YWCA Formation
Modeled after the Young Men’s Christian Association established by Sir George Williams, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was founded in the United Kingdom in 1855 by Lady Mary Jane Kinnaird and Emma Robarts. The YWCA’s purpose was to support young working-class women who moved to urban areas during the Industrial Revolution. The YWCA offered these young women a “range of services (such as housing, job placement, and cafeterias), vocational, recreational and enrichment opportunities (such as classes, concerts, libraries and gymnasium facilities), and prayer groups and other religious activities to serve their mental, moral, physical and spiritual welfare."1 The YWCA focused on developing young women holistically in a safe environment and providing them with skills and resources to compete in the job market with men. However, the YWCA was not originally established as a single unified organization, but as two separate ones spearheaded by different founders.
The first co-founder was Lady Mary Jane Kinnaird, who was born in 1816 in England. She became a philanthropist deeply committed to uplifting young women. In 1855, she established the General Female Training Institute, which began as a boarding house for nurses during the Crimean War on their way to and from Crimea, as well as for many young women coming to London for work.2
The other co-founder was Emma Robarts, who was born in 1818 to Nathaniel and Martha Robarts. In 1855, she started a prayer group with 23 other women to “pray for the young women of the world.”3 Originally called the Young Women’s Christian Association, the group changed its name to the Prayer Union in 1859. Throughout the 19th century, the movement quickly spread across the United Kingdom with 130 branches by 1872. In January 1877, Emma Robarts and Lady Kinnaird met and decided to merge the General Female Training Institute and the Prayer Union into the Young Women’s Christian Association to more effectively serve the young women of London and develop their spiritual, physical, emotional, and professional well-being. Robarts died on May 1, 1877, before the official announcement could be made.4 In less than 50 years from its inception in 1855, the YWCA became an international organization when England, Norway, Sweden, and the United States jointly created the World YWCA in 1894.5
YWCA in the United States
The YWCA arrived in the United States in 1858 when a branch opened in New York City. Originally called the Ladies Christian Association, it focused on the "temporal, moral and spiritual welfare" of working women by providing boarding and recreational activities for them. This proved to be so successful that Boston organized the first official Young Women’s Christian Association in 1866, which sparked the formation of other branches across the country.6 In 1872, the YWCA established their first employment bureau in New York City and held typewriting classes for women to better equip them for the job market. The YWCA continued to spread across the United States, and by 1875, there were over 28 American YWCAs.7
These YWCAs provided a variety of services for women, including prayer meetings, Bible classes, libraries, sewing classes, restaurants, entertainment, and temporary housing.8 The branches provided much-needed assistance for developing knowledge and skills for employment, including guidance on how to dress and prepare for interviews. Providing temporary housing was welcomed by women traveling at this time, as women were often viewed as second-class citizens, especially when traveling alone. Many reputable hotels would not let a single woman enter a hotel or book a room if she was not escorted by a man. By offering boarding rooms, YWCAs alleviated this issue for traveling women.9
In 1907, the YWCA of the USA incorporated as a national organization in New York City and membership reached more than 186,000 women at 608 YWCAs. In 1911, the group moved into a permanent headquarters building in New York, mostly financed by six well-to-do members.10
Segregated YWCAs
The YWCA’s relationships with non-whites and immigrants varied across the nation. Some facilities refused to service African American women, while others worked closely with Black women’s organizations, such as the Phyllis Wheatley Association and the National Association of Colored Women.11 In 1889, the first African American YWCA opened in Dayton, Ohio, followed the next year by the first YWCA branch for Native American women, opening at the Haworth Institute in Chilocco, Oklahoma.12
The Y’s national board discussed the racial segregation issue as early as 1905 when it appointed the first Black salaried YWCA Colored branch secretary in New York City – Eva D. Bowles – to lead a project to address the needs of Black women in New York. Bowles was recruited by Addie Waites Hunton, the wife of William Hunton, the first Black full-time paid secretary for the YMCA.13 Bowles’ work and influence were pivotal in steering the national YWCA towards integration. In 1913, Bowles led the newly formed subcommittee for Colored Work of the YWCA national board in the recognition of the increasing interest in association work among urban Black women. The YWCA declared its readiness to meet the needs of Black women at the national meeting in 1914; however, it did not set a policy. Due to this lack of national policy, each chapter operated independently with some fully integrating, some meeting with Black boards, while others remained segregated.
During World War I, the national YWCA board received $4 million from the US War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities to work with women and girls on the home front. The YWCA War Work Council designated $200,000 for Colored work and appointed Bowles as secretary for that committee. Recreation centers, industrial work centers, and 15 hostess houses opened near military installations, specifically for Blacks. At the end of the war, 45 cities benefited from this program and YWCA Black membership rose to more than 39,000. With the leftover funds, a Black YWCA building was built in Washington, D.C. to accommodate the growing African American population there. Impressed with Bowles’ wartime efforts, former President Theodore Roosevelt donated $4,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize to be dispersed according to Bowles’ guidance. With her influence and strong community backing, Bowles pressured the national YWCA board for more balanced representation of Black women on national and local boards and committees. The Council on Colored Work urged the YWCA and other organizations to hold national conventions only in cities that would accommodate all members, regardless of race.14 However, it was not until 1946 that the national board agreed to fully integrate the organization, and fighting racial injustice became the organization's core mission.15
The YWCA strove to be at the forefront of social issues both domestically and internationally. In the 1930s, the YWCA took a stand against lynching, and in the 1940s worked to end racially segregated housing throughout the United States.16 In 1946, the YWCA established its Interracial Charter that states “wherever there is injustice based on race, whether in the community, the nation, or the world, our protest must be clear and our labor for its removal, vigorous and steady.”17 However, racial progress in the YWCA was not immediate as the organization still maintained segregationist practices until 1958 when the national board voted to increase its efforts to integrate all branches. Throughout the 1960s, the YWCA made actionable changes to eliminate racism inside the organization and create a more inclusive atmosphere for minority members. In 1965, the Office of Racial Justice was established to initiate a national anti-racial campaign.18 Throughout the rest of the century, the YWCA continued to advocate for racial justice, sex education, physical fitness, and professional development for women domestically and across the globe.
YWCAs in Texas
YWCAs were also established in Texas, including ones for African Americans. Texas cities with Black YWCAs included Beaumont, Dallas, Fort Worth, Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, and Waco.
