The History of the National Association of Colored Women’S Clubs, Inc.: A Legacy of Service

By LaVonne Leslie

The History of the National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, Inc.,

Edited by LaVonne Jackson Leslie
With a new introduction by the editor

In highlighting the history of the oldest black womens organization in the United States, The History of the National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, Inc., written by scholar Dr. Charles Wesley, provides a comprehensive insight into the historical achievements and activities of the organization from its creation to 1984.
The book offers an interesting history of how the organization evolved and functioned nationwide into one of the most respectable black organization.
It is highly recommended for readers interested in understanding the role of black women in uplifting the black community through community service involvement with programs focusing on childcare, education, and social services. The clubwomen established local, state, and regional chapters nationwide. The History of the National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, Inc., utilizes the organizations conference reports, minutes, and National Notespublication, as primary sources to depict how the clubs carried out their goals and operated in society to make a difference.
The voices of the pioneer women in the National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, Inc., can be envisioned by reading this pivotal work. Their achievements are noteworthy in our history. They have inspired women in the organization to continue to be involved in carrying out its mission by upholding its motto, lifting as we climb. This book prepares the foundation for the next edition focusing on the history of the organization to the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479722655

LaVonne Leslie

LaVonne Jackson Leslie, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC. She is the author of several books and articles, including Introduction to Afro- American Studies, Volumes 1 and 2.

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Copyright © 2012 by LaVonne Leslie.

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Contents

Preface

PART I

1.   Background: The Nineteenth Century

2.   Pioneer Women Organizers

3.   The Early Period of Organization

4.   Establishing a Firm Foundation

5.   Building on This Foundation

6.   The Period of Program Expansion

7.   Defining Purposes During the New Deal

8.   Facing New Challenges and Responsibilities

9.   Fulfilling a Legacy of Service: The NACWC in the 1970s and the 1980s

PART II

10.   The North Eastern Federation

Massachusetts State Union Of Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Rhode Island Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Connecticut State Association Of Women’s Clubs

The Empire State Federation Of Women’s Clubs, Inc.

New Jersey State Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Pennsylvania State Federation Of Negro Women’s Clubs

Washington And Vicinity Federation Of Women’s Clubs

11.   Southeastern Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Alabama Association Of Women’s Clubs

The Florida Association Of Women’s Clubs

Georgia Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

North Carolina Federation Of Negro Women’s Club

South Carolina Federation Of Women’s And Girls’ Clubs

Tennessee Federation Of Colored Women’s Club

The Mississippi State Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Virginia State Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

12.   The Central Association of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Michigan State Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs

Illinois Association Of Women’s Clubs

Missouri Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs

St. Louis Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc. 1904

Kansas Association Of Colored Women And Girl’s Clubs

Ohio Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Iowa Association Of Club Women

The Kentucky Association

Nebraska Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs

West Virginia State Federation Of Women’s Clubs

Wisconsin Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs

Indiana State Federation Of Colored Women’s Club

13.   The Northwestern Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

The Montana Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Washington State Association Of Colored Women

Colorado State Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Oregon Association Of Colored Women

Alaska State Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Wyoming Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

14.   Southwest Region

Arkansas Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

The Arizona Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

California State Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Louisiana Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

The New Mexico State Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Oklahoma Federation Of Colored Women’s Clubs

The Texas Association Of Women’s Clubs

Hawaii

President Champion’s Keynote Speech, Anchorage, Alaska, August 2, 1982

Appendix

NACWC Presidents

Biennial Conventions And Presidents

National Association Of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc.

National Song

Prayer

Charter

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgements

DEDICATED TO

The remarkable women who founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc. and the thousands of black club women past and present who contributed to the history and development of this great organization.

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MRS. OTELIA ELIZABETH CHAMPION

Preface

There should always be an ongoing history of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc. because of the variety of activities, volunteering and dedicated services that the great women who make up this organization perform every day.

The Call of Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin in 1895 stated Let Us Confer. A fire was ignited that has not ceased to burn through the years. It made this organization a reality and inspired women from all over the country to work. The women of NACWC have worked untiringly to keep the motto Lifting As We Climb alive.

This book, The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs: A Legacy of Service, is much needed to remind and inform all the people of today and tomorrow about the organization.

You will find in this book, achievements, dedication, struggles, disappointments, courage, and service unlimited of such great women as Mrs. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin; Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, who led the march against segregation of the Thompson Restaurants in Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, who started the Bethune-Cookman College in order to raise the standard of the Black Woman; and Dr. Rosa L. Gragg of Detroit, Michigan, NACWC President Emeritus, who spearheaded the Douglass Home Restoration and transfer to the federal government.

Special praise should be given to the 38 state presidents, 5 regional presidents and historians who enabled Dr. Charles H. Wesley to compile this fine book, a readable and meaningful history of NACWC.

We pray that every member of NACWC will purchase a book for their personal library.

It is my hope and prayer that by the 100th birthday of NACWC in 1996 there will be another updated edition of our HISTORY.

Many thanks to our National Historian, Miss Minnie M. Nelson, for her untiring effort in gathering much of the data for the author and reading the manuscript while in progress.

MRS. OTELIA E. CHAMPION

21st President

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PAST PRESIDENTS OF NACWC

L to R: Dr. Ella P. Stewart, Dr. Rosa L. Gragg, President Emeritus, Mrs. Mamie B. Reese, Mrs. Inez W. Tinsley

Chapter I

Background: The Nineteenth Century

The position of American women in nineteenth century America was one of subordinate status. With this true for most women, it is apparent that women of darker color had greater handicaps. The female slave as a mother had additional handicaps. However, her relationship to her children and family was more permanent than that of the black man who was sold more often than the black woman. She was the stabilizing factor in the black family in relation to its children, although families were distributed and sold at the master’s pleasure. Family disorganization was typical of slavery. There was little legal marriage or real family life. The recognition of these legalities when they occurred was based upon the individual judgment of the master. W. E. B. DuBois describes this contrast as follows:

On a whole it is fair to say that while to some extent European family morals were taught, the small select body of house servants and artisans both by precept and example, the great body of field hands were raped of their own sex customs and provided with no binding new ones.

