Mary Church Terrell

Born September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee, to parents who had been enslaved, Mary Church Terrell grew up with advantages few Black children of her era had access to; her father became one of the South's first African American millionaires. She earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1884 and a master's in 1888, then taught before marrying Robert Heberton Terrell, who became the nation's first Black municipal court judge.

In 1895, she became the first Black woman appointed to the Washington, D.C. school board. The following year, she was elected the first president of the newly formed National Association of Colored Women, arguing that Black women's voting rights could not be separated from the broader fight against disenfranchisement. Decades later, even in her late 80s, Terrell was still organizing: after being refused service at a Washington, D.C. restaurant in 1950, she helped lead a legal fight that reached the Supreme Court, which ruled segregated restaurants in the capital unconstitutional in 1953.

Key contributions

• First president of the National Association of Colored Women, founded 1896.
• First Black woman appointed to the Washington, D.C. school board, 1895.
• Charter member of the NAACP.
• Led a legal challenge to restaurant segregation in Washington, D.C. that reached the Supreme Court, ruled unconstitutional in 1953.
• Published her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, in 1940.

Context

Terrell operated in the world of Black women's club organizing, a movement that expanded nationally just as Jim Crow segregation was hardening across the South and Black men's voting rights were being stripped away. Her long career bridged the suffrage era and the mid-century civil rights movement, remaining active into her ninth decade.

In their spirit: Keep organizing until the law finally catches up to the argument.

About this set

Terrell's card is one of six in Set 1A — First Flame Daughters, part of the Lineage: Origin Fire digital postcard collection. First Flame Daughters gathers women whose public courage and leadership lit the way for the movements that followed.

Shop the First Flame Daughters set or get the Complete Collection (all 12 cards).

Sources: National Park Service — Mary Church Terrell: Black Suffragist and Civil Rights Activist; Places of Mary Church Terrell; Encyclopedia Britannica — Mary Eliza Church Terrell.