Various African American travel guides listed locations of Black YWCAs across the nation, including The Bronze American National Travel Guide, Chauffeur’s Travelers Bureau Guide, GO Guide to Pleasant Motoring, Grayson’s Travel and Business Guide, Negro Motorist Green Book, and the Travelguide. In Texas, the branches listed in the travel guides included:
- Beaumont, Frances Morris branch, 1305 Gladys Street, later 653 College Street
- Dallas, Maria Morgan branch, 2503 North Washington Street (3525 State Street)
- Fort Worth, Colored branch, 2923 Ave K, later 1916 Crump Street
- Galveston, Blue Triangle branch, 2823 Avenue K
- Houston, Blue Triangle branch, 506 Louisiana Street, later 1419 Live Oak Street
- San Antonio, Pine Street branch, 328 North Pine Street
- Waco, Blue Triangle branch, 220 Forrest Street, later 301 Cherry Street
The "Black YWCAs in Texas" map shows only the facilities listed in the travel guides. A red pin indicates that the building is still extant; a black pin shows that it was demolished. Each pop-up window will show branch name, geographic coordinates, state of existence, location, travel guide/s in which it was listed, and other details as known.
YWCA in Beaumont
Beaumont Frances Morris Branch YWCA
In 1911, ten women held a meeting to organize a Young Christian Women’s Association in Beaumont. They wrote a constitution and bylaws in 1913 and increased the group to 21 women. They held their meetings in the Temperance building at 521 Pearl Street. The State of Texas issued a charter for the organization on January 5, 1914. By 1916, the organization started fundraising for a new building that was designed by architect Frederick William Steinman, who offered his services at no cost. After seven years of campaigning and planning, the organization moved into its new $100,000 four-story red brick building in July 1918. Located at 660 Calder Street, it contained an indoor swimming pool, gymnasium and cafeteria. The first two floors were for offices and programs, while the upper floors had residential space for 64 young women.1
YWCA for Beaumont’s Black Women
Due to the efforts by the Black community, namely Frances Morris, an English teacher, and the Reverend Charles Graham, a club for teenaged African American girls was organized in 1918. The group initially met in the Knights of Pythias Hall on Gladys Street and classes were held on instruction and recreational activities. By 1921, the membership had reached 300 women and girls with $700 in savings. Morris sent Chaney Douglas and Ann Smith to Houston to get information from its Black branch YWCA. Armed with this information, the club petitioned the national YWCA and Morris contacted the local YWCA representatives in regard to forming a Black YWCA branch. By the end of 1921, membership was up to 500. In 1922, Cordelia Winn, a national YW field representative, came to Beaumont to work with Morris and the local YWCA staff. Due to poor health, Morris relinquished her leadership role to Douglas, Smith, Mrs. M. P. Brown and Araha J. Willard. After a year to arrange financing and hire staff, the African American club officially became a YWCA branch in April of 1923. Frances Morris died on March 17, 1923, just a month before her goal became reality. Willard became the first branch chair, Nellie King was appointed the first teenage director and Georgia E. Ward of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, was brought in as the first executive secretary. In honor of Morris’ service as a civic leader, the national YWCA designated naming of the branch in her memory. For a while, it met at 733 Forsythe Street in a wood-frame house until 1927 when it moved a mile away to 1305 Gladys Avenue in the home of Mrs. Cleta Prater in north Beaumont, just a block away from Reverend Graham’s church at 1460 Gladys Avenue.
Due to overcrowded conditions, a new location was sought in 1935, and 653 College Street, a two-story wood-frame building, was obtained. At first, the Y rented the former apartment house for $10 a month, but eventually funds were allocated by the Central YWCA’s Board on Colored Work to purchase it and the property deed was filed on March 25, 1935. Local churches and individuals donated furnishings for the building.
From 1923 with the Frances Morris Branch’s opening to 1969 with its integration with main YWCA, the organization was guided by multiple executive directors, including Georgia E. Ward (1923-1927), Cleta B. Prater (1927-1933), Irene A. Booger (1935), Louise Gullatte (1935-1945), Ozella Rasberry (1947-1949), Ruth E. Mumford (1953), Mrs. H. Ben Wright (1954), Exie W. Clement (1956-1957), Marcella Huggins (1958-1960), Helen Marie Allen (1961-1963), and Zefferine Garth (1963-1965).
In 1959, the facility hosted over 15 outside groups, including sororities, church groups, conventions, school groups, lodges and civic groups, serving over 14,000 people. More than 10,200 teenagers participated in clubs, classes, special events and camps.2 In March 1967, a tribute was given at the 45th annual membership reunion and recognition dinner. Morris’ son, Dr. Kelso Morris, was the principal speaker. Dr. Morris was the head of the chemistry department at Howard University. The branch now had 813 members with 18 women board members, three paid staff, a secretary and a housekeeper. Its annual budget was $25,290 with $20,815 coming from the United Appeals fund and $4,475 coming from membership and fees. It offered a wide range of classes and activities ranging from Spanish language, millinery, charm and grooming, sewing and upholstery, healthcare, landscaping and weight loss. In 1967, due to space limitations and deferred maintenance, the Morris Y was looking for a new location; however, it does not appear that one was found before the main YWCA and the Frances Morris branch merged in 1969.3 In January 1969, $1,000 was approved for plumbing repairs for the College Street YW and by December 1969, the United Appeals allocations for the YWCA was for one entity and was not split into two like the YMCA allocations were.4 The Beaumont YWCAs were among the first organizations to integrate in town and the organization continued to occupy the YWCA building at 660 Calder until it was demolished by 2010.
Key Women of the Beaumont’s Frances Morris YWCA
Frances “Effie” Elizabeth Willard Kelso Morris Atkins
Frances Kelso was born in Pineville, Louisiana, on February 29, 1876, to William Strother Kelso and Carolina Taylor Kelso as one of their eight children. Frances received a Bachelor of Arts degree from New Orleans University. By 1900, she was a schoolteacher in Red River County, Louisiana. She moved to Beaumont by 1903 to teach at the segregated public schools. In 1905, she married Isaiah H. Morris in Alexandria, Louisiana. Isaiah was a teacher from Alabama who became the first Black mail carrier in Beaumont.5 They lived at 725 Brooklyn Street in south Beaumont and together had a son, Kelso Bronson Morris, born February 6, 1909, who also became a teacher, first at Wiley College and later at Howard University.6 After contracting pneumonia, Isaiah died on March 18, 1910.
Frances supported her son by taking in lodgers and teaching English and Latin at various Black schools in Beaumont, including Charlton High School, Third Ward School and Elisah Adams School. In 1918, she played a key part in organizing a club for African American teenage girls, assisted by the Rev. Graham. In 1921, Frances submitted a report from the Colored YWCA Club to the main YWCA that although they had not collected a lot of money, they did have a membership level of 500 people.7
In September 1920, she married again, this time to William L. Atkins, a carpenter. This marriage was also short-lived, as Frances died on March 17, 1923, of a stomach ulcer hemorrhage. The girls club that she helped create evolved into the first Black YWCA in Beaumont in 1923 and received its branch status about a month after her death. In lieu of flowers, she requested donations be made to the YWCA. She participated in many civic activities, including the Juneteenth Committee, the Excelsior Club and the Texas Federation of Colored Women. To honor her legacy, the new YWCA for African American Beaumonters was named for her. Frances Elizabeth Kelso Morris Atkins was buried in Anthony Cemetery in Beaumont.
