Mary Ann Shadd Cary, born in Wilmington, Delaware, the eldest of 13 children of formerly enslaved African-American parents, became a role model for women in education and law.
After receiving an education from Pennsylvania Quakers, Cary devoted the first part of her life to abolition. Working with freedom seekers, while becoming the first Black woman in North America to edit a weekly newspaper, the Provincial Freeman, she was devoted to displaced Americans living in Canada. She then became a teacher, establishing and teaching in schools for Black students in Wilmington; West Chester, Pennsylvania; New York; Morristown, New Jersey; and Canada. She was also the first woman to speak at a national African-American convention.
During the Civil War, Cary helped recruit Black soldiers for the Union Army. She then taught in Washington, D.C. public schools until, in 1869, she embarked on her second career by becoming the first woman to enter Howard University’s law school. She was the second Black woman to obtain a law degree and among the first women in the United States to do so.
She then fought alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for women’s suffrage, testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. As an educator, an abolitionist, an editor, an attorney and a feminist, she dedicated her life to improving the quality of life for everyone.
