold a subscription of the suffrage paper The Woman’s Journal at her home at 62 Phillips Street, in the heart of the Black community on Beacon Hill.4
In 1893, Arianna Sparrow joined the Woman’s Era Club as a founding member. She served as a leading member of the Club, partaking in many meetings and affiliated events. Through the Club, Sparrow became more involved in local activism and issues that affected African Americans. She joined Eliza Gardner, Josephine Ruffin, Florida Ridley, and Agnes Adams in a series of 1894 meetings with local Black leaders, including Emory Morris, Butler Wilson, and Clement Morgan, to discuss the anti-lynching crisis. At the end of these gatherings, they established several committees to bring attention to the lynching crisis and to take further action. Sparrow served on the Committee on Petition, the Press Committee, and the Committee on Newspaper Comments and Accounts and on Statistics.5
Through her work with the Woman’s Era Club, Arianna Sparrow helped organize the 1895 First National Conference of Colored Women of America in Boston, serving on the Committee of Arrangements.6 During the convention, Sparrow gave a solo performance and helped Florida Ridley as assistant corresponding secretary.7 This convention created the framework for the National Association of Colored Women, later the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, which Sparrow also joined.
Arianna Sparrow expanded her dedication to social justice beyond the Woman’s Era Club. She continued her involvement in the anti-lynching movement by attending speeches and events throughout Boston, including a mass meeting of women in May 1899 “to Protest Against Lynching of Negroes who Outrage Southern Women.”8 As someone who remembered the anti-slavery movement, Sparrow attended, and often sang during, many commemorative events in the 1890s and early 1900s. These events recognized the contributions of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and other abolitionists.9 Organizers of these events often linked the battle for freedom during abolition to the ongoing struggle for civil rights for African Americans. For Arianna Sparrow, as well as many other Black activists, this connection between the past and present drove her work for full equality.
After decades of service to the issues of women’s rights and civil rights, Arianna Sparrow died in Boston in 1927.