Little Known Black History Fact – Black America, Know Our History:September 23, 1863 was the birthdate of Mary Church Terrell-an American social activist, cofounder and First President of the American Association of Colored Women. Mrs. Terrell was an early civil rights advocate, educator, author and a lecturer on woman suffrage and rights for African Americans.

Mary Church was the daughter of Robert Reed Church and Louisa Ayers Church, both former slaves prominent in the growing black community of Memphis, Tennessee. Both parents owned small, successful businesses, and they provided “Mollie” and her brother with advantages that few other African American children of her time enjoyed. She received a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1884. She taught languages at Wilberforce University and at a black secondary school in Washington, D.C. After a two-year tour of Europe, she completed a master’s degree from Oberlin (1888) and married Robert Heberton Terrell, a lawyer who would become the first black municipal court judge in the nation’s capital.

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