September 23

Born September 23, 1863 in Memphis, TN, Mary Church Terrell was an American civil rights activist, journalist, teacher and one of the first African American women to earn a college degree.

A graduate of Oberlin College, Terrell began her civil rights activities in Washington, D.C., where her husband was a municipal judge.

In 1892, she helped organize the National League for the Protection of Colored Women, and in 1896, she served as the first president of the National Association of Colored Women. Active in the women’s suffrage movement, Terrell addressed numerous conferences in the United States and Europe. She also played a role in the founding of the NAACP and served as head of the organization’s Washington Chapter for many years.

In 1949, when she was in her eighties, Mary Church Terrell began taking part in sit-ins in Washington, and she witnessed the integration of the city’s public facilities in 1953. She wrote numerous magazine articles, as well as an autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World (1940).

Footnote:
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, “African American Desk Reference,” New York: Trade Paper Press, 1999.