Mary Ann Pollar’s invitation to speak at an event put on by a political advocacy group called Black Women Organized for Action (BWOA) speaks both to the longer tradition of middle class black women’s organizing in church auxiliaries and social clubs as well as highlighting the emergent black feminist consciousness of the era. Like 1972 presidential hopeful Shirley Chisholm whose 1970 book was titled “Unbought and Unbossed,” Pollar and the women of BWOA took seriously the link between financial independence, black women’s agency and the larger project of securing financial stability for black families and black communities generally.