The position of the colored woman in American society, North and South, was relegated to a lesser status than those of white men and women. They were the pariahs of society and at the depths of the social scale in the South in slavery and in freedom during the nineteenth century. In slavery, it was the Negro mother who brought profits to the master through children she bore, but she frequently interceded for her children with the white master. At times she could interfere with the mistreatment of male slaves. She revolted. She ran away. She protested, but she did survive. A matriarchal system developed among colored families with children following the status of the mother. Freedom for her meant freedom for the children. She participated in revolts, conspiracies and slave insurrections. There were a few women, however, who owned land and used it for agricultural purposes in order to maintain their own income. Some became landowners by the death of their husbands; they then became owners of slaves and thus acquired an income. Many of these women were aggressive and dominant in their family leadership and careers. A free Negro woman of Norfolk, Virginia, a huckstress by occupation, held her own husband as a slave. It is reported that with the rise of the Civil War, she was an unusual advocate of the views of the South in support of slavery. Another, Phil Cooper of Gloucester County (Virginia), was the slave of his free wife. These women were unusual and it is of interest to note that these types existed during the slave regime.

In addition, colored women were frequently used for field work but this was not generally the fact with white women. Still, there were similarities between the status of the Negro after slavery and the general status of women in America. Two movements, the abolition of slavery and the education and freedom of women, moved in parallel circles for more than a quarter of a century.

It was upon such a background that the need for the national organization of women came into being. It was from the Seneca Falls, New York, convention in 1848 that the Women’s Rights Movement had its beginning. Sojourner Truth participated in this convention. There were colored men who joined in the women’s movement, such as Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown and Charles Lenox Remond. Douglass, in the first issue of the North Star, announced that Right is of no sex. He was one of the thirty-two men present at the convention. He seconded the resolution proposing the vote for women. A tablet has been erected to commemorate this event and its wording is of interest:

On this post stood the Wesleyan Chapel where the First Woman’s Rights Convention in the world’s history was held July 19 and 20, 1848.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton moved the resolution which was seconded by Frederick Douglass, that is the duty of women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the election franchise.

During the convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, the President, Frances Gage, had been told that if Sojourner Truth spoke, the newspapers would have the women’s cause mixed up with abolition and ‘niggers.’ But Mrs. Stanton relates that Sojourner Truth finally secured the floor, and with the convention undecided on the resolution she turned the whole tide in women’s favor. Under the leadership of Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the organization of women’s suffrage began in conventions during the 1840s, leading to the formation of the National Women’ Suffrage Association. The Women’s Rights Convention in May 1866 changed its name to the Equal Rights Association, whose objective was universal suffrage.

Negro women abolitionists were active participants in the cause of women’s rights. Prior to the women’s suffrage movement, numerous antislavery and literary societies were formed in the 1830s by black women, especially in the northern states. These societies were organized for moral and religious improvement and for the education of colored youth.

Free Negro women began in the early years of the nineteenth century to organize. Fannie Barrier Williams, early nineteenth century author, has observed: Among colored women the club is the effort of the few competent on behalf of the many incompetent. This observation could be applied also to other groups. One of these organizations was known as the United Daughters of Allen, which was historically a missionary and moral reform society in the A.M.E. Church, and a temperance, educational and welfare organization formed in large cities of the east and the middle west. Early church work among these women was a training ground for later club work. Secret societies were the foundations of similar experiences.

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SOJOURNER TRUTH

The American Anti-Slavery Society was organized on December 4, 1833, and later extended an invitation for women to join its ranks. Women, black and white, became members of the Anti-Slavery Society and some became officers. The story of the development of Negro womanhood would be incomplete without the references to the leadership which was undertaken in this period prior to the Civil War when these organizations served not only as organizing protest units but also as instruments of education for public service in later Negro-American life.

Female societies were organized specifically for educational purposes in many northern states. One of these societies was the Ohio Ladies Educational Society which existed for the primary purpose of establishing schools for colored youth in the state. Names which stand out in the leadership of these early organizations are Sarah M. Douglass, Sarah Forten, and Harriet Purvis of Philadelphia; Abigail M. Matthews and Henrietta D. Ray of New York City, and Maria W. Stewart, famed lecturer and writer in Boston as well as Susan Paul of Boston, a life member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and a counsellor of the Boston Female Society. Sarah Forten, once described as a woman of large culture and great refinement, was a poetess in the abolition crusade. They are typical of the leadership furnished for these organizations.

Maria W. Stewart directed her appeals both to white and black women for improved religious behavior, and in quoting from the work of Biblical Women Characters, she said:

What if such women as are here described should rise among our sable race? And it is not impossible; for it is not the color of the skin that makes the man or woman, but the principle formed in the soul.

Free black women joined with men in the organization of groups to deny and nullify the Fugitive Slave Laws, and to assist runaway slaves. They joined in effecting organizations to improve the condition of freedmen and to assist in welfare measures. These women had to be courageous in undertaking such efforts because they were moving and working outside of the home and into areas which were regarded as those exclusively for men. Negro women took part in the Underground Railroad, welcoming escaped slaves into their homes and leading them to shelter in the homes of others, keeping them in their cellars and attics, and then at night sending them on to other homes farther north. American history tells the story of the anti-slavery activities of such white leaders as Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelly Foster, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony. These women had learned in the fight against slavery and they continued their efforts for their own emancipation.

