Find Your Place in History – Then Create Your Future

It Started in a Schoolyard

In the spring of 1931, Mrs. Mary Eagle was walking through the yard of Bryan School in Akron when she noticed a teacher interacting with some children. The teacher called the children one at a time and gave each white student a big hug. When a little black girl was called, the teacher extended her hand and gave her a handshake instead of a hug.

Mary found this incident disturbing, so when she got home, she called some women together to tell them about it. The women decided to form a neighborhood club so they could do something about the unfair way black boys and girls were being treated.

They formed two block clubs in the Elizabeth Park area. The first convened at the home of Mrs. Lillie Bonner on Turner Street, and Mary Eagle was elected president. As the women continued to meet, they chose a club song, “Brighten the Corner Where You Are,” and a club motto, “Lifting as We Climb,” to unify their message.

We Grew Into a Movement

Interest in the association grew until some 20 neighborhood clubs formed, mostly in areas where there was a large concentration of black school children. Some of them were No. 1 Turner Street, No. 2 North Street, No. 3 Baird and Kipling Streets, No. 4 Scott Avenue, No. 5 Hickory, Silver, Gold and Walnut Streets. There were also clubs in Barberton, Snydertown and Twinsburg.

Eventually, the sister clubs saw the need to organize a parent body that could bring about cohesiveness among all the clubs under one umbrella. In April 1932, the Association for Colored Community Work provided assistance in establishing the council into a unified group that consisted of 21 block clubs – and Mary Eagle suggested the name Council of Negro Women. Ms. Minnie Fletcher was elected as the first president of the CONW, and meetings were held at the YMCA during those initial years.

We Inspired a National Council

In 1935, Akronite Mrs. Estelle Massey Riddle asked her acquaintance, Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, from Daytona, FL to come to Akron to see what the black women of this area were doing. She accepted the invitation and visited a CONW meeting at the Second Baptist Church on E. Center Street. Attendees included Mary Eagle, Etta Perrin, Edith Delaney-Mitchell, Pearl Christian, Ruth Chatman, Bertha Moore, Belle White-Williamson, Lena Beauford, Ethel Fields, Lucy Steele, Rochelle Williams and Florence Minson. 

Mrs. Bethune was so impressed with what she saw and heard that she returned for a second visit. Then, using the Akron CONW as her inspiration and prototype, she organized the National Council of Negro Women. The two organizations remain separate and distinct to this day.

Our House Fell, But Our Spirits Rose

That same year, Akron CONW purchased a house at 369 Wooster Ave. to serve as an affordable and safe home-away-from-home for black women coming into Akron to work or attend college. In the 1970s, the city of Akron made plans for a new highway that would connect downtown with the suburbs – and cut directly through the Wooster Avenue corridor. The city paid $17,648 for the CONW house and razed it, along with hundreds of other homes in the area that had mostly been owned by black families, to make way for the Akron Innerbelt.

Always looking for the silver lining, the CONW used the funds from this transaction to create an endowed scholarship at the University of Akron in 1981. It continues to Lift as We Climb, with more than 110 scholarships awarded over the years to young black women pursuing their dreams of academic excellence.

Soaring Into a New Millenium

In 2010, the CONW began hosting fashion shows at the Martin Center on the University of Akron campus to increase scholarship funding. Rachel Fowler chaired that inaugural event.

2012 saw the creation of the Verna N. Blake-Tucker Memorial Scholarship to honor the memory of one of our beloved sisters. Verna’s mother ran the Canteen in the basement of the Council Home in the 1940s and ‘50s, and young Verna would often help out by going to the wholesale distributor for supplies. Once grown, she became a CONW member then went on to serve as president of the Akron CONW from 1985 through 1994.

Verna Blake-Tucker made many contributions to the betterment of the CONW during her tenure. She spearheaded a vigorous membership drive, reworded our scholarship guidelines to offer financial assistance only to black women living in Summit County, and oversaw the start of our annual Scholarship Luncheon program. Verna has transitioned, but her legacy lives on in the accomplishments of every scholarship recipient.