Sylvanie Francoz Williams (died August 12, 1921) was an American educator and clubwoman based in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Sylvanie Francoz Williams (died August 12, 1921) was an American educator and clubwoman based in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Sylvanie Francoz was born in New Orleans, the daughter of François Francoz and Sarah Francoz. The date of her birth varies in sources, from 1847 to 1855; her obituary places her birthdate around 1849. [1] She trained as a teacher at Peabody Normal School. [2]
Sylvanie F. Williams worked as a school administrator, principal of the Fisk School Girls' Department from 1883 to 1896, [3] and of the Thomy Lafon School from 1896 to 1921. The latter school was burned down during rioting in 1900, but rebuilt under her leadership. [4] Among the students under her care were A. P. Tureaud, who became a prominent civil rights lawyer. [5] Williams prepared a report on the educational, economic, and cultural conditions of black residents of New Orleans, to be presented at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. [6]
Williams was founder and president of the Phillis Wheatley Club, a prominent organization for black women in New Orleans. The club sponsored a nursing school, a hospital, and a free clinic for African-Americans in New Orleans; [7] they also conducted sewing bees to make clothing for orphans. [8] She was also active in creating the first public playground for African-American children in New Orleans. A writer in her lifetime called Sylvanie Williams "a fine example of the resourcefulness and noble influence that a cultivated woman can and will give to the uplift of her race." [9] She was a vice-president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACW) when it was founded in 1896. [2] [10]
Williams supported women's suffrage, including black women's suffrage. In 1903 she attempted to attend the annual meeting of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), when it was held in New Orleans, but was barred because of her race. [11] Instead, Williams welcomed a visit to the Phillis Wheatley Club from white suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony, and she spoke with Anthony about the place of black women in the suffrage movement. [12] [13]
Sylvanie Francoz was married to Connecticut-born musician and educator Arthur P. Williams. She was widowed when he died in 1920. [14] She died in 1921, aged about 72 years. [1] A New Orleans elementary school is named for Sylvanie Williams. [15]
The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Woman's Era Club of Boston, and the Colored Women's League of Washington, DC, at the call of Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. From 1896 to 1904 it was known as the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). It adopted the motto "Lifting as we climb", to demonstrate to "an ignorant and suspicious world that our aims and interests are identical with those of all good aspiring women." When incorporated in 1904, NACW became known as the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC).
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).
The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) governs the public school system that serves New Orleans, Louisiana. It includes the entirety of Orleans Parish, coterminous with New Orleans.
Frances "Fannie" Barrier Williams was an African American educator, civil rights, and women's rights activist, and the first black woman to gain membership to the Chicago Woman's Club. She became well known for her efforts to have black people officially represented on the Board of Control of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. She was also a musician, a portraitist and studied foreign languages.
Mary Burnett Talbert was an American orator, activist, suffragist and reformer. In 2005, Talbert was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Alexander Pierre "A. P." Tureaud Sr. was an African-American attorney who headed the legal team for the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP during the Civil Rights Movement. With the assistance of Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, A. P. Tureaud filed the lawsuit that successfully ended the system of Jim Crow segregation in New Orleans. That case paved the way for integrating the first two elementary schools in the Deep South.
Alice Dunbar Nelson was an American poet, journalist, and political activist. Among the first generation of African Americans born free in the Southern United States after the end of the American Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. Her first husband was the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. After his death, she married physician Henry A. Callis; and, lastly, was married to Robert J. Nelson, a poet and civil rights activist. She achieved prominence as a poet, author of short stories and dramas, newspaper columnist, women's rights activist, and editor of two anthologies.
Jane Edna Hunter, an African-American social worker, Hunter was born on the Woodburn Farm plantation near Pendleton, South Carolina. She was involved in the NAACP and NAACW. Jane Edna Hunter is widely Known for her work in 1911 when she established the Working Girls Association in Cleveland, Ohio, which later became the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland.
The New Orleans Branch is the oldest continuously active branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People south of Washington D.C. It was formally chartered on July 15, 1915. However, prior to that time, there had been organizational efforts underway to affiliate with this new national civil rights organization which had first organized in New York City in 1909. In 1911, Emanuel M. Dunn, Paul Landix Sr. and James E. Gayle wrote to the NAACP national office to obtain more information about this "new abolition movement." Apparently, the locals did not wait for formal action from the national office, but proceeded to organize without official sanction.
Mary Mossell Griffin was an American writer, clubwoman, and suffragist based in Philadelphia.
Mary Frances Gunner was an African American playwright and community leader based in Brooklyn, New York. She was also known as Francis Gunner Van Dunk.
Emma Ann Reynolds (1862-1917) was an African-American teacher, who had a desire to address the health needs of her community. Refused entrance to nurses training schools because of racism, she influenced the creation of Provident Hospital in Chicago and was one of its first four nursing graduates. Continuing her education, Reynolds became a medical doctor serving at posts in Texas, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. before permanently settling in Ohio and completing her practice there.
Drusilla Elizabeth Tandy Nixon was a community activist and music educator in El Paso, Texas.
The Phillis Wheatley Clubs are women's clubs created by African Americans starting in the late 1800s. The first club was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1895. Some clubs are still active. The purpose of Phillis Wheatley Clubs varied from area to area, although most were involved in community and personal improvement. Some clubs helped in desegregation and voting rights efforts. The clubs were named after the poet Phillis Wheatley.
Maude E. Craig Sampson Williams was an American suffragist, teacher, civil rights leader, and community activist in El Paso, Texas. In June 1918, she formed the El Paso Negro Woman's Civic and Equal Franchise League and requested membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) through the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA), but was denied. Williams organized African-American women to register and vote in the Texas Democratic Party primary in July 1918. She was one of the founders and a charter member of the El Paso chapter of the NAACP, which was the first chapter in the state of Texas. Williams served as the vice president of the El Paso chapter from 1917 to 1924 and remained active in the NAACP until her death. Williams played a significant role in the desegregation of Texas Western College in 1955, which was the first undergraduate college in Texas to be desegregated by a court order other than that of the Supreme Court of the United States. Midwestern University (now known as Midwestern State University was previously ordered to desegregate in 1954 by the SCOTUS immediately following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
Musette Brooks Gregory was an African-American suffragist and civil rights activist.
Charlotte Wilson Jackson was an American artist and activist from Michigan. She was the first African American to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1901, Wilson oversaw the exhibition of African-American artists at the Pan-American Exposition.
Hattie Virginia Feger was an American educator. She was on the faculty of Clark Atlanta University in the 1930s and 1940s.
Mary Dora Coghill was an American teacher, vice principal, principal, and civic leader in early twentieth-century New Orleans. She was a member of numerous civic and relief organizations and a leader in education reform. She was an African-American.
Maria I. Johnston was an American author, journalist, editor and lecturer. She wrote many stories, long and short. In her stories, she dealt for the most part with life in the West and South, the conditions caused by war and slavery being considered. She was the author of The Siege of Vicksburg, The Freedwoman, Jane, Hector, Oh, Come with Me to the West, Love, Miss Emily's Glove, Ante-Bellum, and The Story of a Confederate Colonel. Johnston was active with newspaper work and was identified with newspapers in St. Louis, New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Memphis. At times, she wrote under the nom de plumes of "Paul Pry" and "Neal Caxton". She was advocate of and writer for woman suffrage.
