Ethel Ray Nance was an African-American civil rights activist.

Early life

Ethel Ray was born on April 13, 1899, in

Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

, to a Swedish mother and an African-American father. The Rays had four children: two sons and two daughters. Her father, William Henry Ray, was the president of the Duluth chapter of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

(NAACP). He formed the Duluth branch in June 1920 after a white mob

lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of in ...

three Black men four blocks from the Ray family home. Duluth had a small African-American population, leading to a lonely childhood for Nance. She graduated from Central High School in 1917.''Ethel Ray Nance Papers''. Minnesota Historical Society. Accession number: 11,669; 12,606. Processed by Richard Apri, December 1991. Catalog ID number: 990017294630104294

/ref> In school, she trained to be a stenographer.

Career

From 1919 to 1922, Nance worked as a stenographer for the Minnesota State Relief Commission, an organization that helped the victims of a series of 1918 fires in and around Duluth. In 1921, at the age of 22, she met

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...

when he spoke at an NAACP meeting in Duluth. This sparked a lifelong friendship between the two, and Nance would work for Du Bois later in her life.Nance, Ethel and Herndon, James. Interview. Conducted by Charles F. Hampton. February–June 1986. For SOC 030 Oral History Methods and Techniques, Prof. Elaine Dorfman. University of California Berkeley, California. https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/rohoia/ucb/text/sanfranafricanhist00nancrich.pdf Nance gained national recognition in 1923 for breaking the secretarial

color barrier Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people ...

in the

Minnesota State Legislature The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decenni ...

. In 1924, Nance became the executive secretary for the Kansas City Urban League. Here, she met Charles S. Johnson, who offered her a position with the League's publication, ''

Opportunity Opportunity may refer to: Places * Opportunity, Montana, an unincorporated community, United States * Opportunity, Nebraska, an unincorporated community, United States * Opportunity, Washington, a former census-designated place, United States * ...

''. Nance moved to New York in 1924 and assisted Johnson with writing, researching, and editing for the magazine. When her mother got sick, Nance returned to Minnesota, where she would become the associate head resident at the Phyllis Wheatley House from 1926 until 1928. From 1928 to 1931, Nance worked with the Women's Bureau at the

Minneapolis Police Department The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is the primary law enforcement agency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is also the largest police department in Minnesota. Formed in 1867, it is the second-oldest police department in Minnesota ...

. Nance was one of the first African-America policewomen in Minnesota. In 1945, Nance moved to San Francisco with her family and became a secretary for her friend, Du Bois. While living on the west coast, she also worked for the regional office of the NAACP, the

War Department War Department may refer to: * War Department (United Kingdom) * United States Department of War The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet ...

, the

U.S. District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

(as a deputy clerk), the

Federal Public Housing Authority The United States Housing Authority, or USHA, was a federal agency created during 1937 within the United States Department of the Interior by the Housing Act of 1937 as part of the New Deal. It was designed to lend money to the states or communi ...

, and the

San Francisco Board of Education The San Francisco Board of Education is the school board for the San Francisco, City and County of San Francisco. It is composed of seven Commissioners, elected by voters across the city to serve 4-year terms. It is subject to local, and state ...

. While working for the Board of Education, Nance researched Black history and became involved with the African-American Historical Society. In 1978, Nance became the oldest person to earn a B.A. degree from the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...

at the time. Throughout her life, Nance was also involved in several organizations, such as the Minnesota Negro Council and the San Francisco African-American Historical Society, and wrote for many publications. With the African-American Historical Society, Nance contributed to Negro History Week, which would later become

Black History Month Black History Month is an annually observed commemorative month originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It began as a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the Af ...

Personal life

While in New York working for ''Opportunity'', Nance lived in an apartment with

Regina M. Anderson Regina M. Anderson (May 21, 1901 – February 5, 1993) was an American playwright and librarian. Influenced by Ida B. Wells and the lack of Black history teachings in school, Anderson became a key member of the Harlem Renaissance. Biography Reg ...

and Louella Tucker. Called the "Harlem West Side Literary Salon," the apartment was frequented by prominent figures of the

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ti ...

, including W. E. B. Du Bois and

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo ...

. Ethel Ray married LeRoy A. H. Williams in 1929. They had two children, Thatcher and Glenn Ray, and separated in 1943. She married Clarence A. Nance in 1944, and her two children took Nance's last name. Nance died on July 11, 1992, in San Francisco, California.

Early life

Career

Personal life

References

Further reading