Numerous black women were equally as active such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, antislavery lecturer, a writer of unusual ability and a poetess. She was also Superintendent of the Colored Work of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a member of the National Association of Colored Women. It was she who counseled Negro women to lift up their heads. Sojourner Truth, a lecturer in the abolition cause and the Women’s Rights Movement, stirred audiences to action with her quaint eloquence. Known as the Moses of her people, Harriet Tubman conducted fugitives to freedom, and served the Union forces as a guide and a spy in the Civil War. Also, there was Amanda Smith, world evangelist of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, whose autobiography appeared in 1893, after having lectured and worked in Europe, India, Africa and the United States. Others included were Sarah Parker Remond, abolitionist sister of Charles Lenox Remond; Mary Ann Shadd Cary, brilliant attorney-at-law and Charlotte Forten, author and teacher.

There were slave women in the South who themselves took advantage of the Underground Railroad rather than to continue to submit to slavery. There are numerous historical accounts of the experiences of these women in making the dangerous trips from station to station from the South into the North in the flight from slavery to freedom.

After the Civil War, there were changes in Negro life, particularly among the former slaves, which gave greater stability to the family as opportunities for religion and education increased. Prior to and during the Civil War, several institutions of higher education that had been established primarily for white students, began to admit colored women. Among these was Oberlin College which had opened its doors to both races and sexes in 1833, and from which Mary Jane Patterson graduated in 1862. Mary Jane Patterson, born in Raleigh, North Carolina, was believed to be the first black women to graduate from Oberlin College. She arrived there with her parents, probably through the Underground Railroad. After graduation, she taught at the Institute for Colored Youth at Philadelphia and at Washington, D.C., where she became the first colored principal of the Preparatory High School. Mary Church Terrell, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida Gibbs Hunt were graduates in the Oberlin class of 1884.

Other colleges and universities were established after the Civil War as co-educational institutions from which colored women graduated in large numbers. Howard University and Atlanta University were established in 1867; Fisk University in 1865; Shaw University in 1865; and others sprang into existence shortly thereafter for the purpose of educating men and women. Spelman College, a black women’s college, opened in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1881, through the work of two New England women, Sophia B. Packard and Harriett Giles.

The first graduates of these colleges faced criticisms and questions concerning their training and their possible unfitness for homes and children. Mary Church Terrell summarized these views and said: It was held by most people that women were unfitted to do their work in the home if they studied Latin, Greek, and higher mathematics. She taught at Wilberforce University, and at M Street High School where she met and married Attorney Robert H. Terrell. Mary Church Terrell, who was born in Memphis, Tennessee, at the time the Civil War had closed, described the early freedom developments of black women:

From the day the colored woman’s fetters were broken, her mind released from the darkness of ignorance, in which it had been held for nearly 300 years, and she could stand erect in the dignity of womanhood, no longer bought but free till this minute, generally speaking, she has been forging ahead, acquiring knowledge and exerting herself strenuously to promote the welfare of her race.

Between the close of the Civil War and 1890, there were conventions and organized protests by Negro men and women concerning their status as citizens. These protests increased after the restoration of southern white control began with the withdrawal of Federal troops. The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution led to a division in the women’s organizations.

When Senator Charles Sumner of Boston was in the leadership of the movement to obtain the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, he asked Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to give their support through the presentation of signed petitions to the Congress of the United States from the Women’s Loyal League. A petition was secured and forwarded containing the signatures of over one hundred thousand persons.

Black women were largely excluded from many organizations, except in some areas, particularly in New England, as well as from labor unions; consequently, many felt that they were not wanted. There were others, however, especially among the educated and the cultured, who were interested in the suffrage movement. Nevertheless, the National Labor Union organized by Negro workers adopted an address published on January 13, 1870, which declared that in its organization: We make no discrimination as to nationality, sex or color; but when a memorial was sent to the U.S. Congress, it began as a "memorial of the laboring men of the United States in convention assembled… ." [Emphasis added.] In spite of these neglects, the Negro woman continued to direct attention to her special condition and to organize clubs and programs. As a result of these limitations, local clubs took on greater significance. Public service in relation to the white community, as was first performed by colored women, included health care of the sick and aged, care of children and aid to the needy.

One colored woman, Mary Olney Brown, called for more activity in a letter to the New National Era, published on October 24, 1872 by Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C. She wrote:

Do you say that colored citizens do vote? I answer, Yes, a part of them vote. But did it ever occur to you that colored women citizens have the same right to vote that colored men citizens have?

This appeal was of little value although Frederick Douglass, who had been for many years an advocate of woman suffrage, was impressed by this letter and published it in his paper.

By 1890, the formation of organizations was one of the ways in which blacks could combat opposition which was rising against them. By the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was evident that the liberal legislation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act, later declared unconstitutional in 1883, were not to be interpreted as protective devices useful only by colored men. Moreover, the states could reserve their rights under the Fifteenth Amendment to modify their voting laws if there were no discrimination on account of race or previous condition of servitude. Mississippi began as the first state to create an indirect method of achieving the goal of nullifying the suffrage privilege of Negroes. In 1890 and 1892, this state provided that the voters should be able to read any section of the state constitution or be able to read and interpret it. It was not too difficult for local election officials in southern states acting as judges to disqualify potential colored electors on the educational qualification.

Not all women suffragists supported the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment giving black men, but not women, the right to vote. The controversy over the ratification of this amendment resulted in the dissolution of the Equal Rights Association. The newly-formed National Women’s Suffrage Association paid little attention to Negro suffrage. The American Women’s Suffrage Association, a counterpoising suffrage group, did support the Fifteenth Amendment. It is of interest to note that after the ratification of the 15th Amendment, Frederick Douglass urged colored women in the New National Era, May 12, 1870, to be prepared: When a sixteenth amendment removing their disability should become part of the law of the land.

