User:TRees68/sandbox

Early Life
She was born as Florence Ruth Barrett on March 17, 1898 to Frank C. and Maude (née Lawson) Barrett in Pennsylvania. She attended Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio and later moved to Boston in 1935. LeSueur had been a long-time resident of the South End, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts.

Career & Achievements
Florence LeSueur was the first to head a Boston-wide education committee under the NAACP. From 1948 until 1951, she served as the president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was the first woman president of a branch in United States. She was recognized for her role of being the first female president of an NAACP Branch when the 41st Annual NAACP Convention took place in 1950. She was joined in attendance at the conference by fellow Massachusetts residents, Boston mayor, John B. Hynes, and Lieutenant Governor Charles E. Jeff Sullivan. Topics being discussed at the conference included "The Church and the NAACP" and "Registration and Voting."

LeSueur also founded a program titled METCO (Metropolitan Council for Education Opportunity) with Ruth Batson and Louise Day Hicks. The goal was to bus intercity students in Boston to suburban schools in an attempt to desegregate Boston's schools. LeSueur's granddaughter, was one of the first participants in this program, arriving at East Junior High School in Braintree, MA. She recalls press and photographers outside the school as she left the bus. METCO also assisted parents with fighting for their children's quality of education, as many of the inner city kids were not placed in college prep classes at these newly integrated schools.

Florence LeSueur supported and signed a letter with fellow members of the NAACP against the Rankin bill, H.R. 314, in Congress. This letter was sent with support from the NAACP organization on May 24, 1951. This bill created a segregated veterans hospital in Franklin County, Mississippi. The letter that LeSueur signed argued that the location of the hospital would be inaccessible and unnecessary because the veterans were not subjected to segregation while they were fighting in the war and should not be afterwards.

During LeSueur's time with the NAACP, six black men were hired as Boston Elevated Railway drivers (the predecessor of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) due to her unrelenting determination. In order to persuade transit system officials that blacks deserved better job roles, LeSueur organized demonstrations near the Dudley Square (MBTA station) and she led delegations for the cause. These actions eventually resulted in getting blacks hired at a higher job level as drivers. For more than 20 years she was a director of the NAACP branch.

Additionally, in 1959 she served as president of the Harriet Tubman House (now part of United South End Settlements).

Personal Life
She died on June 27, 1991 at age 93 in a nursing home in Brockton, Massachusetts. She was a mother to eleven children and a grandmother to fifty two grandchildren. LeSueur also befriended Eleanor Roosevelt while fighting for civil rights.