Loraine Beatrice “Teapie” Sprott Whittier
Loraine Beatrice Sprott was born in Beaumont on September 7, 1913, to Ed and Myrtle Sprott, the fourth of nine children. She attended local segregated schools, and after high school graduation, she went to Prairie View College from 1931 to 1935, earning her bachelor’s degree in health and physical education. While at the HBCU, she was a member of the YWCA, editor of the Panther, crowned Homecoming Queen for the class of 1935 and received the Phi Beta Sigma cash award for making the greatest student contribution to Prairie View during her three-year residency. Sprott did additional higher education studies at the University of Wisconsin and St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, along with leadership courses with the National Board of the YWCA.
After graduation, she worked as an assistant in the physical education department at Prairie View State College and worked briefly in Lubbock as a health and PE teacher. In 1937, she returned to Beaumont to teach at the Pipkin Junior High School until 1941. During this period, Sprott volunteered with the Frances Morris Branch YWCA as president of the Business and Professional Club and a committee member of Administration. She was a delegate to the YWCA Summer Conference for Business, Professional and Industrial Clubs in the Southwest Region, attending the camp held in Kerrville in 1939. In 1941, she resigned from teaching to work for the National Board of the YWCA as the USO Director during World War II in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and Fayetteville, N.C. In 1944, she married Dr. Oncy Melvin Whittier of San Antonio and resigned from the YW National Board.
The Whittiers lived in San Antonio and had four children together: Cheryl, Oncy Melvin II, Julius Edward and Mildred Elizabeth. Dr. Oncy Whittier worked with his brother, Dr. Charles Austin Whittier, at the Whittier Clinic located at 928 East Crockett Street. Loraine returned to teaching and actively participated in community organizations, such as the Community Welfare Council, Ella Austin Children’s Home, National Council of Negro Women, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Jack and Jill of America, and the City Parks and Recreation Board. For her efforts, she was awarded a Commendation for Outstanding Service for her contributions to the lengthy planning sessions for the 1970 Capital Improvement Project by the City of San Antonio, as well as for her service in support of the National Council of Negro Women’s programs. After Oncy’s death in 1981, Loraine moved to the Dallas area to live with her son, Julius. At the age of 93, Loraine Beatrice Sprott Whittier died on January 30, 2007.8 The 80th Texas Legislature filed a resolution paying tribute to her life.9
Louise Jacqueline Gullatte
Louise Jacqueline Gullatte was born in Texas, probably in Bowie County around 1904, to John L. and Mary A. Gullatte. Her early years are unclear, but she was living in Dallas by 1920 with three of her siblings at her maternal aunt’s house (Lauretta Holman Gooden10) after their mother’s death. She graduated from the Dallas Colored High School in 1922. For several years, she worked as a domestic for a private family, but moved to Houston in 1930 where she worked as a maid for another private family while residing at the Colored Branch YWCA at 2104 Hutchins Street in the Third Ward. Gullatte attended Wiley College in Marshall, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree on May 24, 1932, and she also studied at Columbia University.11 She moved to Beaumont by 1933, working as the office secretary at the Frances Morris Branch YWCA, but was promoted to executive secretary by 1935. She supervised the association’s move from 1305 Gladys Avenue to 654 College Street in 1935. In 1938, she attended the National YWCA convention held in Columbus, Ohio. She resided in Beaumont at the YWCA until at least 1945.
In 1946, Gullatte moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to be the executive director of the Blue Triangle Branch YWCA at 436 North 5th Avenue. The National YWCA provided funds for the Blue Triangle Branch in 1919, and a building was purchased in 1921. It was one of the few residences available for single Black women in Nashville at the time.12 Gullatte supervised many activities and classes, such as membership drives, sewing and typewriting classes, race relations, charm school, child welfare, religious education, summer camp, teen club, retreats and joint community projects, to name a few. The Blue Triangle Branch collaborated with other local organizations, such as the 18th Avenue Youth Center, Fisk University, A&I State College, public schools and churches. The branch also worked with the local USO to provide a series of camp show entertainments for airmen at Sewart Air Force Base in 1952. Gullatte attended regional and national YWCA conventions, including the 1948 YWCA Regional Conference in Atlanta, YWCA executive directors conference in Chattanooga in 1951 and the 1952 National Convention in Chicago. She gave numerous speaking engagements, such as the one at the National Baptist Missionary Training School for the National YWCA week in 1953. She also supervised fundraising that started in the mid-1940s for a new YW building at 1708 Pearl Street with the dedication taking place on October 25, 1953. The new modern brick structure cost $67,000 and included “quarters for 12 permanent residents, six rooms for overnight guests, meeting rooms with removable partitions to accommodate 200 persons, a reception lobby with registration counter; offices for the executive director and a roomy kitchen. L. B. Stevens, who planned and supervised construction, said plans call for more living quarters, a patio and an auditorium to seat 300.”13 The dedication ceremony was attended by 450 people with Mrs. W. Maxey Jarman, a National YWCA board member, making remarks.
On August 1, 1954, Gullatte resigned after eight years as executive director. A reception was held in her honor, where she received credit for “guiding extensive expansion of the Blue Triangle Branch’s programs in all departments. Officials of the branch have termed her direction ‘invaluable’ during the period when the branch moved from the Fifth Ave. location where it had been for 20 years, to its present new site at 1708 Pearl St.”14 Under her leadership, the Y-Teen program expanded and could be found in many local schools.
Her Nashville resignation came with a move to Louisville, Kentucky, where she took the position of acting executive director at the Phyllis Wheatley Branch YWCA, while the executive director Marie Garner was on sabbatical leave for her Doctor of Philosophy degree studies. The Phyllis Wheatley Branch was located at 528 South 6th Street. For the first time in working for the YWCA, Gullatte did not live in a Y facility, but resided in 2418 West Walnut Street (now West Muhammad Ali Blvd.) as a renter. She attended the National YWCA Convention in New York in April 1955 – the year celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the YWCA’s founding.
For a while, the Phyllis Wheatley Branch had been looking for a new location or alternatively fundraising for repairs as the 6th Street building was showing its age and needed extensive repairs. In 1957, the Phyllis Wheatley building at 528 South 6th Street closed, as repair and maintenance costs were deemed too expensive, the last straw being the furnace breaking down before Christmas. YW residents found rooms in private homes and YW activities were relocated to the Central Branch and at the Baptist Fellowship Center. Gullatte and her staff moved into the Central Branch location.15 Ostensibly, the Louisville YWs were working to integrate the local branches as per the National YWCA’s civil rights platform. However, separate rented facilities were found for the Phyllis Wheatley branch in 1959, now renamed the West End Branch located at 734 Cecil Avenue, rather than integrating the facilities.
