Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was a publisher, journalist, civil rights leader, suffragist, abolitionist, and editor of the Woman's Era, the first national newspaper published by and for African American women.
Mary Church Terrell was an American civil rights activist, journalist, teacher and one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree. She taught in the Latin Department at the M Street School —the first African American public high school in the nation—in Washington, DC. In 1895, she was the first African-American woman in the United States to be appointed to the school board of a major city, serving in the District of Columbia until 1906. Terrell was a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909) and the Colored Women's League of Washington (1892). She helped found the National Association of Colored Women (1896) and served as its first national president, and she was a founding member of the National Association of College Women (1923).
Mary Burnett Talbert was an American orator, activist, suffragist and reformer. In 2005, Talbert was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Margaret Murray Washington was an American educator who was the principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which later became Tuskegee University. She also led women's clubs, including the Tuskegee Woman's Club and the National Federation of Afro-American Women. She was the third wife of Booker T. Washington. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1972.
Sallie Wyatt Stewart was an American educator and a social services organizer for the black community in Evansville, Indiana, who is best known for her leadership in local, state, and national black women’s clubs. Stewart served as president of the Indiana Federation of Colored Women from 1921 to 1928 and succeeded Mary McLeod Bethune as president of the National Association of Colored Women from 1928 to 1933. During her term as the IFCW's president, Stewart launched "The Hoosier Woman", a monthly newsletter that served as the organization's official publication. Among her accomplishments as the NACW's president was the founding in 1930 of the National Association of Colored Girls. In addition, Stewart was a delegate in 1930 to the International Council of Women in Vienna, Austria, and fourth vice president of the National Council of Women of the United States. She also served a trustee and secretary of the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association, a member of the executive committee of the National Negro Business League, a member of the executive committee of the National Colored Merchants Association, and a teacher in the Evansville public schools for more than fifty years.
African-American women began to agitate for political rights in the 1830s, creating the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, and New York Female Anti-Slavery Society. These interracial groups were radical expressions of women's political ideals, and they led directly to voting rights activism before and after the Civil War. Throughout the 19th century, African-American women such as Harriet Forten Purvis, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper worked on two fronts simultaneously: reminding African-American men and white women that Black women needed legal rights, especially the right to vote.
Josephine Silone Yates was an American professor, writer, public speaker, and activist. She trained in chemistry and became one of the first black professors hired at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. Upon her promotion, she became the first black woman to head a college science department. She may have been the first black woman to hold a full professorship at any U.S. college or university.
Ella Lillian Davis Browne Mahammitt was an American journalist, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist from Omaha, Nebraska. She was editor of the black weekly newspaper The Enterprise, president of Omaha's Colored Women's Club, and an officer of local branches of the Afro-American League. In 1895, she was vice-president of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, headed by Margaret James Murray, and in 1896 was a committee member of the successor organization, the National Association of Colored Women, under president Mary Church Terrell.
The First National Conference of the Colored Women of America was a three-day conference in Boston organized by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, a civil rights leader and suffragist. In August 1895, representatives from 42 African-American women's clubs from 14 states convened at Berkeley Hall for the purpose of creating a national organization. It was the first event of its kind in the United States.
The Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs (NFCWC) is an umbrella organization representing black women's clubs in the northeastern United States. The organization was affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC). It was the first umbrella organization for black women's clubs in the United States, predating the NACWC by a month. The motto of the club is "For God and Humanity".
Indiana State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, also known as the Minor House, is a historic National Association of Colored Women's Clubs clubhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. The two-and-one-half-story "T"-plan building was originally constructed in 1897 as a private dwelling for John and Sarah Minor; however, since 1927 it has served as the headquarters of the Indiana State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, a nonprofit group of African American women. The Indiana federation was formally organized on April 27, 1904, in Indianapolis and incorporated in 1927. The group's Colonial Revival style frame building sits on a brick foundation and has a gable roof with hipped dormers. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
Lucy Thurman was a national temperance lecturer from Jackson, Michigan.
Christine Shoecraft Smith was an African-American community worker began her career as the assistant principal of the Alabama State Normal and Industrial School. She married an AME minister, who would become a bishop in the church and assisted him as the manager of the press organ of the Sunday School Union. She worked in many clubs and served as the 13th president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC).
The Woman's Era Club was an African-American women's civic organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in between 1892 and 1894 by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. The club was the first black women's club in Boston. The organization was especially well known for the conflict caused when Ruffin attempted to desegregate the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) in 1900.
Ada Belle Dement was an American educator and clubwoman. In 1941, she became president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC).
Josephine Beall Willson Bruce was a women's rights activist in the late 1890s and early 1900s. She spent a majority of her time working for the National Organization of Afro-American Women. She was a prominent socialite in Washington, D.C., throughout most of her life where she lived with her husband, United States Senator Blanche Bruce. In addition to these accomplishments, she was the first black teacher in the public school system in Cleveland, and she eventually became a highly regarded educator at Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Helen Appo Cook was a wealthy, prominent African-American community activist in Washington, D.C., and a leader in the women's club movement. Cook was a founder and president of the Colored Women's League, which consolidated with another organization in 1896 to become the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), an organization still active in the 21st century. Cook supported voting rights and was a member of the Niagara Movement, which opposed racial segregation and African American disenfranchisement. In 1898, Cook publicly rebuked Susan B. Anthony, president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, and requested she support universal suffrage following Anthony's speech at a U.S. Congress House Committee on Judiciary hearing.
Phyllis Terrell Langston was a suffragist and civil rights activist. She worked alongside her mother, Mary Church Terrell, in the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and the White House pickets during demonstrations made by the National Woman's Party.
The Colored Women's League (CWL) of Washington, D.C., was a woman's club, organized by a group of African-American women in June 1892, with Helen Appo Cook as president. The primary mission of this organization was the national union of colored women. In 1896, the Colored Women's League and the Federation of Afro-American Women merged to form the National Association of Colored Women, with Mary Church Terrell as the first president.
Mary Eleanora McCoy was an American philanthropist, organizer, and clubwoman. She is known for organizing the Michigan State Association of Colored Women.
