Blanche Williams Stubbs (1872 – 1952) was an American civil rights activist and suffragist. A prominent activist in

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...

, in 2019 it was announced that she was to be inducted into the

Hall of Fame of Delaware Women The Hall of Fame of Delaware Women was established in 1981 by the Delaware Commission for Women, a division of the Secretary of State of Delaware. The hall of fame recognizes the achievements and contributions of Delaware women in a variety of fiel ...

Biography

Blanche Williams was born in Wisconsin in February 1872. She was the daughter of a successful barber, and Blanche moved with her family as they relocated to Philadelphia in 1900. Possibly inspired by her father's profession and her siblings (several of whom went on to work in the medical field), Blanche attended

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

, graduating in 1892, and later moved to

, to teach at a local high school. While in Wilmington she married Dr. J. Bacon Stubbs, a fellow Howard alumnus. In addition to her work as a teacher, Blanche was active in her community; she assisted in founding the Equal Suffrage Study Club and the Garrett Settlement House (a black orphanage and community center), campaigned for

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

in Delaware, and supported the overturning of the State of Delaware's segregation laws. She also served as the Delaware chairwoman for the National Republican Women's Auxiliary Committee, and served as a member of the

National Association of Colored Women The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of ...

. Blanche died in Wilmington in 1952. In 2019, Blanche Williams Stubbs was inducted into the

by Delaware Governor John Carney.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stubbs, Blanche Williams 1872 births 1952 deaths Activists from Wilmington, Delaware Howard University alumni Activists for African-American civil rights Suffragists from Delaware African-American suffragists