Sarah Dudley Pettey (1869-1906) was an African-American educator, writer, organist, and political activist in North Carolina. She devoted her life and career to increasing gender and racial equality, Christian temperance, and women's participation in the state's public sphere during the

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

era.

Early life

Sarah Dudley Pettey was born in 1869 in

New Bern, North Carolina New Bern, formerly called Newbern, is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 29,524, which had risen to an estimated 29,994 as of 2019. It is the county seat of Craven County and t ...

to Caroline Dudley and the Honorable E.R. Dudley. Her father was a prominent politician and writer.Culp, Daniel Wallace
Twentieth Century Negro Literature: Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro
United States: J.L. Nichols & Company, 1902. p.182. She attended New Bern Public Schools through the sixth grade. She next attended the New Bern State Colored Normal School. At the age of thirteen, she attended

Scotia Seminary Scotia is a Latin language, Latin placename derived from ''Scoti'', a Latin name for the Gaels, first attested in the late 3rd century.Duffy, Seán. ''Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia''. Routledge, 2005. p.698 The Romans referred to Ireland as ...

in Concord, North Carolina, a school staffed and taught by northern white teachers. She graduated from Scotia with distinction in June 1883 and returned to New Bern to teach. Dudley married Charles Pettey in 1889. Pettey had two daughters with Lula Pickenpack, Dudley's roommate at Scotia. After Lula died, Dudley and Pettey married. Charles Pettey was a bishop in the

African Methodist Episcopal Zion African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

church. They had 5 children.

Career

Pettey held several teaching positions throughout her career. In October 1883, she was an assistant at the New Bern Graded School where she was promoted to vice principal, occupying the post until 1889.

Activism

In 1896, Sarah Dudley Pettey became involved in the

National Association of Colored Women's Clubs The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of t ...

. Also in 1896, she began writing a bimonthly column in the ''

Star of Zion ''Star of Zion'' is the official publication of the A.M.E. Zion church. First published in 1876 it is among the oldest African American publications in North Carolina and the oldest continuously published. History For many years ''Star of Zion ...

,'' the newspaper of the A.M.E. Zion church. She also served as the church's General Secretary for the Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society. In her writings, she exhibited a progressive vision of women's rights and equality. Historian Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore notes that Dudley Pettey often traveled and preached with her husband, speaking in on “'Woman the Equal of Man' or 'Woman's Suffrage...'. She frequently wrote in the ''Star of Zion'' about women's accomplishments."

Death

Charles Pettey died in 1900, and Sarah Dudley Pettey died in 1906 at age thirty seven. Their deaths coincided with the establishment of the Jim Crow system and the full disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pettey, Sarah Dudley 1868 births African-American Christians 1906 deaths African-American feminists American feminists African-American activists 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women