VIVIAN CARTER MASON: EARLY LIFE

Vivian Carter Mason was born February 10, 1900 , in Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania . She was the sixth of eight children born to George Cook Carter and Florence William Carter. Mason's mother was a music teacher from Aurora New York and her father was from Peachtree , Georgia , who migrated to Elmira , New York and became a Methodist minister. The Carters met at a church function in Auburn , New York , got married and raised their children in a mostly White neighborhood in Auburn. [1]

While growing up, Mason was influenced by her parents who were prominent in the struggle for empowerment of Black people. The Carters saw themselves as the vanguard of their race and used education and Christian ideals as standards for equity and morality in an effort to obliterate White supremacy. In the Carters' home the children were encouraged to read and they were exposed to the writing of great thinkers like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Payne, Frederick Douglas, and W. E. B. Dubois. In addition to the great writers, newspapers such as the Christian Herald , the Boston Guardian , and the Black New York City weekly, the New York Age were also read in the home. Through the early tutoring by her parents of history from a Black perspective, Mason adopted the adage to never acquiesce to White supremacy and used the acquisition of knowledge and its proper application as key to surmounting any obstacle on the path to self-empowerment. This core belief was crystallized for the young Mason who grew up with her seven siblings in a mostly White neighborhood and observed that White prejudice against Blacks started with an attitude that Blacks must be put in their place. That attitude ensured that Blacks were discriminated against in employment and thus was relegated to menial jobs which limited their opportunities for social advancement. Additionally, Mason herself had experienced racial discrimination first hand in her community, first, as a member of a Black family who moved into a mostly white neighborhood and was ostracized by their neighbors because of their ethnicity. The white neighbors simply refused to have their children play or communicate with Mason or her siblings. Secondly, a Greek owner of an ice cream shop attempted to discriminate against Mason because she was Black by charging her twice as much as he was charging Whites for the same amount of product and service. By persistent refusal to acquiesce to the inequity in price and service and consultation between the Greek owner and the Black residents in the community, the owner was influenced to stop his discriminatory demands. Finally, in school Mason felt compelled to correct the misinformation that was disseminated by a White teacher who told his history class that slavery was not all bad and many White masters were kind to their slaves. Mason responded by stating that was not true and quoted Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery , where he said, he had never met a former slave who wanted to return to slavery or who had been happy in slavery. The next day, Mason brought the book for her teacher to read. He then read it and recanted. These experiences were confirmations to Mason that education could be used to change attitudes and thus became the impetus for her pursuing a career as a feminist and educator.[2]

With a proclivity for activism and education because of her upbringing, early awareness of Black deprivation and admiration of previous generations of Black women feminist such as Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Frances Ellen Harper, Anna Julia Cooper, and Harriet Tubman who advocated against White America's racism and sexism towards Blacks that denied them their fundamental rights as citizens. Mason entered the University of Chicago to pursue a degree in political science and social work in order to be prepared for her perceived destiny as an activist and educator. As a student at the University of Chicago , Mason honed her skills as an activist by joining and being actively involved in organizations that worked for the upliftment of Blacks such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Association for Colored Women (NACW), and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. These organizations were the preeminent Black organizations during the early twentieth century that fought Jim Crow legislation which espoused segregation and separate but equal doctrine that confined blacks to a subordinate place in society. [3]

[1] Vivian Carter Mason, interview by Zelda Silverman, 19 October 1978 . Interview II. Transcript. Special Collection MG-53, Old Dominion University .

[2] William T. Mason Jr., interview by author, 06 October 2004 , in Norfolk , Virginia ; Virginia-Pilot ( Norfolk ), 16 February 1969 , sec. C, C4.

[3] Vivian Carter Mason, interview II by Zelda Silverman; William T. Mason Jr., interview by author; http://www.homestead.com/AKAEpsilonChapter/ChapterHistory~ns4.html