Mary Church Terrell

An African American suffragist who helped found the National Association of Colored Women in 1986 and served as its first national president. In addition, she was a founding member of the National Association of College Women.

In 1950, she started what would be a successful fight to integrate eating places in the District of Columbia. In the 1890s the District of Columbia had formalized segregation, as did states in the South. Before then, local integration laws dating to the 1870s had required all eating-place proprietors to serve any respectable, well-behaved person regardless of color, or face a $1,000 fine and forfeiture of their license. In 1949, Terrell and her colleagues entered the segregated Thompson Restaurant. When refused service, they promptly filed a lawsuit and won her case.