Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People

Location

Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, Woodland Avenue, Dayton, OH, USA

Lat/Long

39.7428213, -84.1790969

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

African American suffragist and civic leader Jewelia G. Higgins (1873-1955) helped to organize the Colored Women’s Christian Association, No. 2 in Dayton, Ohio, serving as the president of the association for more than 25 years. The Colored Women’s Christian Association, No. 2 was the predecessor to the West Dayton branch of the YWCA, believed to be the first African American branch of the YWCA in the United States, being formally affiliated with the national YWCA in 1918.

Starting around 1912, Higgins worked for suffrage with the predominately white Dayton Woman Suffrage Association. She encouraged and organized other African American women in the fight for women’s right to vote, helping to distribute suffrage literature and hosting lectures. In 1914, Higgins and the Colored Women’s Christian Association, No. 2 hosted a lecture on women’s suffrage given by Margaret Murray Washington, the wife of Booker T. Washington.

In the 1940s, under leadership that included Higgins, the West Dayton YWCA moved into a house on what was then South Summit Street, later named South Paul Laurence Dunbar Street. With the eventual closure of the branch, the building fell into disrepair. In 2020, Early Visions, a Dayton non-profit, was awarded a grant from the African American Civil Rights Historic Preservation Fund of the National Park Service to restore the historic building.