In the mid-1950s, integration of the branches in Louisville made headway, although not without political turmoil. The YWCA board unanimously agreed to open their swimming pool to all YW members as of September 1956 after “the Committee on Inclusiveness voted to recommend the inclusiveness of all members, regardless of race in the total program of the YWCA of Louisville.”16 However, Black YW members were not permitted to enter the swimming classes as of 1958. In 1959, Tuesday mornings were allocated to West End YW members, indicating that while African Americans could use the pools, they could not use them at the same time as whites. Other integration issues were evident when a group of African American girls went to the Central Branch for dormitory accommodations, but were told that the Y was not ready to permit them to reside there in 1959.17 Civil unrest targeted various Black YW facilities in the Chattanooga vicinity when its branch building was bombed in January 1958 and a YW Girls Camp near Lexington was forced to evacuate ahead of a white vigilante mob in August 1959.
During these turbulent times, Gullatte resigned from her executive director position in February 1959 to work for the Lincoln School briefly before becoming a service advisor for the Louisville Municipal Housing Commission in April 1960. The commission managed almost 5,000 apartments in nine modern housing projects. Each apartment unit came with a stove, refrigerator and utilities. The units varied in size from two rooms up to eight, and rent started at $21 a month up to $90. The duties of service advisors included paying visits to new tenants upon move-in to explain the lease and housekeeping standards expected. They also visited poor housekeepers and suggested ways to maintain minimum housekeeping standards with a follow-up visit ten days later.18
Gullatte appears to have lived out the rest of her life in Louisville and at some point, her Aunt Lauretta came to live with her before Lauretta’s death in 1969. Louise Jacqueline Gullatte died on May 28, 1996.
YWCA in Dallas
The YWCA organization was established in Dallas when a provisional committee formally organized the Young Women’s Christian Association of Dallas on February 21, 1908. In March 1909, the YWCA of Dallas received a state charter and officially became affiliated with the national YWCA as a non-profit organization that would provide respectable accommodations for young women seeking work in Dallas. Meetings and activities were held in various places until 1919 when a fundraising campaign started to raise money for the construction of a permanent facility to keep up with membership and program increases. The Dallas YWCA raised $800,000 for the new facilities, allowing for the expansion of the organization’s programs, including the establishment of the “Girl Reserves” program for young girls.1 At the time, the organization was only available for white women and girls.
A white women’s group called the Church Women United (CWU) in Dallas formed in 1912, led by Maria Morgan Smith, who served as president for 10 years. The CWU was a national movement where Christian women could “express their faith by prayer, advocacy and service" and work "with other local organizations to promote awareness of many social issues.”2 In 1926, the CWU held a gathering of women to address the growing needs of the Black community, including training for girls and a day nursery for young children of working Black women. During this meeting, Frederica Chase Dodd pitched the idea of a YWCA branch with a designated paid worker with the focus of serving Black women and girls. As a result of this meeting, CWU “adopted the Homemakers Industrial School located at State Street and Washington Avenue as a project. The school trained African-American girls in homemaking skills and the boys how to make a living.”3
Meanwhile, the National YWCA conducted a survey, resulting in the Central Association of YWCA Board assuming responsibility of a Black branch in Dallas. Chase Dodd and Ethelyn Chisum with other Black women worked with CWU to form a new YWCA branch for African Americans.4 Maria Morgan Smith and the CWU donated the Homemakers Industrial School building and land at 2503 State Street to the YWCA in 1927. The first paid employee hired at the Black YWCA was Doris Wooten in 1928.
Maria Morgan YWCA
In 1935, the new executive director Marion Hill Dillard Crump initiated a building fundraiser in order to accommodate the organization's growing membership and activities, with a large amount of the funds coming from the Methodist Churches of Dallas, the Black community, and the Downtown YWCA.5 By 1939, a sufficient amount of money had been raised to replace the existing wood-frame house with a larger, more modern stone-clad building. Completed in 1940, the new building cost $14,000 and had a new address of 3525 North Washington Street, although it was still on the same parcel.6 It was renamed the Maria Morgan branch of the Dallas YWCA.
When Crump retired in 1972, the YWCA had over 1,500 members.7 The Maria Morgan YWCA remained in operation at the Washington Street location until the organization moved to a new facility at 1800 Bonnie View Road on October 27, 1975. By providing a wide variety of educational opportunities, the Maria Morgan YWCA was an essential resource for the development of Black women and girls in Dallas during the Jim Crow era and beyond.
Maria Morgan YWCA's Notable Women
Many women made the existence of the Maria Morgan Branch YWCA possible. Below are short biographies of a few key women.
Frederica K. Chase Dodd
Frederica K. Chase was born in Dallas on November 3, 1893, to Frederick K. and Fannie L. Chase. Frederica’s mother was a schoolteacher. Her father was an influential civic leader and attorney, who had launched a mayoral campaign for the city of Dallas in 1893, making him one of the first urban Black mayoral candidates in Texas.8 He died on September 3, 1893, just a few months before his daughter was born. Her mother was a schoolteacher, and education was an integral part of Frederica’s childhood. In 1910, she graduated from the Dallas Colored School No. 2 (later renamed Booker T. Washington High School). She continued her education at her father’s alma mater Howard University, a historically Black university founded in 1867, located in Washington, D.C. During her studies at Howard, Chase and 21 other young black women founded the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority on January 13, 1913. Today, the sorority is an international service organization with over 300,000 members worldwide. Chase also served as president of the campus YWCA branch. She graduated with honors in 1914 and returned home to Dallas to teach English at her alma mater Booker T. Washington High School.9
Frederica Chase married John Horace Dodd on June 20, 1920. He was a Howard University Medical School graduate, a Dallas physician, and president of the Lone Star Medical Association. As was customary among middle-class American women, Chase Dodd stopped teaching after marriage, and she became active in various community organizations. She helped found an after-school group that became the Maria Morgan YWCA branch. Her memberships included the Priscilla Art Club, the National Association of Colored Women, the Recreation Club, the Kant Agree Club, the Reading Circle, and the Dallas Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Chase Dodd returned to work in the early 1930s when her husband was admitted to the Terrell State Hospital due to a debilitating illness, where he remained until his death in 1945. Chase Dodd attended Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) School of Social Work in Atlanta, Georgia, and became one of the first Black social workers in Dallas. Throughout the Great Depression, she worked for the Dallas Welfare Bureau, a city social welfare office, where she assisted unemployed African Americans with food and clothing donations. Due to the overwhelming needs of the community, she was quickly promoted as the director of the Negro Community Welfare Agency that served as an employment office. Under Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson, she worked for the Texas Relief Commission. In 1936, Chase Dodd accepted a position as a counselor for the Family Services of Dallas, and she remained employed there until her retirement in 1961.
