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Reporting by Caitlyn Arnwine (formerly Caitlyn Cobb). Written in 2020 and given a 2025-specific edit. A reference list can be found at the bottom of the article as well as more information about this entire series.
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Today, February 12th, 2025, we honor the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America. While Black women were present in organizing throughout all of American history, this conference held in August 1895 would mark the first this three-day organizing and strategy conference of its kind in the United States. Representatives from 42 African-American women’s clubs gathered in Boston, Massachusetts with the shared goal of creating a national organization for Black women. 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’…” (Revolvy, N.D.b)
In every modern-day election cycle, Black women continue to organize their strong political power and also continue to have to defend their virtue and character as women and as Black women, such as when former Vice President Kamala Harris had to defend herself against sexist and racist attacks on her 2024 presidential campaign. The unity shown in the percentages of how Black women consistently vote together is a reflection of how those 42 African American women’s clubs in 1895, long before Zoom, banded together.
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