This period of the end of liberal Reconstruction was marked by organizational and institutional activity on the local and national basis. The Colored Men’s Progressive and Cooperative Union of Baltimore, Maryland, and the National Conference of Colored Men became active. City and state conventions of Negro citizens drafted and forwarded resolutions urging the improvement of opportunities for Negroes and the removal of citizenship disabilities. There were conventions in the early 1890s which protested the lynching of Negroes. The Afro-American Press Convention in 1891 protested the adoption of the Blair Education Bill which denounced discrimination. This convention movement by men in this post-Reconstruction Period was an expression of dissatisfaction with the political and economic status of the Negro people.

The National Afro-American League, representing twenty-one states and the District of Columbia, assembled in Chicago, Illinois, in January, 1890. In addressing this convention, T. Thomas Fortune dramatized the lot of black women, after describing a Lynching at Jessup, Georgia, in the following words:

Think of it Christian people! Helpless women divested of all clothing, stripped stark naked, and exposed to the rude stare of a gaping mob, and then the lash applied until the blood spurted from their quivering bodies.

The address of this convention directed attention to the plight of black women when it was stated:

Our wives and our daughters, our mothers and sisters are forced, in consequence of such legislation, to occupy seats, when traveling in filthy and inferior cars.

The Federation of Women’s Clubs was initiated under the leadership of Sorosis, a club of women in New York. As a part of the celebration of its twenty-first anniversary, an invitation was sent to ninety-seven women’s clubs requesting that delegates be sent to this anniversary convention. There were sixty-one clubs which responded to this invitation and sent delegates to the convention opening on March 20, 1889, at Madison Square Theater in New York City. It was decided to form a federation and a committee was appointed to prepare a constitution which was adopted the next year at the Ratification Convention.

The first session met in Chicago, May 11-13, 1892, with 297 delegates. The second session assembled May 9-11, 1894, in Philadelphia with over six hundred delegates present. The third convention met in Louisville, Kentucky, May 27-29, 1896. The General Federation of Women’s Clubs failed to admit colored women’s clubs as either full-fledged members or affiliates.

Throughout these years, there were women, black and white, who were advancing toward equality with men in professional competence and public service but there were states which did not allow women the right to vote or which permitted women to vote only on local questions. States which began to grant this privilege were Iowa in 1894 and Louisiana in 1898. Voting in school elections was granted by Illinois in 1891, Connecticut in 1893, and Ohio in 1894. In the election of 1870 in South Carolina, women were reported to have voted. They had entered the field of teaching at an early period in goodly numbers and following the Civil War their numbers increased, as well as in the areas of literature, social reform and career endeavors. Education had become more available to them both on the higher and professional levels.

Among the noted educated Negro women of this period was Oberlin graduate Fanny Jackson Coppin, who became the principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia and the wife of Bishop L. J. Coppin. Following the Civil War, Negro female medical school graduates increased. Dr. Roberta Cole was graduated from the Women’s College of Pennsylvania in 1867. She was one of the first Negro women physicians in the nation. Dr. Caroline V. Still Anderson was a member of the graduating class of 1878 of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She graduated from Oberlin College and for a time taught at Howard University. After graduating in medicine, she interned at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, and returning to Philadelphia, she engaged in the practice of medicine and served as City District Physician for several years.

By 1896, there were female physicians, such as Dr. Hallie Tanner Johnson Dillon, daughter of Bishop B. T. Tanner of the A.M.E. Church, and a graduate of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She was the first woman, white or colored, to practice medicine in the state of Alabama, starting her work at Tuskegee Institute and establishing a Nurse’s Training School there. Others included Dr. Susan McKinney, a graduate of the Women’s Medical College of New York, and Dr. S. Maria Stewart, a graduate of the same institution, who was at one time resident physician at Wilberforce University; Dr. Georgia L. Patton, a graduate of Meharry Medical College in 1893, who practiced medicine in Memphis, Tennessee, and another Meharry graduate of 1894, Dr. Lucinda Key of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Three women were graduated in pharmacy from Meharry in 1893—Matilda Lloyd, Margaret Miller and Bella Coleman.

Other early women college graduates included Charlotte E. Ray, the first Negro woman law school graduate, who received her law degree (LL.B.) from Howard University Law School in 1872. She was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1872. The Women’s Journal, May 25, 1872, stated:

In the city of Washington, where a few years ago colored women were bought and sold under sanction of law, a woman of African descent has been admitted to practice at the bar of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, Miss Charlotte E. Ray, who has the honor of being the first lady lawyer in Washington, is a graduate of the Law School of Howard University and is said to be a husky mulatto, possessing wit and an intelligent countenance, and was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was graduated in law from the same institution. Ida Platt became the first Negro woman to be admitted to the Illinois Bar during this period. Attorney Gertrude Rush, a member of the Iowa Association of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, was the first black woman admitted to the National Bar Association. Dr. Ida Gray was the first colored woman dentist in Cincinnati. The first female graduate of the Medical Department of Howard University was Mary Dora Spockman, a white woman who was mentioned in the University catalogue as a successful woman physician.

Other women were establishing careers in music. There were not only female singers with the Fisk Jubilee Singers; but also important soloists such as Elizabeth Greenfield, the Black Swan; Madame Flora Batson Bergen, and Madame Sisseretta Jones, known as Black Patti who traveled extensively in European countries. Women distinguished themselves in other areas such as Henrietta Vinton Davis, a play producer; Hallie Q. Brown, an elocutionist; and Edmonia Lewis, a sculptress.

