Mary Church Terrell, Black Educator Hall of Fame Member
Mary Eliza Church Terrell, and eduactivist and trailblazer, was born in September of 1863 in Tennessee. Terrell’s parents were successful business persons, although they were once enslaved; her mother owned a hair salon and her father was one of the first Black millionaires in the South.
Her family’s affluence and belief in the importance of education enabled Terrell to attend the Antioch College laboratory school in Ohio, and later Oberlin College, where she became one of the first Black women to earn a bachelor’s degree in the United States. She later returned to Oberlin where she earned her master’s degree. In 1913, Terrell became an honorary member of newly founded Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Howard University, and she received an honorary degree in humane letters from Oberlin College in 1948, as well as honorary degrees from Howard and Wilberforce Universities.
Professionally, Terrell was a professor and principal at Wilberforce University and two years later, she moved to Washington D.C. to teach at the M Street CONTINUE READING: Black Women Like Mary Church Terrell Have Always Been Saving America - Philly's 7th Ward