Vehicles of Change
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American Association of University Women
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Mary Church Terrell became a member of the Washington chapter of the American Association of University Women in 1949. The purpose of this organization is to promote equality and education for all women in girls. The entrance of Terrell marked the first effort of the organization to integrate its membership.
Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws
The Coordinating Committee was "a voluntary, inter-racial organization whose sole purpose [was] to secure the enforcemnt of the District's anti-discrimination laws and to educate the public as to their rights thereunder." The Coordinating Committee was established in 1949 after public interest in the "lost" anti-discrimination laws of 1872 and 1873 was rekindled by a report of the National Committee on Segregation in the Nation's Capital highlighted that the laws were still in effect. Mary Church Terrell served as a chair for the Coordinating Committee and began a crusade which challenged the legality of segregated restaurants and movie theaters in the nation’s capital.
At age 86, Terrell and the Coordinating Committee led a successful fight to integrate eating places in the District of Columbia. Local integration laws in the District of Columbia required that all eating places "serve any respectable, well-behaved person regardless of color, or face a $1,000 fine and forfeiture of their license."
The Coordinating Committee launched a campaign to reinstate these laws. In 1950, Terrell and several others entered a segragated Thompson restaurant and upon refusal of service, exited and filed a lawsuit.
This campaign also involved boycotts, picketing, and sit-ins of other eateries until the decision of the Thompson case. In June of 1953, the court ruled that segregated eating places in Washington D.C., were unconstitutional.
District of Columbia School Board
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Mary Church Terrell was one of the first two women of any race to be appointed to the Board of Education. She served eleven years and her appointment made her the first colored woman in the world to serve on a board of education.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Mary Church Terrell was a charter member for one of the most significant civil rights organizations in the history of America - the NAACP. During Terrell's era, the mission of the NAACP was to create a movement that served as a champion for social justice. Her position as charter member of the executive board is part of a legacy that has effected change for blacks worldwide.
National Association of Colored Women
Mary Church Terrell served as a charter member of the oldest African American secular organization in existence today. The National Association of Colored Women sprang from an amalgamation of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Women’s Era Club of Boston and the Colored Women’s League of Washington, DC. Founded with similarly influential women of that era such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Harriet Tubman, and co-founder Josephine Ruffin, NACW worked to elevate the economic and social conditions of women and children. Taking on women’s suffrage and Jim Crow laws led the NACW to make significant changes within American society under the leadership of its first president – Mary Church Terrell.