Mary church terrell biography timeline project

Mary Church Terrell, a writer, suffragist, educator, and activist, co-founded the National Association of Colored Women and served as the organization’s first president. Known as “Mollie” to her family, Church, who was born in Memphis, Tennessee on September 23, , lived a life of privilege due to the economic success of her parents, both former slaves.

Her mother, Louisa Ayres Church, owned a hair salon, while her father, Robert Reed Church, was the first black millionaire in the South due to his business and real estate dealings. Church&#;s parents divorced when she and her brother were young, and her father remarried.

Church left her hometown of Memphis at an early age to enroll at the elementary school at the Antioch College laboratory school in Ohio.

She remained in Ohio to attend both Oberlin Academy and Oberlin College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in classical languages in   She earned a master&#;s degree from Oberlin four years later.

Although her father disappro