February 7th, 2024- The First National Conference of the Colored Women of America (August 1895) #VRABlackHistory 2024
Today, February 7th, 2024, we honor the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America. Held in August 1895 in Boston, Massachusetts, representatives from 42 African-American women's clubs gathered at this three-day organizing and strategy conference, the first of its kind in the United States. The goal of the conference was to create a national organization for Black women after Black women expressed via poll responses the need for such an organization in the early 1890's. The final tipping point was in 1895 when "an obscure Missouri journalist named John Jacks sent a letter to the secretary of the British Anti-Slavery Society, Florence Belgarnie. In the letter, Jacks criticized the anti-lynching work of Ida B. Wells, and wrote that black women had 'no sense of virtue' and were 'altogether without character'...
