Mary Church Terrell was born on September 23,
1863, in Memphis, Tennessee. The daughter of small-business owners who were
former slaves, she attended Oberlin College. Terrell was a suffragist and the
first president of the National Association of Colored Women and—at the
suggestion of W.E.B. Du Bois—a charter member of the NAACP. She died in 1954.
Early Years
An influential educator and activist, Mary Church Terrell was born
Mary Eliza Church on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents,
Robert Reed Church and his wife, Louisa Ayers, were both former slaves who used
their freedom to become small-business owners and make themselves vital members
of Memphis' growing black population.
From an early age
Terrell and her brother were taught the value of a good education. Hardworking
and ambitious, Terrell went on to attend Oberlin College in Ohio, where, in
1884, she became one of the first African-American women to earn a college
degree. Four years later she earned her master's degree in education.
Mary Church Terrell Quote:I am not ashamed of my African Descent. Africa had great universities before there were any in England, And the African was the first man to industrious and skillful enough to work with iron.
An Activist's Life
Terrell was not someone who sat on the sidelines. In her new life
in Washington, D.C., where she and Robert settled after they married, she
became especially involved in the women's rights movement. In particular, she
focused much of her attention on securing the right to vote. But within the
movement she found reluctance to include African-American women, if not
outright exclusion of them from the cause.
Terrell worked to
change that. She spoke out frequently about the issue and with some fellow
activists founded the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. She was
immediately named the organization's first president, a position she used to
advance social and educational reforms.
Other distinctions also
came her way. Pushed by W.E.B. Du Bois, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People made Terrell a charter member. Later, she became
the first African-American woman ever appointed to a school board and then
served on a committee that investigated alleged police mistreatment of African
Americans.
In her late years,
Terrell's commitment to taking on Jim Crow laws and pioneering new ground
didn't wane. In 1949 she became the first African American admitted to the
Washington chapter of the American Association of University Women. And it was
Terrell who helped bring down segregated restaurants in her adopted home of
Washington, D.C. After being refused service by a whites-only restaurant in
1950, Terrell and several other activists sued the establishment, laying the
groundwork for the eventual court order that ruled that all segregated
restaurants in the city were unconstitutional.
Toward the end of a
life that witnessed fantastic civil-rights changes, Terrell saw the U.S.
Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954,
which ended segregation in schools. Just two months later, Terrell died on July
24 in Annapolis, Maryland.
Today, Mary Church
Terrell's home in Washington, D.C., has been named a National Historic
Landmark.
SOURCE: BIOGRAPHY.COM
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