Negro women were being encouraged to develop careers and to achieve in areas formerly occupied exclusively by men. Lillie England Lovingood of Birmingham, Alabama, in an address in 1894 entitled, Woman’s Work in the Elevation of the Race, said: Women should study medicine, law, write books, poetry, history, etc. Do not be content to be ornamental alone. During the same period, Lucinda W. Gamble of Omaha, Nebraska, stated:

We now find women engaged in almost every profession. Her influence is felt in every avenue of life. We find her not unhonorably filling the lawyer’s position. We find her successful as physician and druggist. How invaluable is she for the success of many of the newspapers and journals of the day; many of which must thank women for their high moral tone, and often for their best articles and editorials. Literature is very greatly indebted to women.

Among the literary contributors, our women were active participants in organizations. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Boston, Massachusetts, was editor of The Woman’s Era, the organ of the Federation of Afro-American Women; Victoria Earle Matthews, who began life as a slave and subsequently became a contributor to The Woman’s Era, and President of the Woman’s Loyal Union of New York and Brooklyn; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a poet; Anna J. Cooper was a teacher and a principal in the public schools of the District of Columbia, a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Paris, author of A Voice From the South (1892), and president of Frelinghuysen University. Susan L. Shorter wrote and published Heroines of African Methodism in 1891.

They were authors of books as well as editors and columnists among the colored club women of this period. Mrs. Nathan F. Mossell of Philadelphia, author of The Work of the Afro-American Women (1894), and of contributions to the Women’s Departments of Negro newspapers, was also an interested organizer of women’s work in Philadelphia. Mrs. Mossell, Mrs. Ida Lowly, and Mrs. Emma Ranson were active in the church, and contributors as well to the Home and Foreign Mission Journal, Light and Love, the African Methodist Episcopal Review and Our Women and Children.

Business was one of the areas in which women, best represented by Maggie L. Walker of Richmond, Virginia, were becoming active. Walker, a member of the Douglass Home Committee of NACWC, was associated with organized Negro life in Richmond and in particular with the Independent Order of Saint Luke. This order had been formed in Baltimore in 1867 for the purpose of assisting the sick and burying the dead. Her rise to leadership in this organization was rapid, after her graduation from high school. She became secretary of one of its councils and performed these duties at the age of sixteen. She then filled every grand office to that of Right Worthy Grand Chief, then National Deputy, and became an organizer of its councils in Virginia and West Virginia. She moved forward rapidly, serving as Secretary of the Endowment Department. In 1889, after pursuing a special business course, she became Executive Secretary of the Independent Order of Saint Luke, and later was elected Grand Secretary-Treasurer of the organization, a position which she held for twenty-five years. She also served as President of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank which became the Saint Luke’s Bank and Trust Company. She was the first colored woman to become president of a bank in the United States. Mrs. Walker was a prominent church woman and one of the group of colored women of the city of Richmond who were cooperating with a group of white club women in community betterment projects. In the Middle West, Alpha V. Miner conducted an extensive clothing and dressmaking business in Kansas City, Missouri. Minnie Watson of Louisville, Kentucky, after graduation from the Clark School of Embalming, entered the undertaking business with her husband as partner. Some Negro women became secretaries, stenographers, bookkeepers and sales clerks.

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, many outstanding Negro women were active in lifting as they climbed. They had caught a vision of a higher status for themselves and were leading others toward that goal. Black women were aware by this period of that which Hallie Q. Brown so eloquently quoted: Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, the women of it decide the morals. These women of education, the professions, and business, who were often serving as wives and mothers, were in the center of individual and group progress.

With all the forces at work and with the difficulties which beset individual women, the colored woman has engaged in organized action planned so as to meet her needs and those of the community. The organization of clubs of women to consider community problems was one of the developments of the late nineteenth century. These clubs and associations were for social betterment and the coordination of responses to the needs of even the individual woman. Through these groups, colored women found expression for their community needs and developed a group consciousness, which stressed equality of opportunity with men.

However, along with those in the top level positions, there were others who were quietly proving their metal and engaging in employment in fields that their numbers had not been acquainted with in previous periods. The typical black mammy of slavery days was rapidly passing except in fiction and imagination. At the same time, there were groups of white women who were eager and desirous of lending a helping hand to colored women who had manifested their worthiness. More importantly, black women formed clubs of their own in cities and local centers for the advancement and improvement of their group and their communities. By the last decade of the nineteenth century, these organized units of women were prepared for a national organization.

Chapter II

Pioneer Women Organizers

The pioneers in organization among colored women were those who were engaged originally in missionary and charitable work, sewing circles, reading clubs, literary societies, mothers’ meetings and community service organizations. Hundreds of colored women, by the last decade of the nineteenth century were engaged in careers in cities, towns and villages as teachers, principals, physicians and nurses, superintendents of health centers and workers in community endeavors. They worked for the care of the sick and the aged of their neighborhoods. They organized women’s clubs for mutual benefit and for group and family improvement.

These organizations were at first local associations of women who met periodically for educational, literary, cultural and public service purposes. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union had developed into an active force on a national basis, in which representatives of white and colored women were united in a common cause. Later, representative colored women joined with white women in suffrage organizations in their communities, and some attended meetings of the national suffrage association. Although there were pioneers in this cause, the activities of the larger numbers of colored women were not directed toward the suffrage for themselves, since suffrage for colored males was denied in most areas of the South, despite the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and second-class citizenship was typical for both sexes.

