Mary Church Terrell was a well-known African American activist who championed racial equality and women’s suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. A high school teacher and principal, Terrell was appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education, the first black woman in this country to hold such a position. She also co-founded the NAACP and the influential Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Throughout her life she worked to engage women in the political process, and to eliminate Jim Crow laws. Notably, she was instrumental in eliminating segregation policies in the District of Columbia. She lived long enough to see the Supreme Court rule that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional (Brown vs. the Board of Education).