To the Editors:
Mary Church Terrell (OC ’1884, MA 1888, HON 1948) was one of the first black women to earn a four year degree in the United States. Typifying how “one person can change the world,” she became a prominent suffragette, educator, and civil rights leader, serving as a founding charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and National Association of Colored Women. Both of these organizations remain at the vanguard of social justice and civil rights efforts in America.
Mary also believed in the transformative power of academic libraries for democratized learning and informal dialogue. Consequently, she gifted the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, to several academic...