About this Event
Please join Council Member Nantasha Williams, Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers, Assembly Member Alicia Hyndman, Speaker Adrienne Adams, and the sisters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated in recognizing Ethel Cuff Black, one of the twenty-two Delta Sigma Theta Sorority founders.
The Deltas' participation in the 1913 suffrage procession required courage in the face of potential danger, doubly so because the sight of Black women marching might provoke spectator violence in the nation's segregated capital. Nor was their involvement without controversy within suffrage circles. Some parade organizers actively discouraged Black suffragists' engagement; others sought to relegate Black women to a "colored" section. But the Deltas, joined by honorary member Mary Church Terrell, marched with the college section, thereby making what historian Cathleen Cahill has described as "a powerful statement" by their "refusal to accept segregation" and their insistence on being accorded the same respect as their white counterparts. Terrell's presence joined their interests to the other causes that Terrell's organization, the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) championed, all of which together constituted a broad platform of racial and gender justice.
After moving to New York City in 1930, and especially after her father's death, Ethel Cuff gradually shifted the locus of her life to Jamaica, Queens, where she purchased a home and where, in 1940, she married David Horton Black.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Roy Wilkins Park, Merrick Boulevard, Queens, United States