MARY CHURCH TERRELL

MARY CHURCH TERRELL, (1863 -1954) Civil rights leader, co-founder of the NAACP, and first president of the National Association of Colored Women, NACW.

Mary Church Terrell was a charter member of the NAACP, and in 2009 she was among 12 pioneers of the civil rights movement commemorated in a U. S. Postal Service stamp series.

Narration:

A notable fighter for civil and women’s rights. Her name – Mary Church Terrell.

She was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1863 to former slaves, but was educated in Ohio at Oberlin College. The mostly white student body nominated her class poet and elected her to two literary societies. She graduated in 1884, one of the first known African American women to earn a college degree.

A distinguished educator, fluent in four languages, Mrs. Terrell became the first African American woman to be appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education in 1895.

She led several organizations, including the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and helped form the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She was extremely active with the women’s suffrage movement and penned her autobiography, A Colored Woman In A White World in 1940.

Mary Church Terrell – A Great American

Credits: Editor: Stacy T. Holmes, ACE, Narrator: Steve Schy, Music: PartnersinRhyme.com, Digital Collection: Library of Congress, Copyright: CBN Communications