Mary Church Terrell was born Mary Eliza Church into the Black elite of Memphis on September 23, 1863. She was the oldest child of Robert Reed Church and Louisa Ayers. While in school in Ohio she grew aware of discrimination and resolved to excel academically to prove the abilities of African Americans and especially Black women. Mary left her hometown of Memphis at an early age to enroll at the elementary school at the Antioch College laboratory school in Ohio. In 1875, Terrell moved to Oberlin, Ohio, to attend both high school and Oberlin college. In her four years in the Classical Studies “gentleman’s course,” Terrell found she was often “the only woman…black or white", enrolled in fields of study considered exclusively for men.
At Oberlin, Church was elected freshman class poet, edited the college newspaper, and participated in the Aelioian women's club. While most of her classmates were White, and she experienced occasional racial discrimination. She graduated from Oberlin College alongside Anna Julia Cooper and Ida Gibbs with a bachelor’s degree in 1884, becoming one of the first Black women to earn a college degree. Through family connections and social networking, Terrell met many influential African-American activists of her day, including Booker T. Washington, director of the influential Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Her father introduced her to activist Frederick Douglass at President James Garfield's inaugural gala. She taught for a couple years before she earned a master’s degree in 1888.
Terrell moved to Washington, DC in 1888 and taught at the M Street School, later known as Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. Her future husband, Robert H. Terrell, was a teacher there, and they married in 1891. He became the first Black municipal court judge in Washington, D.C. Her involvement in the early civil rights movement began in 1892 when her friend was lynched by a White mob in Memphis, TN. Along with Ida B. Wells, Terrell brought attention to the atrocity of lynching. Later that year, Terrell helped create the Colored Women’s League in Washington D.C., to organize Black women across the country. Originally, the group only focused on various education programs for African American women and children, such as educational programs and day care centers for children.
Later, the rebranded National League of Colored Women (NLCW) formally denounced lynching and called for reparations for victim’s families. Around the same time, another group of progressive African-American women were gathering in Boston, Massachusetts. Under the direction of suffragist and intellectual Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin Federation of Afro-American Women was created. Both organizations combined their efforts with hundreds of other organizations to reach a wider focus of African-American women workers, students and activists. Out of this union formed the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) which became the first secular national organization dedicated to the livelihoods of African-American women.
In 1896 she became the Association's first president. As president, she pushed for better health care systems and an increase in higher education for Black women, using her past experiences in both the American education and medical systems to fuel the movement. Terrell frequently called for the upper-class club members to not only fight for civil rights and suffrage, but to “lift as we climb” and recognize the burden of overlapping discrimination. In 1895, she was appointed to the Washington, D.C., School Board as the first Black woman member, a position she held for thirteen years. As a board member, Terrell drew on her education experiences from Ohio. She constantly advocated for the inclusion of Black history in school curricula and refused to de-prioritize the Black schools in the district.
Indeed, she was well-regarded as a Black history buff. Terrell regularly received invitations to lecture on “the history, progress and future of the Negros of the Unites States.” Terrell later lauded her creation of Douglass Day: "I was convinced then as I am today that it is our duty to teach our youth that men and women of our racial group have distinguished themselves in various ways just as those of other races have done. For many years Douglass Day was faithfully observed in our public schools. If I had done nothing else during the 11 years I served as a member of the Board of Education than to make it possible or our boys and girls in Washington to learn what a great man Frederick Douglass was I should consider that my service in that capacity was well worthwhile."
She was also dedicated to racial uplift. Terrell believed that African Americans would be accepted by White society if they received education and job training. She hoped that if Black men and women were seen as successful, they would not be discriminated against. She dedicated herself to educating and helping other African Americans. An early advocate of women's rights, Terrell was an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, addressing in particular the concerns of Black women. She even picketed the White House demanding women’s suffrage. An eloquent spokeswoman, adept political organizer, and prolific writer, Terrell addressed a wide range of social issues in her long career, including the Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the convict lease system.
In 1904, she gave a speech about Samuel Coleride-Taylor, whom she referred to as an “Anglo African Composer.” Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an important and popular British composer of African decent. Her speech held up Coleride-Taylor as an example of what Black people could do given the freedom and time to develop their capabilities. In 1906, the Brownsville Race Riots took place. Mary lobbied William Howard Taft, then War Department Secretary, to have the soldiers’ discharges stalled so an investigation could start. Terrell’s bid for justice was unsuccessful, but after that incident, she continued to pursue equality for African Americans. She wrote at that time that she had lived in D.C. for fifteen years and the city “made conditions ‘intolerable’ for Blacks”.
Terrell was an active member of the National Association of Women’s Suffrage Act (NAWSA), where she worked alongside the organization’s founder, Susan B. Anthony. Terrell was invited to deliver two speeches on the challenges faced by women, and particularly women of color in America, at the International Congress of Women in Berlin in 1904. She was the only woman of Black woman invited to speak at the conference. She delivered her speeches in German, French, and English, receiving a standing ovation from the audience. In 1909, Terrell was one of two Black women (Ida B. Wells-Barnett was the other) invited to sign the "Call" and to attend the first organizational meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
During 1913–14, she helped organize the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She helped write its oath and became an honorary member. Mary Church Terrell was noted as a champion of women’s rights long before feminism was popular. She actively pushed for enactment of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S Constitution. In her late years, Terrell’s commitment to taking on Jim Crow laws and pioneering new ground didn’t wane. In 1949 she became the first Black person admitted to the Washington chapter of the American Association of University Women. And it was Terrell who helped bring down segregated restaurants in her adopted home of Washington, D.C. Washington after WWII was becoming even more segregated than earlier in the century. Multiple instances of persons of color being refused restaurant service, entrance to museums, jobs, home purchases and etc.
After being refused service by a Whites-only restaurant in 1950, Terrell and several other activists sued the establishment. Working with pro bono lawyers, Mary Terrell filed a complaint in D.C. Municipal Court, stating that Thompson’s Restaurant refused to serve her because of her race, in violation of 1872 and 1873 ordinances banning discrimination in restaurants in D.C. This laid the groundwork for the eventual court order that ruled that all segregated restaurants in the city were unconstitutional. During her senior years, she also succeeded in persuading the local chapter of the American Association of University Women to admit Black members. She was a writer, organizer, lecturer and an active demonstrator for equality to which she devoted her entire life. Mary Church Terrell lived long enough to see the Supreme made the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education in May of 1954. She died two months later.