Elizabeth Ensley

Elizabeth Piper Ensley was an African American educator and suffragist, whose leadership was instrumental in Colorado’s victorious campaign for full voting rights. Ensley dedicated her career to organizing for women’s rights, especially for African American women, and led important local, state, and national women’s organizations that were both white and Black.

Ensley founded the Colorado Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1904 and served as an officer on the state Board of Directors of the Colorado State Federation of Women’s Clubs – the influential state organization primarily led by white women. Elizabeth Ensley was one of only a handful of Black women leaders nationwide who worked for suffrage rights within a racially integrated campaign organization, the Colorado Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association.