Background In 1892, Boston activist
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin founded the
Woman's Era Club, an advocacy group for black women, with the help of her daughter,
Florida Ruffin Ridley, and educator
Maria Louise Baldwin. It was the first black women's club in
Boston, and one of the first in the country. Its members, prominent black women from the Boston area, devoted their efforts to education,
women's suffrage, and race-related issues such as
anti-lynching reform. Its slogan was "Help to make the world better". ''
The Woman's Era'', an illustrated monthly publication, was the club's newspaper. In the early 1890s, when the ''Woman's Era'' polled readers to see if there was a need for a national organization of black clubwomen, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Outraged, Belgarnie sent the letter to Ruffin who distributed the letter to various women's clubs in her call to organize. Soon after, Ruffin organized a national conference in Boston, and asked clubs to send delegates. The first day was to be devoted to the business of organizing, and the second and third to "vital questions concerning our moral, mental, physical and financial growth and well-being." In the call, Ruffin explained the choice of venue: Boston has been selected as a meeting place because it has seemed to be the general opinion that here, and here only, can be found the atmosphere which would best interpret and represent us, our position, our needs, and our aims.
Conference File:Officers of Convention of 1895.jpg|thumb|Officers of Convention of 1895.
Historical Records of Conventions of 1895–96 of the Colored Women of America File:Officers of Convention of 1896.jpg|thumb|Officers of Convention of 1896.
Historical Records of Conventions of 1895–96 of the Colored Women of America On July 29, 1895, representatives of 42 black women's clubs from 14 states—including the Colored Women's League of Washington, the Women's Loyal Union of New York, and the Ida B. Wells Club of Chicago—gathered in Berkeley Hall for the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America, with Josephine Ruffin presiding. In her opening address, Ruffin explained: Our woman's movement is woman's movement in that it is led and directed by women for the good of women and men, for the benefit of all humanity, which is more than any one branch or section of it. We want, we ask the active interest of our men, and, too, we are not drawing the color line; we are women, American women, as intensely interested in all that pertains to us as such as all other American women. Ella L. Smith, the first African-American woman to receive an M.A. degree from
Wellesley College, spoke about the need for higher education. Noted scholar
Anna J. Cooper spoke about the need to organize. In "The Value of Race Literature", author and former slave
Victoria Earle Matthews stressed the importance of collecting literature by and about African Americans.
Agnes Jones Adams gave a speech titled "Social Purity" in which she asserted that being white was not a "criterion for being American". Civil rights leader
T. Thomas Fortune and social reformers
Henry B. Blackwell and
William Lloyd Garrison spoke about political equality. Alice T. Miller of Boston read a poem, and singers Moses Hamilton Hodges and Arianna Sparrow gave solo performances.
The National Federation of Afro-American Women The National Federation of Afro-American Women (NFAAW) was organized during the 1895 conference, and its mission defined as: (1) the concentration of the dormant energies of the women of the Afro-American race into one broad band of sisterhood: for the purpose of establishing needed reforms, and the practical encouragement of all efforts being put forth by various agencies, religious, educational, ethical and otherwise, for the upbuilding, ennobling and advancement of the race; (2) to awaken the women of the race to the great need of systematic effort in home-making and the divinely imposed duties of motherhood. Delegates from the conference were elected officers for the organization, and were
Margaret Murray Washington (President),
Florida Ruffin Ridley (Cor. Sec.), L. C. Carter (Rec. Sec.), Libby B. Anthony (Treasurer),
Mary Dickerson,
Helen Crum, and
Ella Mahammitt (Vice Presidents). Ruffin was nominated for treasurer but refused the position. ''
The Woman's Era'' was designated as the organization's news outlet. The NFAAW held another conference in 1896, when it merged with other groups to form the
National Association of Colored Women. == References ==