Evolving Toward a Great Understanding of African American Clubwomen

In many ways the emergence of the studying clubwomen has shed light on the powerful actions that Black women took to shape their communities. They addressed issues including lynching, unemployment, suffrage and discrimination laying critical foundations for the modern civil rights movement. As African Americans experienced Jim Crow conditions, organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs helped to navigate the experience under the motto “lifting as we climb” indicating their commitment to helping the underserved to rise beyond their conditions. New scholarship on the club women's movement has begun to focus on these women including: Mary Church Terrell, Margaret Murray Washington and Mary McLeod Bethune, marking a shift from more general studies of the organization to a greater understanding of the women who participated.