Abigail Minis was a widow, in her eighties and Jewish, but that didn’t stop her from doing her part to fight the British during the Revolutionary War. She put her skills and resources as an innkeeper to use and paid for food for soldiers fighting for American independence in 1779 in Savannah, Georgia.
“Here’s a lady in her eighties who feeds troops during the Siege of Savannah, and to stand up to the British, to do that, she had a lot of moxie,” said Lynna Kay Shuffield, a member of the ancestry-based organization Daughters of the American Revolution, who found the primary documents needed for the group to recognize Minis as an American patriot.
The DAR now includes Minis on its list, although no members have claimed ancestry through her, said Shuffield. A service organization founded in 1890 that educates about and preserves history related to those who fought in the American Revolution, the DAR was historically all-white. It had a reputation for racism based on such incidents as its exclusion of opera singer Marian Anderson from its concert hall in 1939.
Today, its website’s “Frequently Asked Questions” page has a section devoted to explaining that episode. The organization says it welcomes members of all races and backgrounds, on one condition — that they can trace their lineage to someone who fought for or aided the American side during the Revolutionary War. And while there are Jewish members, there aren’t many, and their relationship to the organization can be complicated due to history and demographics.
The DAR did not respond to a request for comment by the Forward.
Shuffield is a fourth generation Houstonian, who joined the DAR to honor her “ancestors and their contributions to establishing the United States.” She has some Jewish ancestry, but those people are not the ones who connect her to the DAR.
The group tended to side with those opposing immigration in the 20th century, said Jonathan Sarna, an expert in American Jewish history at Brandeis University.
“My sense is that the DAR was a somewhat nativist organization. They historically opposed immigration, including immigration of Jews, and were a force for preserving an old America,” he said. “That debate is still alive,” he added, even though the DAR is no longer involved. Indeed, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly called for banning Muslim immigration to the United States and building a wall on the border with Mexico.
The organization’s past racial politics initially made Tamar Fox, a writer and editor, hesitant to join, but her reservations disappeared when she met with then-head of the DAR’s Manhattan chapter, Wilhelmina Kelly, who is African-American.
“She was really invested in getting people of color in the DAR, so I felt like they were doing good work, and I was not really worried that they were racist,” Fox told the Forward.