July 20, 1896 — First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, 19th Street Baptist Church, Washington DC

From the log cabins of the South have come forth some of our most heroic women, whose words, acts and deeds are a stimulus to us at this hour. We have had such women by the score, women in whose hearts philanthropic impulses have burned with ardor; whose love for mankind was second only to their love for God. Women who has suffered death rather than be robbed of their virtue. Women who have endured untold misery for the betterment of the condition of their brothers and sisters.

While the white race have chronicled deeds of heroism and acts of mercy of the women of pioneer and other days, so we are pleased to note in their personality of such women as Phyllis Wheatley, Margaret Garner, Sojourner Truth and our own venerable friend, Harriet Tubman, sterling qualities of head, heart and hand, that hold no insignificant place in the annals of heroic womanhood.

These and many more that I could name whose strength of character is an example to us, are from the log cabins of the South.

Our wants are numerous. We want homes in which purity can be taught, not hovels that are police-court feeders; we want industrial schools where labor of all kinds is taught, enabling our boys and girls to become skilled in the trades; we want the dram shops closed; we want the pool rooms and gambling dens of every variety swept out of existence; we want reform schools for our girls in such cities where the conscience of the white Christian is not elastic enough to take in the Negro child.

These and many more are the wants we desire gratified. Your words are welcome, your gracious greeting cheering us on in our endeavor, is an inspiration for us to work with a will and a determination worthy of our cause.

Our progress depends in the united strength of both men and women — the women alone nor the men alone cannot do the work.

We have so fully realized that fact by witnessing the work of our men with the women in the rear. This is indeed the women’s era, and we are coming.

Source: Historical Records of Conventions of 1895-96 of the Colored Women of America, 1902, pp. 36-37.