Hampered and inhibited as they were by the conditions of their communities, regarded by white males as of lesser status and intelligence than white women and as outside the veil of their personal morality, many colored women fought their battles valiantly. Often alone in the house where she worked as a domestic, she built her defense on her religion and church to which she had given continuous support. The Christian Endeavor Societies, the Baptist Women’s Societies, the Epworth Leagues were all foundation stones in the building of the character of the women who lived in this period. In an address entitled The Colored Women and Her Part in Race Regeneration Frannie Barrier Williams declared: The Negro women of the South are subject to temptations of which their white sisters in the North have no appreciation, and which came to them from the days of their race enslavement.

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JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN

It was during this period that Hallie Quinn Brown gave brief descriptions of the endeavors of black women to advance in spite of handicaps. Said she,

our women have lighted a torch in the valley that shows the weakness and defects of the castle on the Mount. They are entering the Juvenile Courts as guardians and defenders of the friendless child. They are establishing orphanages and homes for the incorrigible, for the aged and infirm and entering hospitals for the dying. All have obstacles but we must learn to surmount them.

The organization of colored women on the local and national basis was achieved through the pioneering spirit, the initiative, courage and perserverance of women leaders, such as, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Hallie Quinn Brown, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Amanda Smith.

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HALLIE QUINN BROWN

One of these outstanding leaders was Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin of Boston, Massachusetts, who was a pioneer not only in the organization of black women but also in the organization of white women. She was a founder of the first colored woman’s club in Boston, one of the earliest of these clubs in the United States—the Women’s Era Club. Mrs. Ruffin was one of the charter members of the Massachusetts School Suffrage Association and continued in suffrage activities over many years in association with Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. Active membership was held by her in the New England’s Women’s Club, the Associated Charities, the Boston Movement for the Kansas Exodus, the Moral Education Society of which she was a charter member, the Calhoun Club, the Sedalia Club, the Northeastern Federation of Women’s Clubs of which she was a founder, and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. She was also one of the founders of the Massachusetts State Federation of Women’s Clubs in association with Mabel Loomes Todd and Ada Tillinghast, as well as the chairman of the League of Women for Community Services.

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was born in Boston in 1842. Her father of French, Indian and Negro ancestry was a native of Massachusetts and her mother was an English woman. She was sent to school in Charleston and Salem, Massachusetts, instead of the separate schools for colored children in Boston, but she returned to the schools there when they were opened to all children. She attended the Bowdoin School, a finishing school for girls and, later, married George L. Ruffin of Virginia in 1858. They decided at first to make their residence in England. However, shortly afterwards they returned to the United States for the purpose of engaging in the struggles for freedom. Her many public activities during the Civil War included aid in the recruitment of soldiers for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments and work with the U.S. Sanitary Commission.

This background of activities was paralleled by her leadership in the work of colored women. Following the formation of the Women’s Era Club in association with her daughter, Florida Ruffin, she founded and published the Women’s Era as the official monthly magazine of the Women’s Era Club. This monthly magazine was continued for ten years. As a result of her activities as publisher of this magazine, Mrs. Ruffin was admitted to membership in the Women’s Press Club of Boston. She served as vice-president to Edward Everett Hale who was also president of the African School. While engaged in these public activities as founder and leader of women’s clubs whose members were predominantly white and in work with colored women’s clubs, she continued her membership in Trinity Church, Boston, where her funeral was held in 1924. She, as one of the first pioneers in the organization of women, called the first convention of colored women which culminated in the first meeting of the National Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs.

Another leader was Hallie Quinn Brown, who was born on March 10, 1850, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father, Thomas Arthur Brown, a native of Frederick County, Maryland, was freed from slavery in 1834. He migrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and became a steward and express agent on river boats plying from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Thomas Brown was the owner of considerable real estate in Pittsburgh before the Civil War. Hallie’s mother, Frances Jane Scroggins Brown, was born in Winchester County, Virginia, and was freed by her father, who had been an American officer in the War of 1812.

In 1865, the Brown family moved from Pittsburgh to Chatham, Ontario, Canada, where her father engaged in farming. After their home burned in 1870, the family moved to Wilberforce so that Hallie and her younger brother could attend Wilberforce University. She graduated in 1873 in a class of seven, which included four girls and three boys. She was Salutatorian of the class and received the degree of Bachelor of Science. She attended the Chatauqua Lecture School and was a member of the graduating class of 1886. The honorary degrees of Master of Science in 1890 and of Doctor of Laws in 1936 were awarded to her by Wilberforce University.

With the need for teachers in the South during the period of Reconstruction, she entered this field, teaching first in South Carolina, then in Mississippi. She served as Dean of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and also taught at the Sonora Plantations, in Yazoo, Mississippi. She taught not only the young but also the adults. Her influence as a teacher extended over a wide area and had beneficial effects on the conduct of the pupils in her school. Miss Brown returned to Ohio in 1875 and began teaching first in the Dayton Public School System and then at Wilberforce University.

She became active in public speaking and traveled extensively as an Elocutionist. She recited and lectured before numerous audiences and was well received. One of her contemporaries stated:

She possessed a voice of wonderful magnetism and great compass, and seemed to have perfect control of the muscles of her throat and can vary her voice as successfully as a mocking bird.

The Indianapolis Times noting her performances with the Wilberforce Concert Company stated:

Miss Hallie Q. Brown, the elocutionist with the Company, was loudly applauded. Many credit Miss Brown with being one of the best elocutioners before the public.

The Monitor of Marion, Illinois, declared:

The select reading of Miss Hallie Q. Brown was very fine. From grave to gay, from tragic to comic, with a great variation of themes and humors, she seemed to succeed in all, and her renderings were the spice of the night’s performance.

