"In this first biography of Williams, Wanda A. Hendricks focuses on the critical role geography and social position played in Williams's life, illustrating how the reform activism of Williams and other black women was bound up with place and space. ... By highlighting how Williams experienced a set of freedoms in the North that were not imaginable in the South, this clearly written, widely accessible biography expands how we understand intellectual possibilities, economic success, and social mobility in post-Reconstruction America."--Publisher description.