Black Women's Club Movement Organizes Anti-Lynching and Social Reform Campaigns

The National Association of Colored Women, led by Mary Church Terrell and affiliated with hundreds of local clubs, organized anti-lynching campaigns, petitioned state legislatures, raised funds for Black schools and hospitals, and documented racial violence. Black women were systematically excluded from white women's suffrage organizations yet continued organizing. Their networks formed the grassroots infrastructure for the later NAACP and Urban League.