User:Cinemacynthia/NARA WIKI Scholars

Potential sources: "Miss Elizabeth E. Carter, of New Bedford, Mass., has for years been the only colored teacher in the public schools of that city, and has been one of the most honored of teachers. The past year she resigned her position to take up Y. W. C. A. work in the city of Washington, D. C.

Miss Carter was for years the recording secretary of the national association, and to her credit is now a very accurate statement of work done by the organization and its individual clubs.

Miss Carter early organized the women in the northeastern districts, and so well has she led the women throughout that part of the country that, although for the past two years she has been living in the District of Columbia doing Y. W. C. A. work, they have borne her expenses back and forth to New Bedford, Mass., once every month, so that they might still have her counsel and the inspiration which comes from her presence.

In her part of the country Miss Carter took a deep interest in the large number of women and their husbands and children who went up from the South two or three years ago to seek better living conditions. The club women under her leadership went in person to officials everywhere and secured better homes for these people, more provision in the school for their children.

Miss Carter is the organizer and head of one of the best equipped and well conducted old folks' homes now represented in the National Association of Clubs.

She was for four years the president of the association, and during her administration the women of the North and South were cemented as never before. We all came to feel that our cause was not sectional, but one big, strong fight of an undivided citizenship."

Copied from article Elizabeth Carter Brooks:

Early life
Brooks was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which was an area of the country well-known at the time for providing refuge, resources, education and employment for former slaves. Her mother, Martha Webb, had been a former slave owned by President John Tyler. Webb was involved with the Underground Railroad. Her daughter went on to develop a "passion for equality" that lasted her entire life.

Brooks attended New Bedford High School, and then went on to the Swain Free School, which provided students with a strong foundation in design and architecture skills. She then went on to become the first African American graduate of the Harrington Normal School for Teachers.

Brooks began teaching in the 1880s at the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, an orphanage founded and run by African Americans in Weeksville, Brooklyn. Returning to New Bedford around 1900, she began a 29-year career at the the William H. Taylor School as the public school system's first African American teacher.

Activism and philanthropy
While in Brooklyn, Brooks began to actively participate in civic and club work. Her involvement in a number of civic groups allowed her to respond to pressing contemporary civil rights and reform issues.

In 1895, she started working as the first recording secretary of the National Federation of Afro-American Women's Clubs, and continued in her role when the organization merged with the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC). She became the secretary of the Convention in 1896 and vice-president of the organization from 1906 to 1908. She was president of NACWC from 1908 until 1912. During her tenure in NACWC leadership, Brooks wrote the first historical account of the organization's founding, undertook a national inspection tour of NACWC member affiliates, spoke out against lynching, and created an annual scholarship for young female African Americans to attend Bethune-Cookman College.

Brooks joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) shortly after it was founded and later created her own NAACP chapter in New Bedford. She would be honored as a president emeritus of the New Bedford NAACP in 1948.

Brooks was one of the founders of the New England Federation of Women's Clubs (later the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs). She was president for over 27 years and during her time in the club, "oversaw the sponsorship of community centers, scholarship funds, day care centers, and other services needed by the community." In her capacity as President of the NFCWC, Brooks petitioned the National American Woman Suffrage Association for membership on the eve of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, a request which was denied.

In 1897, Brooks helped open the New Bedford Home for the Aged, which at first had several temporary locations. In addition, Brooks paid the rent for the home by herself for the first six months. Afterwards, the Women's Loyal Union "assumed the responsibility for maintaining the New Bedford Home for the Aged." Brooks eventually designed the Colonial style, permanent home for its final location at 396 Middle Street. The Women's Loyal Union, which Brooks was involved with, continued to helped support the home at the new location. Brooks became the first president of the home and of the Women's Loyal Union, and remained in these roles until 1930. The building itself is still standing in New Bedford and is two and half stories tall, topped with a hip roof, six dormers and a front facade with a flat-roofed portico.

In 1918, she was recruited by the War Council of the National board of the YWCA to supervise and oversee the building of the Phillis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C.

Later life and legacy
In 1929, Brooks retired from teaching. That same year, she married W. Sampson Brooks, who was the bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination of the Bethel Church. She and her husband moved to San Antonio, where they lived together until her husband's death in 1934. After that, she moved back to New Bedford and resumed her civil rights work and involvement in the A.M.E. church there.

In 1939 she began her work on preserving black heritage. Brooks felt that "monuments to 'race history' were an important part of the African American landscape and deserved to be preserved. She bought the home of William H. Carney and turned the home into a memorial.

After her death in 1951, the city of New Bedford honored her by naming a school after her in 1957.