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Black Feminist DC Biographies

"We who believe in freedom"

Explore the biographies of women featured in the exhibition, "We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC." New biographies will continue to be added to this page.

The founder of the Mississippi Health Project and the Southeast Neighborhood House, Dr. Dorothy Ferebee provided healthcare to the most vulnerable members of the African American community.

Dorothy Boulding Ferebee

Dorothy Height was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement.

Dr. Dorothy Height

Dorothy Height

Mary Church Terrell was a well-known African American activist who championed racial equality and women’s suffrage.

Mary Church Terrell

As a poet, writer, activist, organizer, legal theorist, and priest, Murray was directly involved in, and helped articulate, the intellectual foundations of two of the most important social justice movements of the twentieth century.

Pauli Murray

Mary Treadwell was a notable DC-based activist and community organizer, best known for co-creating Youth Pride, Inc., a job-training program helping inner-city youth, and her abortion decriminalization advocacy.

Mary Treadwell

Loretta Ross is an academic and activist who has dedicated many years to advocating for women’s rights and reproductive justice.

Loretta Ross

Bernice Johnson Reagon is a renowned composer, historian, musician, and activist.

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Ophelia Settle Egypt was a medical social worker and women’s rights advocate who fought to make women’s and reproductive healthcare accessible to the Black communities in Southeast Washington, DC.

Ophelia Settle Egypt

Ophelia Settle Egypt

Nkenge Touré is an activist whose expansive collection of speeches and written works confront issues around reproductive justice, Black feminism, and women’s rights.

Nkenge Touré

Eleanor Holmes Norton was the first woman appointed to chair the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and continues to fight for DC statehood in her third decade as a congresswoman.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Georgia Douglas Johnson was one of the most well-known Black female writers and playwrights of her time.

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Mary P. Burrill was a celebrated playwright whose works inspired many prominent writers of the New Negro Movement/Harlem Renaissance.

Mary Burrill

Etta Horn was a prominent welfare rights advocate. As an activist, she worked alongside other anti-poverty organizers to improve the living conditions of low-income DC residents.

NWRO March

Etta Horn