An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 7/8/2021
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"It has been said, 'The Negro woman in politics would be a failure.' Let us make this statement false. Let us have a mind of our own and use it, make it do your own thinking, asking God for divine leadership, unselfish, untarnished and unbiased. Take a stand for the right, and stand anyhow, stand for the right if you must stand alone. Remember that God and one is a majority."
Meet orator and suffragist Ida M. Bowman Becks, one of the unsung heroes of the Urban League and an early voice in the still-coalescing National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Born in 1880 Armstrong, Mo., Ida graduated from Lincoln High School as class valedictorian in 1899, and then went on to the Chicago School of Elocution, where she honed her skills as a public speaker.
In 1908 she married and moved to Kansas City, where she co-founded that city's first YWCA for black women (Yates), and also traveled on behalf of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention. Her pro-suffrage speeches at numerous churches and clubs, were praised for their eloquence; audiences would describe Becks as "fearless and persuasive," and she was unafraid to engage in public debates. In 1916 she wrote and published a play, "Up From Slavery: Evening's Entertainment in 8 Acts."
In the 1920s Becks served on the board of directors of Wheatley-Provident Hospitals. In 1921 she was one of five delegates from Kansas City to the 1921 NAACP convention in Detroit. That same year, the Negro Women's National Republican League appointed Becks to organize a chapter in Kansas City, of which she eventually was elected chairman.
More info at: https://aahtkc.org/ida-m-bowman-becks
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