"What I appreciate the most is that she endeavored to see beyond the constraints of her time." Ruth Simmons,
Brown University president
PROVIDENCE -- She was a successful black woman who came from humble beginnings, a champion for social justice, a leader who could move easily from the boarding house to the boardroom.
This sounds like Ruth Simmons, the president of Brown University, but it's not. These words describe another trailblazing African-American woman who spent her life battling the same social inequities that exist today.
Christiana Carteaux Bannister was honored yesterday at Brown by Simmons, a woman whose own life followed a similar trajectory from poverty to success.
The event -- a tea party at Sayles Hall complete with crustless sandwiches and bite-sized sweets -- seemed a fitting touch for a woman who was a patron of the arts.
The party, hosted by Simmons and Secretary of State Edward S. Inman III, was held to raise money for a statue honoring Bannister to be displayed at the State House. In March, Elizabeth Buffum Chace became the first woman to be so honored.
Born in Rhode Island in 1822, Bannister, who was also part Native American, ran a string of hair salons in Boston and Providence, championed the antislavery movement and raised money for black soldiers and their families.
She was also a principal founder of a home for elderly black women that today is the Bannister Nursing Care Center on Dodge Street in Providence.
Bannister was the wife of Edward Mitchell Bannister, a landscape painter who gained national attention and helped found the Providence Art Club and the Rhode Island School of Design.
The couple prospered, buying homes on the East Side and near Narragansett Bay.
During the Civil War, Christiana Bannister was one of the leaders of a movement that sought equal pay and benefits for the soldiers in the 54th Regiment, a black regiment that became famous for fighting one of the most harrowing battles of the war.
In 1901, Edward Bannister collapsed in church and died of a heart attack. A year later, Christiana suffered a bout of apparent dementia and died. She was 80 years old.
Yesterday, Simmons, a sharecropper's daughter who became the first black woman to head an Ivy League institution, asked why it was necessary to recognize Bannister a century after her death.
"There were so many anonymous women who had this extraordinary foresight," Simmons said after her formal remarks. "What I appreciate the most is that she endeavored to see beyond the constraints of her time.
"My mother was a domestic worker," she said. "She had no retirement plan, no pension. And Bannister thought about that and made it possible for women like my mother to have a home."
History, she said, involves an acknowledgement of the past.
"I love the notion of reconciliation," Simmons said. "There is a good deal of talk today about slavery and reparations. How do we deal with these issues as a moral nation? How do we acknowledge that we have done things as a nation that we should not have done?"
Afterward, several women reflected on what Bannister's contributions mean today.
"She symbolizes possibilities," said Fayneese Miller, a professor of education at Brown. "This is a woman who lived in the shadow of her husband but financed his success. This is a chance to recognize that women do make a difference."
Bela Teixeira, executive director of the Black Heritage Society, said Bannister was a woman who reached out to many groups, from poor black women to patrons of the arts. Her ability to bridge those social and racial divides is what Teixeira most values about Bannister's life.
And Denise Barge, who works for the Minority Investment Development Corporation, said Bannister showed a spirit of leadership that few women had the courage to assume.
