Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

Arts & Culture

Location

1601 R St NW, Washington, DC 20009, USA

Lat/Long

38.91276, -77.036964

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

In July 1896, the National Federation of Afro-American Women (NFAAW), a social reform organization organized and led by African America women, met over the course of two days at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Many leading African American women social activists were in attendance including, NFAAW president Margaret Murray Washington, Harriet Tubman, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. At the end of the first day, a committee was appointed to confer with the National League of Colored Women (NLCW), an organization with similar aims to the NFAAW, with a view to unify the two groups. During the evening session on the second day, two committees, one representing the NFAAW and the other representing the NLCW, presented a report that read:

It is hereby stipulated. That we do consolidate under the name of the National Association of Colored Women. That officer shall be chosen on a basis of Equality by a joint committee. That neither Association shall assume any of the liabilities of the other incurred prior to the consolidation. That the new Association shall support the work already planned by each of the old organizations. That a joint Committee should draft a constitution and elect officers for the ensuing year.

The following day, the newly united National Association of Colored Women (NACW) met at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church to elect officers and designate committee members. Mary Church Terrell was elected president of the NACW. Vice-presidents elected included Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and Josephine Silone Yates, former president of the Kansas City Colored Women’s League. Yates would succeed Terrell as president of the NACW in 1900, serving in that role until 1904.

In February 1898, just under two years after the formation of the NACW, Terrell represented the NACW at the thirtieth annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Assocation (NAWSA) held in Washington, D.C. Terrell, a skilled and well-respected lecturer and national suffragist, addressed the NAWSA convention on “The Progress of Colored Women.” Her address was published in part in the February 26, 1898 edition of the Washington Bee, an African American newspaper published in Washington, D.C. Terrell informed NAWSA, a predominately white suffrage group, of the formation of the NACW and the work it was leading:

Through the National Association of Colored Women which was formed by a union of two large organizations in July 1896 and which is now the only national body of colored women, much good has been done in the past and more will be accomplished in the future, we hope.

Her address included examples of the type of social improvement work that was being led by the NACW and African American women all across the country. Terrell concluded:

And so, 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. With courage born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future, large promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage, because of our needs, we knock at the door of justice and ask for an equal chance.

When officially incorporated in 1904, the NACW became the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC). Since its formation in 1896, the NACWC has fought for equal rights, including women’s suffrage and human rights for all disenfranchised. Starting in 1954, the national headquarters of the NACWC was located at 1601 R Street NW in Washington, D.C. As of 2022, this continues as the location of the national headquarters.