Black History Spotlight...

Mary Ann Shadd
(1823–1893)

"Self-reliance Is the Fine Road to Independence."

Shadd holds two titles: first female black lawyer and first female newspaper editor in North America. She was one of the first people to push for complete integration and opened the first school in Canada open to all races.

EDUCATION: At the age of ten, the Shadd's moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania where Mary attended a Quaker School for the next six years. This experience influence dMary later in life, whereby she returned to this location and opened a school for Black children in 1840. Later, she also taught in New York City and Norristown, Pennsylvania.

1889, Mary Ann Shadd Cary became the first woman to enter Howard University's law school. She was in 1883 the first Negro woman to obtain a law degree from Howard University [the Encyclopedia Britannica says the degree is from Havard which seems to me odd for a student at Howard University] and among the first women in the United States to do so. She wrote for National Era and The People's Advocate and joined the National Woman's Suffrage Association. Cary then worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for women's suffrage, testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives and becoming the first Negro woman to cast a vote in a national election. As an educator, an abolitionist, an editor, an attorney and a feminist, she dedicated her life to improving the quality of life for everyone -- black and white, male and female.