Mary White Ovington

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Portrait photo around 1910

Mary White Ovington (born April 11, 1865 in Brooklyn , New York City , USA ; died July 15, 1951 in Newton Highlands , Massachusetts , USA ) was an American suffragette , journalist, and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( English National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , NAACP).

Life

Mary White Ovington's grandmother attended the Connecticut ward of reformer Samuel Joseph May . Her parents were Unitarians and, as such, were members of the Unitarian Church of America , advocates of women's rights and had been involved in the anti-slavery movement . Ovington was educated at the Packer Collegiate Institute and Radcliffe College , Cambridge . She became involved in the civil rights campaign in 1890 after hearing about Frederick Douglass in a church in Brooklyn. Another impetus was a speech by Booker T. Washington , which she heard at the Social Reform Club in 1903.

In 1894 Ovington met Ida B. Wells when she was bringing Christmas presents for Ida's sister's children. Mary was so appalled by her living conditions that she began working with Ida to force the city to renovate the apartment buildings. In 1895 she helped found the Greenpoint settlement. The following year, Ovington was named head of the project. She stayed that way until 1904 when she was named a Fellow for Social Studies on the Greenwich House Committee . For the next five years, she studied employment and housing problems in black neighborhoods in Manhattan . During her investigation, she met civil rights activist WEB Du Bois and was introduced to the founding members of the Niagara Movement .

Ovington joined the Socialist Party of America in 1905 . She was influenced by the ideas of William Morris , where she met A. Philip Randolph , Floyd Dell , Max Eastman and Jack London , who argued that race problems are as much a matter of class as race. She wrote for magazines and newspapers such as The Masses , New York Evening Post, and New York Call . She worked with Ray Stannard Baker and influenced the content of his book Following the Color Line, published in 1908.

On September 3 In 1908 she read the article Race War in the North ( English Race War in the North ) of the Socialists William English Walling in the newspaper The Independent . Walling described a massive outbreak of race rioting against African American citizens in Springfield, Illinois , the hometown of Abraham Lincoln . These resulted in seven deaths, the destruction of 40 houses and 24 shops and 107 charges against violent criminals. At the end of the article Walling called for a powerful crowd of citizens to come to the aid of the blacks. Ovington responded to the article by writing Walling and meeting him with social worker Henry Moskowitz at Walling's apartment in New York City. The group decided to launch a campaign calling for a national conference on civil and political rights of African American people on the centenary of Lincoln's birthday on February 12, 1909.

The National Negro Committee ( English National Negro Committee ) held its first meeting in New York on 31 May and 1 June 1909 from. In May 1910, at their second conference, the National Negro Committee and its participants formed a permanent organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Ovington has been named executive secretary. Early members included Josephine Ruffin , Mary Talbert , Mary Church Terrell , Inez Milholland , Jane Addams , George Henry White , WEB Du Bois , Charles Edward Russell , John Dewey , Charles Darrow , Lincoln Steffens , Ray Stannard Baker , Fanny Garrison Villard , Oswald Garrison Villard, Sr., and Ida B. Wells-Barnett . In 1911 Ovington took part in the Universal Races Congress in London . Richetta Randolph Wallace, who had worked with Ovington as a secretary for several years, was hired as the first clerk at NAACP headquarters in 1912.

Ovington also remained active for women's suffrage . In 1921 she wrote to Alice Paul asking that a black woman be invited to the celebration of the National Women's Party on the occasion of the adoption of the 19th Amendment . Ovington was also a pacifist and opposed the entry of the United States in the First World War . During the war, Ovington A. supported Philip Randolph and his magazine The Messenger , which campaigned for black civil rights.

After the war, the NAACP served as a board member, executive secretary, and chair. She inspired other women to join the NAACP and made a significant contribution to the multicultural makeup of the organization. The NAACP fought a long legal battle against segregation and racial discrimination in housing, education, employment, elections, and public transport. She appealed to the United States Supreme Court because several of the southern states' laws were unconstitutional and won three major suffrage and apartment rentals between 1915 and 1923.

In June 1934, Mary White Ovington made speeches at 14 different colleges. Their goal was to show the youth that the NAACP was composed of blacks and whites. In particular, she wanted to show black youth that there were whites who hated racial oppression. During their speeches, Ovington showed the geographic location of each of the NAACP's local branches and how far the association had come. "They should know the power the race has gained" ( Mary White Ovington , German: "They should know the power that their race had achieved")

The NAACP has been criticized, on the one hand, by some members of the African American community. On the other hand, members of the organization were physically attacked by white racists. NAACP Executive Secretary John R. Shillady was seriously injured by a lynch mob in Austin, Texas in 1919 .

Mary White Ovington was forced to retire from the NAACP in 1947 because of poor health. She had served the organization for 38 years. Ovington spent her final years with her sister in Massachusetts.

Fonts

Ovington wrote several books and articles, including a study of Manhattan's black neighborhoods, Half a Man (1911); Status of the Negro in the United States (1913); Socialism and the Feminist Movement (1914); an anthology for black children, The Upward Path (1919); biographical sketches of prominent Afro-Americans, portraits in color (1927); an autobiography, Reminiscences (1932); and a NAACP history, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1947). Ovington also wrote novels and children's books, including Hazel , who tells the story of a young black Boston girl who spends a winter in Alabama around the turn of the century.

Honors

Mary White Ovingtons Plaque on the Volunteer Path

The Mary White Ovington IS30 Middle School in Brooklyn was named in her honor. She is among those honored on The Extra Mile - Points of Light Volunteer Pathway National Memorial in Washington, DC. In 2009 she was pictured together with Mary Church Terrell on a United States Postal Service stamp.

Web links

Commons : Mary White Ovington  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ralph Luker: Black and White Sat Down Together: The Reminiscences of an NAACP Founder . The Feminist Press at CUNY, New York 1996, ISBN 1-55861-099-5 (English).
  2. ^ A b c Mary White Ovington - Women's Rights Activist, Civil Rights Activist, Activist, Journalist, Children's Activist - Biography. (No longer available online.) In: biography.com. Archived from the original on March 23, 2018 ; accessed on March 23, 2018 (English).
  3. ^ A b c Social Welfare History Project Ovington, Mary White. In: socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu. Retrieved May 23, 2020 (English).
  4. ^ NAACP honors Richetta Randolph . In: The New York Age . January 9, 1943, p. 4 (English, newspapers.com [accessed May 24, 2020]).
  5. ^ Mary White Ovington: Document 6: Letter from Mary White Ovington to Lucy Burns, December 17, 1920. In: documents.alexanderstreet.com. December 17, 1920, accessed May 23, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Fern Gillespie: Women Leaders are the backbone of NAACP . Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  7. ^ Hazel - NYPL Digital Collections. In: digitalcollections.nypl.org. Retrieved May 23, 2020 .
  8. ^ Civil Rights Pioneers Honored on Stamps. In: about.usps.com. February 21, 2009, accessed May 24, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Ovington, Mary White
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American suffragette, journalist and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City , USA
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1951
Place of death Newton Highlands, Massachusetts , USA