She was appointed to the faculty of Wilberforce University as an instructor in speech, served as professor of elocution and continued her interest in this field, entering later upon public and civic activities. She traveled to Europe in 1894 and spent several months in England, as well as other parts of the continent lecturing and seeking funds to aid Wilberforce University, which was named in memory of William Wilberforce, British abolitionist. She interested the Emery family in England and a donation by this family was made toward the construction of a student’s dormitory. Miss E. J. Emery was a wealthy London philanthropist who donated $16,000 with which to erect the new dormitory known as the Keziah Emery Hall and was dedicated to the memory of the mother of the donor.

Brown was a crusader in the cause of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and continued to serve throughout her years of activity as a lecturer and organizer. While in Europe she lectured for the British Women’s Temperance Association, was made a member of the Royal Geographical Society in Edinburgh, Scotland, and of the International Women’s Congress in London, England. Miss Brown was a speaker at the Third Biennial Convention of the World’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union held in London in 1895 with Lady Henry Somerset presiding. She was one of the representatives of the United States to the International Congress of Women held in London. She also appeared in a Command Performance before King George V and Queen Mary of England and was entertained at a dinner given by the Princess of Wales for London’s children in 1897. Miss Brown attended the funeral services of William E. Gladstone, having been furnished admission by a member of Parliament. In 1912, she made another trip to Europe as the representative of the Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Conference held in Edinburgh where she remained in England for the next seven months. The Sheffield Daily Telegram stated that she was one of the finest female elocutionists in the world. On her return to the United States she was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of Wilberforce and served for several years in this capacity.

Her home, known as Homewood Cottage, in the village of Wilberforce, was a center from which there have arisen influences of great value to the work of women and girls in Ohio and in the nation. She served as President of the Ohio State Federation of Women’s Clubs; Vice-President of the Ohio Council of Republican Women; as a member of the Advisory Committee of the National League of Women Voters, and of the Colored Women’s Department of the Republican National Committee. Miss Brown was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Negro Women’s National Republican League and 7th National President of the National Association of Colored Women, Inc. She at one time stated that she believed that the National Association of Colored Women had been a training school for the public activities of colored women.

A third leader in this movement for the organization of women was Mary Church Terrell, lecturer and author, who was born in Memphis, Tennessee, September 23, 1863. She was sent to Ohio and entered Oberlin College, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1883 and the degree of Master of Arts from Oberlin in 1884. She was appointed a teacher at Wilberforce University in 1885 and continued teaching there until 1887. Later, she was appointed to the staff of the high school on M Street, Washington, D.C., teaching languages for one year, 1889. For the next two years she traveled and studied in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, returning to Washington to continue her teaching there. Later, she married Robert H. Terrell, a graduate of Harvard University and Municipal Judge in the District of Columbia.

Mrs. Terrell was one of the first two women to be appointed to the Board of Education for the public schools of the District of Columbia and the first colored woman to serve on this board. She remained on the Board for a period of six years, and after a period of successful service, resigned this appointment. But shortly thereafter she was reappointed for a five-year term and served, with her first appointment, a total of eleven years on the District of Columbia’s Board of Education. During these same periods she developed interest in the club work of women and became a leader and participant in their conventions in Europe and the United States. She described this beginning interest as follows:

Having observed from attending the women’s suffrage meetings how much may be accomplished through organization, I entered enthusiastically into club work among women of my own group.

For many years colored women had been binding themselves together in the interest of the church and their work had been very effective in many ways. As soon as the idea of uniting their forces outside the church dawned upon them, it took definite, tangible form quickly, and women of all classes and conditions seized upon it with enthusiasm and organizations of various kinds came into existence.

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MARY CHURCH TERRELL

This work soon witnessed Mrs. Terrell’s leadership. She served as a delegate to the International Congress of Women in Berlin in 1904, delivering an address in German. She was a delegate to the International League of Peace at Zurich, Switzerland, in May 1919, representing the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Later, in July 1937, she served with the delegation to the World Fellowship of Faith. She was a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She became interested in politics and was appointed Director of Work among colored women of the Eastern Division for the Republican National Committee in 1920, and was reappointed to this position in 1932.

Mrs. Terrell served, during World War I, as National Supervisor of Work among colored women for the War Camp Community Service and was interested in interracial community work. Her interest in education was noted in her leadership in the founding of the College Alumnae Club, serving as first president. She was also a vigorous campaigner for the opening of closed doors to colored people. One of these campaigns was directed by her against the Washington branch of the American Association of University Women, and membership was finally achieved through the action of the national organization. She was elected first president of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and reelected twice to this position.

Another of these leaders was Victoria Earl Matthews who was born at Fort Valley, Georgia, May 27, 1861. She attended the schools in her community and remained throughout her life an exuberant and resourceful community worker. Her family moved to New York where she entered the public schools of this city. Due to illness in her family, she was compelled to leave school and go to work. One position took her into a home where there was a library, and noting her interest in books, her employer permitted her to read many of these books. Through this opportunity, she improved herself mentally by reading, attending lectures and associating with educated persons. Her interest in her studies continued throughout her life.

In 1892, Mrs. Matthews took the initiative in the formation of the Women’s Loyal Union of New York and Brooklyn, and became its president. It is said that she worked with rare intelligence, persistence and enthusiasm for the development of this organization. She was one among the group of women who responded to the call made by Mrs. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, president of the Women’s Era Club in July, 1895. Mrs. Matthews became one of the most vigorous participants in the organization of the National Association of Colored Women and served as chairman of the Executive Board in 1896 and was later appointed National Organizer.

