Ethel Ray Nance

Ethel Ray from Duluth Central High School's yearbook, the Zenith

Ethel Ray Nance was an African American civil rights activist.

Ethel Ray was born on April 13, 1899 in Duluth, Minnesota to a Swedish mother and an African American father. Her father was the president of the Duluth chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Early on Nance worked for the Minnesota State Relief Commission. In 1921, at 22, Nance met W.E.B. Du Bois. Nance gained national recognition in 1923 for breaking the secretarial color barrier in the Minnesota State Legislature.[1]

In Kansas City, Nance was executive secretary for the local chapter of the Urban League. She moved to New York in 1924 and became Charles S. Johnson's secretary. She assisted him with research at Opportunity magazine.[1]

Nance died on July 11, 1992 in San Francisco, California.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Estes-Hicks, Onita (2004). "Nance, Ethel Ray". Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. New York [u.a]: Routledge. pp. 857–858. ISBN 978-1-57958-458-0.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/22/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.