Oppression—and fighting it—comes in many forms. For Black History Month, we’re really enjoying learning more about warriors for equality and conversation, like these three women who were among the earliest founders of the NAACP. Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell and Mary White Ovington are true trailblazers. Click through to read the whole article at Makers.
makers.com – On February 12, 1909, a group of white liberals and African-American leaders gathered together to discuss a movement for racial justice, partly in response to horrific lynching practices and race riots.
Both men and women were seated at the discussion table creating what would become the nation’s oldest, largest, and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Today, it boasts more than half a million members and supporters throughout the U.S. and the world, who are committed to ending racial injustice.
Here are three of the earliest founding members of the NAACP, including two of the only black women. Get to know their stories below.
1. Ida B. Wells
Wells was born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Miss., and held prominent roles as an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. One of her most formative experiences in racial injustice happened while she was riding the railroad. Wells confronted the train conductor after he ordered her to sit in the black section under the racist Jim Crow laws.
Read the rest here.