Frederica K. Chase Dodd died on January 21, 1972. Her memorial service was held at New Hope Baptist Church, followed by her burial in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Dallas. In tribute to Chase Dodd’s importance to the founding of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, the Dallas Alumnae Chapter established the Frederica Chase Dodd Scholarship and the Frederica Chase Dodd Life Development Center south of downtown Dallas. Chase Dodd’s work was recognized by both the United States Congress and the Texas State Legislature for her part in founding Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.10
Ethelyn Mildred Taylor Chisum
Ethelyn Mildred Taylor was born on June 9, 1895, in Dallas to William Henry and Virgie M. Taylor. In 1913, she graduated from Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University) and started teaching at public schools in Rock Creek (Smith County), Waxahachie, and Dallas. On September 23, 1923, Ethelyn Taylor married John O. Chisum, an optometry student, and stopped teaching, but did secretarial work on the side. Chisum returned to teaching in 1932 as a teacher at Booker T. Washington High School and was promoted to dean of the school in 1941. During these interim years, she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1936, followed by a master’s degree in 1959 from Prairie View State College. She retired as dean in 1965. However, her retirement was short-lived, as in 1967, Chisum went to work at Southern Methodist University (SMU) to facilitate its Upward Bound program, where she stayed until she retired again in 1982 due to poor health.
Throughout her career, Chisum participated in various professional organizations. She helped found the Maria Morgan branch of the YWCA in 1927 for Dallas African American women and girls, and was a longtime board member. She was active in the Dallas Teachers Council, the Dallas Negro Division to Improve the Texas Teachers Retirement Plan, and the Dallas Personnel and Guidance Club. Chisum maintained memberships in various community associations, including the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors, Priscilla Art Club, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, North Dallas Democratic Women’s Club, the Texas Personal and Guidance Association, the Teachers State Association of Texas, the Texas Commission on Race Relations, the North Park-Cedar Springs Civic League, and Prairie View Alumni Association.11
Ethelyn Mildred Taylor Chisum died on January 27, 1983. Her files are housed at the Dallas Public Library as the John O. and Ethelyn M. Chisum Collection, which chronicles their lives, as well as lives of other African Americans in 20th century Dallas.
Doris Wooten Kirkman Wesley
Doris Wooten was born on December 1, 1902, to Webb and Bettie Wooten in Fort Worth. She worked at the Fort Worth YWCA as assistant secretary where she helped raise over $13,000 in funds in 1920 for the construction of a YWCA building and was promoted to secretary in 1922.12 Wooten relocated to Houston by 1923 and became the branch secretary of the Houston YWCA and lived at the YWCA boarding house at 406 Saulnier Street in the Fourth Ward area.13 On January 23, 1927, Doris D. Wooten married Carlton Kirkman. However, the marriage was short-lived as she returned to her maiden name and moved to Dallas by 1928, serving as the first executive secretary at the Maria Morgan YWCA. After the hiring of Wooten at the Dallas YWCA, numerous “committees were organized, and immediate plans were made to repair and decorate the building.”14 Under her leadership, the branch grew quickly and had 220 members by 1929. The YWCA sponsored a variety of events such as “Race Relations Sunday, Negro Health Week, summer camps, cooking classes, interior decoration, sex education, and home nursing.”15
She attended Texas College in Tyler before heading to the University of Cincinnati where she earned her degree in social work. While in Cincinnati, she helped organize the West End Colored YWCA as the executive secretary. She remarried in 1933 to Houstonian Carter Walker Wesley, and they moved back to Texas, living in Houston by 1934. Carter Wesley was a civil rights attorney who collaborated with prominent lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on a brief that resulted in granting Blacks the right to vote in Texas primary elections. He also helped plan the landmark Sweatt v. Painter court case against the University of Texas. He served as president of the Safety Investment Company and worked at the Houston Informer publishing company, a Black newspaper firm, where he rose in the ranks to become publisher. He owned the Dallas Express newspaper and was a founder of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.16 Wooten Wesley ended her professional YWCA career to work with her husband at The Houston Informer. At the newspaper, she was in charge of subscriptions, advertising and promotions and was instrumental in increasing subscriptions from 4,000 to 22,00 in just two years. By 1940 the newspaper's circulation was 25,000. In 1963 after Carter became disabled after an automobile wreck, she became publisher, vice president and treasurer. They adopted two daughters, along with his son from a previous relationship, and they remained married for 36 years until Carter died in 1969.17
Doris D. Wooten Wesley retired in 1973 due to failing health and died on September 11, 1973, in her home at 12501 Wallisville Road after a short illness. In addition to her YWCA executive secretary work, she ultimately served 18 years on the National YWCA Board and 12 years on the YWCA World Council. She was also involved with the Houston Links Inc., the Lighthouse for the Blind, National Council of Negro Women, Girl Scouts, the Florence Crittenden Home, and the NAACP.
Dr. Yvonne Ewell
Yvonne Amaryllis Ewell was born on September 19, 1926, to Valcris and Marjorie Ewell in Frankston, Texas,18 and grew up on a farm in Frankston while attending a school for Black children. Coming from a line of educators on her mother’s side of the family, she received a higher education at Prairie View A&M College (now Prairie View A&M University) for her Bachelor of Arts degree and at the University of Colorado for her Master of Arts degree.19 In 1947, Ewell began teaching at the Black elementary school in Ladonia, Texas.20 She relocated to Dallas in 1954 to teach at the Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School, beginning her illustrious career in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) at a time when “teacher lounges, restrooms, and water fountains were still segregated.”21
Ten years later, Ewell became the first African American woman appointed as the district-wide elementary school consultant.22 In 1970, she was awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Hays scholarship to study abroad for five weeks in East Africa. In 1978, Ewell broke another barrier when she was appointed as associate superintendent in Dallas, making her the highest-ranking African American school district administrator in Texas, under superintendent Nolan Estes who assigned her to the East Oak Cliff district. Estes described her as a “person of great vision.... For her, children were non-negotiable. For her, they came first, everything else played second fiddle.”23 During her tenure as associate superintendent, Ewell “attracted national attention for implementing several innovative programs and was a highly sought speaker on the lecture circuit.”24 Ewell received an honorary doctorate from HBCU Bishop College in 1979.25
When the East Oak Cliff district of Dallas ISD dissolved in 1981, Dr. Ewell transitioned into operating as a court-appointed DISD desegregation monitor from 1981 to 1984. She officially retired in 1985, ending her impactful three decade-long career at DISD. Over 400 guests attended for her retirement party, “including Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women in Washington D.C.”26 However, that was not the end of her involvement with Dallas schoolchildren as she was elected to the Dallas School Board in 1987, and served for 11 years, up until her death in 1998.
