Mary Church Terrell centered women’s rights, not just racial uplift

Evidence

From the information provided in these paragraphs, readers might easily conclude that Mary Church Terrell was a passionate spokesperson for black American rights who was not overly concerned with rights for women. This was not so. As president of the National Association of Colored Women, Mary Church Terrell worked arduously to involve black women in the women’s rights struggle. She was particularly concerned that they struggle to obtain social equality for their sex in the educational sphere. That Mary Church Terrell, like most black women’s rights advocates, was also committed to uplifting her race as a whole in no way diminished the fact that the focus of her attention was on changing the role of women in society. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 469

Categorization

• XREF: Counterexample substantiating the historiography critique — Terrell shows black women were committed feminists.