Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell’s radical roots may have stemmed from her early decision to become a teacher against her father’s wishes. Yet, when she married in 1891, she had to resign because the school board only allowed single women to teach. Everything changed in 1892, when Terrell’s childhood friend Thomas Moss was lynched. Records indicate that more than 2,000 people of color were killed by lynching between 1884 and 1900. Terrell then devoted the rest of her life to activism.

She served in various capacities within the National Association of Colored Women, becoming its first president in 1896. In that role, Terrell spoke to the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1898 about black women’s activism within their homes and communities. She described their efforts as: “lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long.”