Outside of her professional career as a teacher, educator, and administrator, Dr. Ewell was also active in the Dallas community, participating in numerous organizations. She was heavily involved in the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) on both local and national levels, as she held several positions within the organization, including the Nominating Committee for the Maria Morgan YWCA, Metropolitan Dallas YWCA Board of Directors, and the national YWCA board.27 She helped host the 1979 national YWCA conference held in Dallas that promoted the health and welfare of all.28 Dr. Ewell also participated in Black-affiliated groups, including the Tri-Racial Committee, National Council of Negro Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), South Dallas Business and Professional Women’s Club, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, National Black Educators Association, Texas Black Caucus of School Boards, National Political Congress of Black Women, and the Munger Avenue Baptist Church, not to mention a number of other social, civic, and non-profit organizations.29
As a trailblazing community leader, Dr. Ewell dedicated her life to her students. Her primary goal was to ensure African American and other minority students received the best possible opportunities to succeed in Dallas public schools. Throughout her career, she utilized her intellect and influence to motivate city leaders “to work harder and aim higher for the good of children and all of Dallas.”30 In 1995, a magnet school opened in East Oak Cliff that was named the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center (now School for the Talented and Gifted at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center) in recognition of her work on the magnet school project and her immense contributions to DISD.
Dr. Yvonne Amaryllis Ewell died on April 27, 1998, of pancreatic cancer at Methodist Medical Center in Dallas. Though she never married and never had children of her own, she advocated for thousands of schoolchildren through her decades of service in the Dallas school system. Her memorial service was held in the Hall of State at Fair Park, where over a dozen people gave tributes to her service. She “was remembered as a leader whose influence reached beyond education to politics, religion and community service.”31 Dr. Ewell is buried in Mount Olive Cemetery in Frankston, Texas.32
YWCA in San Antonio
More than 30 years after the local YMCA was established, the Young Women’s Christian Association was founded in San Antonio in 1910 with the goal of providing a Christian environment where young women new to the city could find lodging, socialize and take educational classes.1 Their first location was a temporary facility at North Alamo and Third streets with 2,495 members by the summer of 1914.2 By 1915, they moved into their first permanent home at 5th (now McCullough) and Broadway, a three-story red-brick C-shaped building that included an indoor half-basement swimming pool, which the YMCA also used.3 The YWCA offered boarding, classes in English and literature, and recreational activities.4 In 1917, the San Antonio YWCA purchased Camp Idlewilde in Comfort, Texas, originally created as a camp for “business girls.” Around the same time, the organization also established houses for military personnel in support of the World War I effort.5 By 1918, the San Antonio YWCA had launched initiatives to serve the city’s Black and immigrant communities, establishing the Pine Street Branch for the African American East Side and the International Institute for immigrant women.
Pine Street Branch YWCA
The Pine Street Branch YWCA in San Antonio was established in 1918 at 328 North Pine Street as a demonstration branch of the YWCA for Negroes by the YWCA’s National Board, making it the first African American YWCA in Texas.6 Its founding reflected a broader YWCA effort to provide opportunities for women of all races and backgrounds during a time of widespread segregation. This initiative was part of an expansion that also included the establishment of the International Institute on North Pecos Street, which served immigrant women from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.7 From its earliest years, the Pine Street Branch was an essential community hub for Black women in San Antonio, offering social, educational and vocational programs.
The creation and growth of the Pine Street Branch were driven largely by former Houstonian schoolteacher, Euretta Fairchild, with early financial support from Eleanor Brackenridge. Brackenridge, a well-known San Antonio clubwoman, civic leader and advocate for women’s rights, founded the Woman’s Club of San Antonio and supported social reform for women and children.8 Fairchild made several calls to Brackenridge asking her to donate money for the purchase of the Pine Street building. Brackenridge initially turned Fairchild down, but Fairchild continued to pay visits where she read to Brackenridge and they developed a friendship. Brackenridge’s first donation was a $100 check written to “My friend, Miss Euretta K. Fairchild,” given in appreciation of Fairchild’s weekly visits to read to her. When she learned that the check had been endorsed to the YWCA, Brackenridge became more engaged and began contributing regularly, including a $5,000 donation in 1924 that drew interest for ten years before being used in 1934 to build the two-story rear addition on the Pine Street Branch building that included an auditorium and to install hardwood floors, new walls in the lobby and club room, and a new roof. Through the persistence of Fairchild, the national YWCA purchased the Pine Street property, which was housed in a 1909 Folk Victorian style wood-frame building.9
Over the years, Fairchild worked closely with committees of local women who transformed the branch into a thriving center for community life.10 In its early years, the Pine Street branch supported girls and women during periods of unemployment by offering lodging, meals, medical care and transportation to job interviews, as well as maintaining a free employment bureau. It also hosted educational lectures and offered a class in Black history.11
Many San Antonians contributed their time and resources to help the Pine Street Branch grow into one of the city’s most vital community institutions. It hosted the city’s first typing classes, organized some of the first child health clinics in the city staffed by Black doctors, established the Volunteer Health League, hosted meetings for the Alamo Athletic Association and offered home nursing and employment services for Black residents. By 1933, the branch had placed 493 women in jobs, served 437 people in the health clinic, and enrolled 631 girls in its Girl Reserve Club, a program specifically for teen girls that offered activities such as swimming, educational tours, and horseback riding. A testimonial by Principal J.D. Lowery of the Cuney School said, “The Y.W.C.A. is one of the greatest agencies we have for worthy character building. It stands for the noblest ideals of womanhood and citizenship, and merits unstinted support.”12
During World War II, the branch operated the Sycamore Street USO, organizing entertainment and recreation for what was then the largest concentration of Black soldiers in the country.13 By 1946, following the adoption of the YWCA’s National Interracial Charter, the organization formally committed to integration at the national level, but integration in San Antonio was not quick to follow.14 By 1954, the Pine Street Branch continued to grow, offering an expanding range of programs, such as Red Cross home nursing, adult elementary education, knitting, sewing, upholstery, millinery, modern dance, choir, the Junior Teens Co-ed Club and the Yakiteers Y-Teen Club, all free to members.15 It was not until 1955 that the San Antonio YWCA board of directors adopted a policy of complete integration, and the Pine Street Branch became part of the Downtown Y.16 While some in the Black community expressed concern that integration threatened a vital neighborhood institution, the Pine Street building continued to host meetings, luncheons, and even weddings and receptions for San Antonio’s East Side. As the oldest agency in the East Side providing youth programs and social services to families, the Pine Street Branch YWCA remained a cornerstone of community life.17
In 1982, the San Antonio alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority purchased the building and associated land at 328 North Pine Street from the YWCA. It is now known as the Myra Davis Hemmings Resource Center, a Registered Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL) dedicated in 2012 to Myra Davis Hemmings, a local African American educator, actress, community activist and one of the original 22 founders of the sorority. Davis Hemmings organized the San Antonio chapter on August 16, 1933, and served as its first president.18
Prominent Members of the Pine Street YWCA
Due to the contributions of many, the Pine Street Branch became a cornerstone of San Antonio’s East Side community for decades. Below are biographies of a few outstanding women.
