Opportunities that Lead the Way

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Recommended: History grade 12 civil rights movement

Discrimination against African Americans is something that will forever be shunned and not talked about among people of the United States. It’s something that many people have died and fought for over the last hundred decades. Women and men lost their lives for fighting for the respect they rightfully deserved. Mary Church Terrell fought for the equal rights of African American’s to be treated fairly. She fought against the injustice against her people who were forced to sit in the back of the bus and had to use the water fountain labeled ‘for blacks’. Mary believed, “race pride could supplant feelings of racial inferiority if African Americans were only more aware of the accomplishments of their ancestors”
Who is Mary Eliza Church Terrell?
In the late 1800’s African Americans were discriminated against because of their skin tone. It was rare that African American’s finished secondary school lead alone college. Mary Church was afforded these opportunities because of her father’s wealth. His wealth afforded her the opportunities that no African American woman had. She was able to meet influential people such as Fredrick Douglas and Booker T. Washington. Because of Mary’s upbringing and the wealth of her father, which helped her gained the knowledge she needed to fight for the rights of her fellow peers.
Mary Church was born on September 23, 1863 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Robert Reed Church and Louisa Ayers, both former slaves. Her father, Robert Church was biracial and it was speculated that he was the son of his white master, Charles Church. Robert Church attained considerable wealth by investing in real estate in Memphis As a child Mary attended the Antioch College Model School in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which was a very prestig...

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...ist organization, and it didn’t promote a change in the domestic nature of a social position. It just focused on promoting a change in how African American women were treated in society. Once the 19th Amendment was ratified, Church began to focus more on her public speaking skill, which would become helpful when she became would be appointed gaining a position as a school board chair.

Works Cited

McHenry, Elizabeth. 2007. "Toward a History of Access: The Case of Mary Church Terrell." American Literary History 19, no. 2: 381-401
WATSON, MARTHA SOLOMON. 2009. "MARY CHURCH TERRELL VS. THOMAS NELSON PAGE: GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS IN ANTI-LYNCHING RHETORIC." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 12, no. 1: 65-89.
Nash, Margaret. 2004. "Patient Persistence": The Political and Educational Values of Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell." Educational Studies 35, no. 2: 122-136.

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