Because of white racial imperialism, white women could organize groups like the Women's Christian Temperance Union, Young Women's Christian Association, General Federation of Women's Clubs, without explicitly stating in their heading that these organizations were exclusively white. Black women identified themselves racially calling their groups Colored Women's League, National Federation of Afro-American Women, National Association for Colored Women, and because they identified themselves by race scholars assume that their interest in the elevation of blacks as a group overshadowed their involvement with woman's effort to effect social reform. In fact, black female reform organizations were solidly rooted in the women's movement. It was in reaction to the racism of white women and to the fact that the U.S. remained a society with an apartheid social structure that compelled black women to focus on themselves rather than all women.

bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman_ Black Wome…, loc. 476