Euretta K. Fairchild
Euretta Kate Fairchild was born in Houston in 1883, to Robert and Amanda McNair Fairchild who had a total of seven children: Annie (1866), Nettie (1869), Georgeanna (1872), Thornton (1876), Ella (1879), Euretta (1883), and Mabel (1888), all of whom graduated from college and worked as teachers in Houston’s segregated schools.19 Euretta and Mabel graduated from Wiley College in Marshall, with the others going to Prairie View Normal College with the exception of Annie who went to Tillotson Institute in Austin. Euretta attended the Houston Summer Normal for Colored Teachers in 190120 and was teaching first grade in 1902. After Ella’s death in 1910, Euretta took her place at the Gregory Institute where she stayed through 1918.
While living in Houston, Euretta was active in civic and cultural life. She was part of the Negro Social Service League organizing committee that helped set up a visiting nurse to provide care for the African American needy and sick in partnership with the City of Houston.21 She was on the planning committee for managing Emancipation Park and helped set up a three-day Juneteenth event. She was president of Houston’s 1906 Arts and Charity Club in 1915. The club was the only Black club in Houston qualified under a 1914 city ordinance to solicit money and do charity work.22
In July 1918, Fairchild attended a YWCA welcoming reception in New York City where she was attending a teachers’ conference.23 Later the same year, Fairchild moved from Houston to San Antonio where she played a central role in establishing the Pine Street Branch YWCA. As its founding director, she worked to secure property, funding and community support, transforming the branch into a cornerstone of San Antonio’s East Side. Under her leadership, the Pine Street Branch offered classes, health clinics and social programs that provided employment opportunities, a safe gathering space for African American women and created opportunities for civic engagement and leadership. She traveled to YWCA conferences held across the state and the nation and gave talks on interracial relationships. According to the Houston Informer, Fairchild was so intensely interested in her work in San Antonio that she refused better offers in several northern cities.24
Fairchild’s commitment to racial equality and education continued throughout her career. In 1930, she was among the first initiates of San Antonio’s Alpha Tau Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the oldest Greek-letter organization established by African American women in 1908. Organized at the Pine Street Branch, it was the first chapter in San Antonio and targeted vocational and career guidance, health, education and Black heritage.25 Fairchild helped found the San Antonio Negro Chamber of Commerce in 1938 and was elected the third vice president of the Texas branch of the NAACP in 1939.26 As a delegate representing San Antonio at the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches, she attended the historic February 29, 1946, meeting with University of Texas President Theophilus Painter, where she advocated for equal educational access, including the separation of Prairie View University from Texas A&M College, the establishment of a vocational school at Prairie View, and the acceptance of Heman Sweatt’s application to the University of Texas School of Law.27
Some of the other groups with which she was involved included the Public Affairs Forum, a federally sponsored adult education project; the Welfare Group Committee; the San Antonio Social Workers Association; and the National Council of Negro Women that was founded by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in 1935.28
After more than 25 years of service, Fairchild was honored by the Branch for her role as a “pioneer with a dream,” according to a June 1948 issue of the San Antonio Register. However, later that year, she was controversially dismissed from her position by the central YWCA board in San Antonio. A national representative was called into confer, advise and make recommendations for resolution. The investigation found that her termination was not due to personal or racial bias, but rather to an unclear and weak administrative structure within the local organization.29 Fairchild remained an admired figure in San Antonio’s Black community for her decades of advocacy and service, and in 1948, she was one of the women nominated as San Antonio’s “Woman of the Year.”30
Euretta left San Antonio in the late 1940s and moved back to Houston to lead a reclusive life. In early 1968, at the age of 83, Euretta was tragically murdered in her family’s Houston home after waking up to an eighth-grade boy burglarizing her residence.31
Nearly a decade later, in 1977, the Pine Street YWCA and other San Antonio East Side community groups successfully campaigned for the renaming of Central Park that surrounds the parcel of the 328 North Pine Street house to Fairchild Park and Community Center, commemorating her legacy as a trailblazer in education, racial justice and women’s empowerment in San Antonio.32
ZerNona Stewart Black
ZerNona Maturice Stewart was born on February 7, 1906, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and dedicated her life to service, education and community uplift, particularly to the YWCA.33 Her mother, Henrietta Brown Stewart, who was of the Creek Nation, died when ZerNona was an infant. She was raised by her father, James R. Stewart, and her stepmother, Minerva “Minnie” Juanita Woodson Stewart.34 She attended the local schools in Muskogee and graduated from the Manual Training High School in 1922. She received a teaching certificate from Langston University in Tulsa and went to Boston where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1926 from Emerson College. She completed the four-year program in just two years with 41 points more than required.35 She was part of the Rust College Concert Company of Holly Springs, Mississippi, that toured the Midwest giving musical concerts in 1926.36 She taught English and drama at high schools in Muskogee and Wewoka in Oklahoma.
Throughout her life, she enrolled in or taught at various educational entities around the country, including Rust College, Langston University, Benedictine Catholic College in Guthrie, University of Colorado in Boulder, University of Indiana in Bloomington, and in San Antonio at Trinity University and Our Lady of the Lake University.37 Before moving to Texas in the early 1940s, she taught speech, drama, radio, physical education and leadership for ten years at Langston University, where she headed the drama and English departments. While there, she founded and directed the Little Theater, which became a state-wide drama program.38 She organized the YWCA Girl Reserves for state meets at Langston University.39 ZerNona became a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority while at Langston and later became a sponsor of the Zeta Zeta Zeta Sorority Club.40 She had the distinction of being the only African American announcer, script writer and commentator over a local broadcasting station with weekly programs.41 While living in Oklahoma, she married James S. Thomas in 1931, with whom she had her son, James Stewart Thomas, that same year, but they divorced in mid-1932. She remarried in 1935 to William Brooks, but they were no longer together by 1943.42
Stewart moved from New York to San Antonio in 1943 when the YWCA recruited her to direct the San Antonio USO for Black Military personnel during World War II.43 As a temporary three-month assignment, her role placed her at the center of efforts to provide morale, recreation and support for African American service members and their families. Under her direction, the YWCA-USO became an important service for soldiers facing limited access to other USO facilities in San Antonio due to segregationist practices in the military.44 She was selected to be the staff chair of San Antonio’s eight USO clubs in 1945 for a service area that covered San Antonio out to Del Rio and was considered the largest military concentration of Black troops in the country; her area later expanded to 11 clubs.45 It was through this work that ZerNona met a young minister on the steps of the Pine Street Branch YWCA – the Reverend Claude William Black, Jr. They married two and a half years later in 1946 in Seguin, and welcomed a daughter, Joyce Hutchinson Black in 1952.46 Her paid employment at the YWCA-USO ended in 1946 after the war’s conclusion, although her ties to the YW continued as she later served as a two-term chair for the Pine Street YWCA.
