Mary White Ovington (1865 – 1951): Settlement House Founder and Co-Founder of

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Mary White Ovington was born April 11, 1865 in Brooklyn, New York into a wealthy abolitionist family. Her parents, members of the Unitarian Church were supporters of women’s rights and had been involved in anti-slavery movement. Educated at Packer Collegiate Institute and Radcliffe College, Ovington began a career as a social worker. She became involved in the campaign for civil rights in 1890 after hearing Frederick Douglass speak in a Brooklyn church.

In 1895 she helped found the Greenpoint Settlement in Brooklyn which she would lead from 1895 to 1903, Ovington remained until 1904 when she was appointed fellow of the Greenwich House Committee on Social Investigations. Over the next five years she researched employment and housing problems in black Manhattan, work that would lead to her first book, Half a Man (1911). During this period she became friends with W.E.B. Du Bois and was introduced to the founding members of the Niagara Movement.

Influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Ovington joined the Republican Party in 1905, where she met people including Daniel De Leon, Asa Philip Randolph, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman and Jack London, who argued that racial problems were as much a matter of class as of race. She wrote for journals and newspapers such as The Masses, the New York Call and the New York Evening Post, for which she covered the 1906 Atlanta race riot. She also worked with Ray Stannard Baker and influenced the content of his book, “Following the Color Line,” published in 1908.

On September 3, 1908 she read an article titled “The Race War in the North” in The Independent that was written by William English Walling, a prominent socialist and journalist. Walling described the 1908 white supremacist violence in Springfield, Illinois that led to seven deaths, the destruction of 40 homes and 24 businesses, and 107 indictments against rioters. Walling ended the article by calling for a powerful body of citizens to come to the aid of blacks. Ovington responded to the article by writing Walling and meeting at his apartment in New York City along with social worker Dr. Henry Moskowitz. The group decided to launch a campaign by issuing a call for a national conference on the civil and political rights of African-Americans on the centennial of Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1909.

Many people responded to the call that eventually led to the formation of the National Negro Committee that held its firstmeeting in New York on May 31 and June 1, 1909. By May, 1910 the National Negro Committee and attendants, at its second conference, organized a permanent body known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where Ovington was appointed as its executive secretary. Early members included Josephine Ruffin, Mary Talbert, Mary Church Terrell, Inez Milholland, Jane Addams, George Henry White, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles Edward Russell, John Dewey, Charles Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Fanny Garrison Villard, Oswald Garrison Villard and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

The following year Ovington attended the Universal Races Congress in London. Ovington remained active in the struggle for women’s suffrage and as a pacifist opposed America’s involvement in the First World War. During the war Ovington supported Asa Philip Randolph and his magazine, The Messenger (later the Black Worker), which campaigned for black civil rights.

After the war, Ovington served the NAACP as board member, executive secretary and board chairman. She inspired other women to join and contributed to the organization’s diverse membership. Ovington played an important role on the NAACP board as she mediated disputes and guided the organization as it moved to black leadership.

Ovington retired as a board member of the NAACP in 1947, ending 38 years of service with the organization. She died on July 15, 1951.

Awards:

Mary White Ovington I.S.30 Middle School in Brooklyn was named in her honor.

Mary White Ovington is one of the persons named on The Extra Mile—Points of Light Volunteer Pathway National Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 2009 she was depicted on a United States postage stamp with Mary Church Terrell.

Books By Mary White Ovington

Half a Man. The Status of the Negro in New York (foreword by Franz Boas), 1911. Various reprints.
Status of the Negro in the United States, 1913.
Socialism and the Feminist Movement, 1914
The Upward Path (an anthology), 1919
The Shadow, 1920.
The Awakening (a play), 1923
Portraits in Color, 1927.
“Reminiscences, or Going Back 40 Years,” published in the Baltimore Afro-American, from September 17, 1932 to February 25, 1933.
The Walls Came Tumbling Down, 1947.
Black and White Sat Down Together. The Reminiscenses of an NAACP Founder, 1995.

This work may also be read through the Internet Archive.

Sources:

NAACP Founder Mary White Ovington. NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom. Founding and Early Years The Library of Congress.

Mary White Ovington, Wikipedia

Mary White Ovington, NAACP.org

Mary White Ovington papers finding aid. Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Walter P. Reuther Library. Wayne State University Library.

For further reading:

Ovington, Mary White (1865-1951). Harvard Square Library. A digital library of Unitarian Universalist biographies, history, books, and media.

NAACP first annual report (1911 January 1). HathiTrust.org

How to Cite this Article (APA Format): “Mary White Ovington” (2014). Mary White Ovington (1865-1951): Settlement house founder and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved [date accessed] from https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/civil-war-reconstruction/ovington-mary-white/