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VICTORIA EARLE MATHEWS

The work of Mrs. Matthews is not only notable in connection with the organization of women’s clubs but also in the organization of a movement in New York City to aid colored women. She was one of the pioneers in the establishment of the Travelers Aid Society. The White Rose Mission was founded by her in 1897 for the purpose of sheltering, guiding, and teaching girls the home arts of cooking, sewing, and home keeping. There was also maintained a kindergarten and a program for the organization of community women’s clubs. She dreamed of establishing a Home for Colored Working Girls. This grew out of the fact that there were girls and women who were being enticed to New York City or traveled there for the first time and were taken to unknown places by strangers who met the boats or trains. Some of the girls and women lived to regret the fact that there was no one to guide them on their arrival.

Mrs. Matthews was one of the pioneers in the community effort to aid newly-arrived girls and women. The beginning of this work is described by Mrs. Matthews:

I began to hold mothers’ meetings at the various homes where I visited; and you may not believe this, but one day at one of these meetings we prayed earnestly for a permanent home where we might train the boys and girls and make a social center for them where the only influence would be good and true and pure. Almost immediately Dr. Winthrop Phelps, who owns an apartment house, offered us one of its flats free for three months to make our experiment.

A house was secured at a later period, and the Home for Colored Working Girls was established. This home contained a library which was described as one of the most unique special libraries in New York. A large number of the books were about colored people and were used in a class which Mrs. Matthews taught on Race History. Her work was of such value that it was said:

The fuller, richer lives of thousands of Negro girls and the enriched lives of their children’s children shall bear witness through the ages to the vision, the courage, the willing sacrifice of a Negro woman with a frail body and a mighty soul.

Josephine Silone Yates (1859-1912) was of New England ancestry who subsequently moved to the Midwest. She was educated in the schools of Philadelphia where she had the opportunity of studying under Fanny Jackson Coppin. She moved, at the invitation of her aunt, to Newport, Rhode Island, where she attended high school and was graduated as valedictorian of her class. She was the first colored graduate of this school. She attended the Rhode Island State Normal School at Providence where she was graduated in 1879, the only colored graduate. She moved westward in 1880 and began teaching at the Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, Missouri, until she married W. W. Yates, principal of the Wendell Phillips School of Kansas City, Missouri.

During her life she continued to write for newspapers and embraced a wide range of thought in her presentation. Mrs. Yates began her activity in club work through the organization of the Kansas City Women’s League in 1893 and became one of its state presidents. She was an ardent supporter of the movement which led to the organization of the National Association of Colored Women and also served as its treasurer and president. She was a woman of unusual intellectual capacity, devoted to study and teaching. She maintained this attitude throughout her life, and stands as one of the original leaders of the National Association.

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JOSEPHINE SILONE YATES

Fanny Jackson Coppin was one of the outstanding women of the nation who became a leader in education and in the organization of women. Fanny Marion Jackson was born in 1835 in Washington, D.C. and later moved to Newport, Rhode Island. She attended the Rhode Island State Normal School, but soon sought admission to Oberlin College. It is of interest to observe that Bishop Daniel A. Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was one of those who gave her a scholarship, thus enabling her to enroll in Oberlin. She entered Oberlin in 1860 and because of the studies she had taken at the Rhode Island State Normal School, she was able to teach a preparatory class in her junior and senior years. She graduated in the class of 1865, having been elected as class poet for the class day exercises. In this same year, she began work at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, a school established by the Quakers. When Ebenezer Bassett was appointed United States Minister to Haiti by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869, Miss Jackson was elected principal and held this office for nearly forty years, during which time there were significant developments made in the field of education. She established the Women’s Industrial Exchange where the handiwork of the departments of her school was displayed. In 1881 Miss Jackson was married to Reverend Levi J. Coppin, who was elected one of the Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and was assigned to South Africa. Prior to her departure for South Africa, she was engaged in the Women’s Club Movement and also in the activities of the Women’s Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, having been elected its president in 1888. She was one of the pioneer figures in the organization of women’s club work. She died on January 21, 1913.

Margaret Murray Washington, better known as Mrs. Booker T. Washington, was another of these pioneer women during the period of the organization of colored women. She was born in Macon, Mississippi, and during her childhood she was sent to live with a Quaker family whose influence was of tremendous importance in her life. She was sent to Nashville, Tennessee, for her early schooling and later entered Fisk University. It was at Fisk University that she received much of the motivation and preparation for the valued service which she rendered in her maturity.

Her career began with teaching at Tuskegee Institute in 1889 where she served simultaneously as classroom teacher and as Dean of Women. She became interested in community service work, visiting homes, schools and churches in both rural and urban sectors, as well as working with Tuskegee Institute and the surrounding areas. Three years later she married Booker T. Washington. This marriage led to the planning and working together of these two leaders in Negro life. She, as her husband, was a vigorous, energetic, intelligent and capable executive. She began the organization of a woman’s group which was known as Tuskegee Women’s Club, comprised of the women of the faculty and the families of the Institute. Mrs. Washington was elected president of the Tuskegee Women’s Club, a position that she held continuously until her death. The Tuskegee Women’s Club was engaged in work which affected the Institute and its surrounding community, and through it was the perpetuation of high ideals of education and community life. Margaret Washington became further interested in constructive work in the state of Alabama; her leadership in this work led to her election as President of the Alabama State Federation of Colored Women. Through her endeavors this association backed the establishment of a reform school for colored boys and the interest extended to prisoners in jails. A school for girls was also started as a result of the initiative of Mrs. Washington.

The work in which she was engaged soon spread into other sections of the south and she became President of the Federation of Southern Colored Women’s Clubs. In Richmond, Virginia, she organized the International Council of Women of the Darker Races of the World. She was appointed chairman of the colored women’s work for the Interracial Commission of Alabama and became a member of the Interracial Commission with its headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia. She was present at the organizational meeting of the National