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Geraldine Pindell Trotter

Geraldine Pindell Trotter (1872-1918) was a civil rights activist, aristocrat, and editor. Born to Charles Edward Pindell and Mary Francis Pindell, Trotter was an integral fixture of Boston's African American upper class at the turn of the century. Trotter is most known for her role as the associate editor of George W. Forbes Boston newspaper, The Guardian.

Pindell Trotter became acquainted with her future husband, William Monroe Trotter, in early childhood. Following William Trotter's graduation Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, he and Pindell Trotter married on June 27,1899. As William Trotter became locally renowned for his real estate business, Pindell Trotter began to entertain local and national dignitaries. In 1901, William Trotter began to heavily involve himself in George Forbes's Boston rights newspaper, The Boston Guardian, though Pindell Trotter remained initially distant. Pindell Trotter eventually assumed editing duties for The Boston Guardian, as her husband alienated Forbes, and became an essential component of the newspaper's civil rights agenda.

Early Life

Pindell Trotter received her initial education in Everett, Massachussets at the Everett Grammar School, then matriculated to a local business college. For ten years after completing her studies, Pindell Trotter worked as an accountant for the Eli Cooley Company. During this time, Pindell Trotter met interminable friend W.E.B DuBois, and the two kept in touch for years after he finished his studies at Harvard. Dubois later recalled his desire to have courted her and lamented his inability to do so.

As Monroe Trotter's real estate venture increasingly garnered success, Pindell Trotter stopped working. Entertaining elite guests occupied a significant amount of Pindell Trotter's time thereafter. Notable individuals Pindell Trotter entertained included aforementioned W.E.B DuBois and his family, but also included the eminent Archibald Grimke and his family.

Marriage

Pindell Trotter, having known William Trotter since childhood, married him following his graduation from Harvard. Both individual's families were supportive, and aside from the fact that the Pindell's were Northern in origin and the Trotter's Southern, there was no contention between each. The young pair moved into the middle class Dorchester area of Boston following marriage, at 97 Sawyer Avenue. Monroe Trotter shortly entered into the real estate business, working with mostly white clients. The Trotter's remained childless throughout their marriage, and Pindell Trotter told friends she had no desire to have children, as their busy lives would not allow for proper care.

Philanthropy

Geraldine Pindell Trotter aided the City of Boston and surrounding areas often in later life. In Roxbury, Pindell Trotter imparted her skills upon a local community aid center, St. Monica's Home. A community bastion for African American women and children in need of care, St. Monica's in Dorchester was episcopalian, mirroring Pindell Trotter's religion. Pindell Trotter, variably, was also involved in the Public School Association, the Boston Literary and Historical Society, Women's Anti Lynching League, and the Equal Rights Association. Another cause Pindell Trotter dedicated herself to was the welfare of African American soldiers in World War I and the Soldiers Comfort Units, notably aiding the 519th engineers at Fort Devens. Pindell Trotter, with her husband William, also demonstrated against a second run showing of the prejudiced film The Birth of a Nation, a depiction of the origin of the Ku Klux Klan in the South.

The Guardian

George W. Forbes created The Boston Guardian in 1901, and William Monroe Trotter quickly became involved. From onset, the paper took an anti placation approach, offering scathing political articles on the racism facing everyday African-Americans. In the wake of the Boston Riot of 1903, at which William Trotter was arrested, Pindell Trotter rushed to the paper's aid as an editor in her husband's place. Moreover, Pindell Trotter assumed bookkeeping duties.

George Forbes became progressively alienated by William Trotter's activist activity, such as the interruption of a Booker T. Washington speech at the Columbus Avenue African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and divested from the paper as its profits decreased. With William Trotter recurrently in jail for his activities, and Forbes gone, Pindell Trotter assumed most of the paper's required duties and became a key aspect to the future direction of the paper. Pindell Trotter's bookeeping skills were invaluable to the paper's continuance as her husband was by accounts terrible with money management. Pindell Trotter also wrote collumns on fashion and household management, attempting to attract female readership at her husband's behest.

The Guardian, under direction of the Trotters, often disparaged the eminence of Booker T. Washington in the public domain. Washington's ideation of working for equality without pressing for it stood in direct opposition to the Trotter's philosophy. Booker T. Washington himself worked tirelessly against the newspaper's agenda, which included militant civil rights promotion and other rights causes. W.E.B Dubois asked the Trotter's to join the recently founded NAACP, however the Trotter's refused over objection to the organization's white leadership.

Financial Woes

Eventually, the paper became unprofitable, even with addition of Pindell Trotter's business skills. William Trotter refused to raise the subscription price of the paper for years, and the Trotter's business suffered for it. The Trotters were forced to sell their home to pay back debts incurred. Subsequently, William Trotter also let his real estate business fade in pursuit of the racial justice he desired through the paper. The formerly lavish pair found themselves renting, often without money on hand to pay for rooms. Now, the two were unable to entertain anyone, much less the dignitaries they had before.

Loss of Friendship

Over time, William Trotter alienated Pindell Trotter's friends one by one. William Trotter's fervent belief system often put him at odds with many, including Pindell Trotter's good friend Archibald Grimke, who was in turn driven to Washington's camp. Others including the wife of Clement J. Morgan, a prominent Boston African American Lawyer, punished Geraldine by refusing to invite her to elite events in light of her husband's ever increasing number of strained relationships. Pindell Trotter's longtime friend W.E.B Dubois and his family even ceased to visit, as Trotter vexed Dubois over matters of policy. Pindell Trotter's relationship with Dubois faded eventually in the absence of Dubois's summer visits.

Centenary of William Lloyd Garrison

As William Trotter ended her friendships, Pindell Trotter grew closer to him. In a notable instance for her husband, Pindell Trotter aided in the centenary of the birth of noted white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. The festival was held on a rainy day, and Pindell Trotter spoke in public at the cooly attended ceremony. Pindell Trotter said of the day ""as God looked back over the years of Garrison, he thought such a day as this would better stand for his life."

Pindell Trotter challenged those at the Garrison ceremony with a call to action, saying, "how many of us are now willing to do for our own what that man did for us?How many of us are willing to stand out against the broadcloth mob, to stand by what is right in spite of the criticism of the many?" Pindell Trotter further implored African Americans "who have had the advantages of education, who have seen life in its broadest light, to be willing to sacrifice and to care for our race."

Death and Legacy

Geraldine Pindell Trotter died October 8th, 1918 due to influenza. Pindell Trotter was only forty-six at the time of her passing. Trotter was buried in the Fairview Cemetery of Hyde Park. Her former friend W.E.B Dubois reminisced sadly in his autobiography that she, "had given up all thought of children," and that she had forfeited her "comfortable home," to help her husband, "in utter devotion, living and lunching with him in the Guardian office, and knowing hunger and cold." Dubois said of their ended union that it was, "a magnificent partnership, and she died to pay for it."

William Trotter suffered greatly due to his wife's death. Trotter wrote in the Guardian nearly each year after a passage for, "his fallen comrade," who dedicated life for, "the lives of her race." To readers of the Guardian, William Trotter guaranteed to continue "perpetuating the Guardian and the Equal Rights cause and work for which she made such noble, and total sacrifice."

Further Reading

Baker, Ray Stannard (1964). Following the Color Line: American Negro Citizenship in the Progressive Era. New York: Harper & Row

Schneider, Mark R (1997). Boston Confronts Jim Crow, 1890-1920. Boston: Northeastern UP

Smith, Jessie Carney, and Shirelle Phelps (1992) Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research