- Founded in 1896, by women such as Tubman and Wells.
- Women gaining experience in voluntary church organisations was regarded as less threatening to whites, as such black women’s clubs emerged in the 1890s.
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- This led to the establishment of the NACW.
- By 1900, it had 300 local clubs and by 1915, 50,000 members.After the president of the Missouri Press Association attacked Wells for her lynching campaigns, and called all black women ‘prostitutes liars and thieves’, black clubwomen were infuriated and called a national conference in Boston.
The NACW denounced lynching and disenfranchisement, but powerless to stop them,
turned to local community work.
- NACW support was important to the new NAACP, and in 1909 Wells was invited to be a token female on its founding committee. Unsurprisingly she fell out with the NAACP soon after.
- Mary McLeod Bethune: 1875-1955
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- Born to freed slaves in South Carolina, Bethune set up a school in Florida in 1904. Black schools at the time mainly focused on vocational education, but Bethune encouraged students to work for racial equality.
- Her husband accused her of being a ‘dreamer’, and although they never got a divorce, he left the family in 1907.Well known for being on of Franklin Roosevelt’s black advisers during the New Deal period.
- She was president of the NACW from 1924-28 and tried to change the organisation’s focus from local issues, to national ones.
- She believed black progress demanded participation in politics. (true bestie!)
- This alienated NACW members who believed lobbying in Congress was men’s work.
