National Association of Colored Women

National Association of Colored Women
Name	National Association of Colored Women
Formation	1896
Founders	Mary Church Terrell, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Ida B. Wells
Type	Civic organization
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Region served	United States
Motto	"Lifting as We Climb"

National Association of Colored Women was a federation of African American women's clubs formed in 1896 to address lynching, segregation, disenfranchisement, and social welfare. Leaders including Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin united activists from networks such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, National American Woman Suffrage Association, and regional clubs to create a national platform. The organization connected local clubs in cities like Chicago, New York City, and Atlanta with national campaigns linked to figures such as Frederick Douglass and movements like women's suffrage.

History

The association's origins trace to post-Reconstruction debates involving leaders influenced by the legacy of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and activists from the Colored Conventions Movement and the Black Press. In the 1890s, clashes between editors in Boston and activists in Philadelphia over representation at events held in venues associated with Segregation in the United States prompted consolidation among clubs from Kentucky, Texas, and Ohio. Early meetings referenced precedents set by organizations such as the National League of Colored Women and drew on networks formed during the Exoduster movement and through institutions like Howard University and Spelman College.

Founding and Leadership

Founders included prominent figures from abolitionist and suffrage traditions: Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Charlotte Forten Grimké. Leadership intertwined with regional elites from Philadelphia and the black intelligentsia associated with Atlanta University and Tuskegee Institute. Presidents and officers often had links to institutions such as Freedmen's Bureau alumni, alumni of Oberlin College, and clergy associated with AME Zion Church and African Methodist Episcopal Church. Debates over strategy involved contemporaries like Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois.

Programs and Initiatives

The association implemented social programs addressing child welfare, temperance, and vocational training, coordinating with settlements and schools like Hull House, Tuskegee Institute, and Spelman Seminary. It sponsored anti-lynching campaigns alongside activists connected to NAACP founders and investigative journalists from newspapers such as The Chicago Defender and The Crisis. Public health drives drew on partnerships with hospitals in Harlem and clinics linked to the National Urban League and charities connected to Phillips School of Nursing initiatives. Educational scholarships and teacher training reflected ties to Freedmen's schools and professional networks around Howard University Hospital.

Advocacy and Civil Rights Impact

The organization's advocacy intersected with landmark struggles against laws like Plessy v. Ferguson and efforts to secure rights fought by litigants and reformers in cases influenced by legal strategies later used by NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorneys. Campaigns targeted lynching perpetrators and segregation policies enforced in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, collaborating with investigative campaigns by Ida B. Wells and legal advocates inspired by Charles Hamilton Houston. The association also engaged in voter education efforts that anticipated mass mobilizations during the Civil Rights Movement led by figures like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr..

Membership and Organizational Structure

Membership consisted of affiliated local clubs spanning urban centers like Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans as well as rural chapters in Georgia and South Carolina. Governance featured a national executive committee, state federations, and committees on temperance, anti-lynching, and education, echoing structures seen in organizations such as General Federation of Women's Clubs and National Association of Colored Women Clubs (state chapters). Conferences and biennial conventions attracted delegates who were also members of Women's Suffrage organizations and civic bodies tied to YWCA and Labor unions.

Publications and Communications

The association communicated through bulletins, proceedings, and periodicals that worked alongside the black press including The Chicago Defender, The Crisis, and The Pittsburgh Courier. Proceedings from conventions circulated among readers connected to Howard University, Spelman College, and public libraries in Washington, D.C. Media strategies paralleled those of reform publications such as Scribner's and journalistic campaigns by editors like Ida B. Wells and Anna Julia Cooper.

Legacy and Influence on Later Movements

The association's motto and praxis—"Lifting as We Climb"—influenced later organizations and leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement, and contemporary groups such as the National Council of Negro Women and local Delta Sigma Theta alumnae networks. Its archival records inform scholarship at repositories like the Library of Congress and research by historians affiliated with Harvard University, Columbia University, and Howard University. The association's model of club federations and community-based advocacy provided templates for twentieth-century developments involving figures such as Mary McLeod Bethune and institutional initiatives culminating in civil rights legislation influenced by activists linked to the group.

Category:African-American history Category:Women's organizations in the United States