Addie Waites Hunton (b. 1875 –d. 1943)

Hunton, born in Virginia in 1875 was a suffragist, writer, political organizer, and educator and, the first African American woman to graduate from Spencerian College of Commerce in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1907, after moving to Brooklyn she began to work as a secretary for the Young Women’s Christian Association to work amongst black students, and through the YWCA she toured the south and Midwest. Additionally, from 1906-910 Hunton was also an organizer for the National Association of Colored Women and participated in the Equal Suffrage League. I addition, she was one of three African American women who were assigned to work with the 200,000 segregated African American troops stationed in France during World War I. She wrote about her experiences working in France along with Kathryn Johnson in a book titled Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces (1920). After the 19th amendment was ratified, Hunton continued to advocate for black women’s right to vote when they were denied by whites. She additionally worked on the Council on Colored work on the National Board of the YWMCA, served as president of the International Council of Women of Darker Races and the Empire State Federation of Women’s Clubs, and she serves as the vice-president and field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of colored people.

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