A native San Antonian, Claude Black received a Bachelor of Science degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1937. After selling insurance for three years in Marshall and San Antonio, he returned to college at the Andover Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, earning his Master’s in Divinity in 1943. Black did a four-year stint as pastor of St. Matthew’s Baptist Church in Corpus Christi starting in 1945 and married ZerNona in 1946. While in Corpus Christi, ZerNona was the recreation and community center director, and taught classes on public speaking and drama. Claude connected his faith with political advocacy while he lived in Corpus Christi as a pastor, setting a path for civil rights advocacy.
They returned to San Antonio in 1949, where Claude served as pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church for next 49 years.47 ZerNona served by Claude’s side as the First Lady of the church, teaching Sunday School and Vacation Bible School classes, along with her other activities.48 He was elected to the city council from 1973 to 1978 and was the first Black mayor pro tem in San Antonio. During his time in office, he helped direct funds for the development of the Eastside YMCA, the Carver Cultural Center, and the Eastside Boys Club. As an NAACP member, he led marches across Texas, worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, and attended the 1966 White House Civil Rights Conference.49 Their children, James and Joyce, participated in Y activities.
ZerNona remained active in community service after the war ended. She taught speech at Guadalupe College in Seguin and at St. Philip’s College for 11 years. She also organized the speech and drama program for children at St. Philip’s. She taught at the language school at Lackland Air Force Base for two years and was a substitute teacher for the San Antonio school district.50 She co-founded local organizations, such as the San Antonio chapter of Jack and Jill Inc.; the San Antonio Mothers Club that funded students to attend St. Philip’s College; the Mothers Service Organization; the United Women’s Christian Council, an interdenominational nonprofit for religious, civic and community service; and Health Incorporated, a city-wide umbrella healthcare organization serving the city’s senior citizens. Selected as a delegate by Governor Preston Smith in 1971 and 1972 for the White House Conference on Aging, she became a leader in elder-care advocacy in the United States. Avance, a non-profit group for low-income families, recognized her as an Outstanding Mother of Year in 1993 and the YWCA honored her as one of its Rising Stars in 1994.51 She also served as Supervisor of Youth Work for the National Baptist Convention of America, was a member of the National Council of Negro Women and served as executive director of the Senior Opportunity Services.52
ZerNona Stewart Black died in her sleep on January 24, 2005, and is buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio.53 Claude died in 2009 at the age of 92 after a lengthy illness.54 Their legacy of service to the city endures through the ZerNona Black Multi-Generational Cultural Community Center that opened in 2024 and the Rev. Claude and ZerNona Black Scholarship Endowment, offered through the City of San Antonio to support college students in the San Antonio area, as well as through the many institutions she helped build.55
Carrie Jane Sutton Brooks
Carrie Jane Sutton was born in San Antonio on January 15, 1899, to early civil rights activist, entrepreneur, professor and principal Samuel Johnson Sutton, and schoolteacher Lillian Viola Smith Sutton.56 Her parents met at Guadalupe College in Seguin and moved to San Antonio in 1893 where he became the first Black principal in the city. They had 15 children, 12 of whom reached adulthood. Several of them went on to hold prominent roles, including John Sutton, who became president of the Texas NAACP, and G.J. Sutton, who became a Texas state representative.57
Like her siblings who all earned college degrees, Carrie excelled academically, graduating at the age of 15 as valedictorian of Riverside High School in 1914. Leaving Texas, she attended Howard University in 1914 before entering Howard University’s School of Medicine in 1916. In the summer of 1918, she got a medical fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania before returning to Howard in the fall.58 While at Howard, she served as president of the Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and earned the Phi Beta Kappa Key Award. She was the vice president of her medical class before receiving her medical degree as the only woman of that graduating class.59 At her graduation, she was awarded one of four national Rosenwald Fellowship grants of $1,200 for graduate study in medicine for excellent scholarship, becoming the first Black woman to be awarded the prize.60 However, she declined the monetary award as it was contingent that she practice medicine in the South and she was contemplating moving to Ohio at the time.61 She became the first Black female intern at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1920-1921.62 She was also the first woman, Black or white, to do ambulance duty in the capital city. She did some post-graduate work in women’s diseases in New York City, and she was one of the few Black surgeons to receive a certificate from Bellevue Hospital.63
Dr. Sutton returned to San Antonio in 1921 to specialize in women’s health and pediatrics. She was among the first Black female doctors in Texas, and the first in San Antonio. She helped expand opportunities and access to medical care for women in the city.64 City directories indicate that she operated out of the family home on Cherry Street.
During the early 1920s, Dr. Sutton helped establish the Pine Street Branch YWCA and played a role in organizing some of the city’s earliest women’s and children’s health clinics during segregation. Involvement in the San Antonio YWCA was a family affair, with Carrie’s sister-in-law Lou Nelle Sutton, the wife of politician G.J. Sutton, who later stood out for her efforts to challenge discrimination within the organization after integration and played a role in ensuring Black representation on the city’s YWCA board.65
On October 1, 1924, she married Dr. Joseph Hunter Brooks in San Antonio at the Sutton family home at 430 North Cherry Street. Dr. Brooks graduated from Howard University College of Medicine in the same class as Carrie and also completed his internship at Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. He is credited as being the author of the Howard University Alma Mater song. After a honeymoon motor trip through Virginia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia, they moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where he had been a leading Black surgeon since 1922. There they had adjoining medical offices at 54 Greenwood Avenue.66 Dr. Brooks was involved in the Washington Street YMCA, the NAACP, Citizens Union of Montclair and the Montclair Interracial Committee.67
In June of 1925, Carrie became seriously ill and was hospitalized at the Community Hospital. Her parents and brother John came up from San Antonio to be at her bedside.68 The couple appear to have had several turbulent years, as in 1931, the couple were reported as experiencing “domestic troubles.” Dr. Brooks made headlines after attending an evangelical revival in early 1932 where he was converted by Evangelist Sister Mary Murray and was struck by the “Holy Ghost.” After disrupting church services, he was declared insane by white doctors and was institutionalized on August 28 at the Overbrooke Hospital of the Insane. Dr. Brooks was released from the asylum a couple of weeks later on September 15, as his “religious hallucinations” were “only temporary and otherwise he was quite rational.”69 In 1932, Carrie returned to San Antonio to be closer to her family citing a lengthy illness, where she lived in her childhood home.70 Her husband, Joseph, remained in Montclair and by all appearances returned to an active social and civic life until he died on October 8, 1942, of an undisclosed illness. Despite their separation, they remained married as his obituary states that Dr. Carrie Sutton was his wife. Dr. Sutton continued to reside in San Antonio but does not appear to have continued her medical practice, presumably due to poor health. She was well enough to make a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1934 to attend the hearing of the Wagner-Costigan anti-lynching bill that was before a Senate subcommittee.71
Dr. Carrie Jane Sutton Brooks died of pneumonia on January 12, 1964, at the age of 64, and was buried in Eastview Cemetery.72