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Racial & Ethnic Relations in America

National Association of Colored Women

by Alvin K. Benson

Near the end of the eighteenth century, grave concerns about African Americans being treated as second-class citizens compelled a group of African American women to move beyond their local and state associations to devise plans for the formation of a national body that would systematically and professionally address the problems that they believed threatened the very survival of African Americans. Economic disparities, political disfranchisement, and social ostracism presented the greatest threats to African American aspirations for freedom and inclusion in the American system of democracy. Meeting at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC, in July 1896, the National Federation of Afro-American Women and the National League of Colored Women joined forces to form a national organization known as the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). Mary Church Terrell served as the organization’s first president.

Operating through a series of departments and a strong executive cabinet, the NACW became an umbrella group for African American women’s organizations at both state and local levels. The organization’s official publication, National Notes, served as an instrument to unite the women and to educate them in the concepts and techniques of reform, advocating racial uplift, improved race relations, and protection of women. From its inception, the NACW has worked to improve the lives of African American people in the United States and to help them achieve full citizenship rights.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Benson, Alvin K. "National Association Of Colored Women." Racial & Ethnic Relations in America, edited by Kibibi Mack-Shelton & Michael Shally-Jensen, Salem Press, 2017. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=RACE2E_0598.
APA 7th
Benson, A. K. (2017). National Association of Colored Women. In K. Mack-Shelton & M. Shally-Jensen (Eds.), Racial & Ethnic Relations in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Benson, Alvin K. "National Association Of Colored Women." Edited by Kibibi Mack-Shelton & Michael Shally-Jensen. Racial & Ethnic Relations in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2017. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.