“The most disrespected person in America, is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman.” - Malcolm X
One hallmark of this type of disrespect is the post-Civil war custom of refusing Black women any sort of honorific. “Auntie” or “Girl” rather than “Miss”, “Misses” This disrespect bleeds into historic newspaper coverage of Black women in the most unexpectedly delightful way. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white women were generally written about as “Mrs. [Husband’s First Name]+[Last Name]. It was a sign of respect. Black women tend to be written about under their own names. This seriously makes my job so much easier. I love how a custom that was intended to insult and dehumanize allows us to identify the individual accomplishments and contributions of Black women in our communities.
Evelyn K. Davis is best known for her tireless and unwavering advocacy for Black children and families in the Des Moines metro.
In the 1960s. Evelyn K. Davis was the director of the Oakridge Opportunity Center. The Oakridge Opportunity Center offered high school equivalency courses, as well as instruction in music, art, and sewing. The Center also partnered with Planned Parenthood to provide education on birth control and family planning for anyone interested or in need. During this time, Ms. Davis was also on the board at Wilkie House. She was an active member of the NAACP, earning a committee chairmanship in 1962. In 1968, Evelyn K. Davis received the Urban Services Award from the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity.
In the 1970s, the concept of childcare, let alone affordable childcare, was pretty foreign. Ms. Davis saw a need for affordable childcare in her community and founded Tiny Tots, Des Moines’ first daycare center. Evelyn Davis saw more need in her community and established the Evelyn K. Davis Inner City Medical Center. She was appointed to the Polk County Board of Supervisors Department of Social Services in 1972. She was reappointed for a second term in 1973.
During the 1970s, the double punch of economic recession and inflation created an environment of austerity and budget cuts across the United States. Social services were hit particularly hard. In April of 1973, Ms. Davis travelled to Washington, D.C. where she testified before Congress on the impacts of budget cuts on children and families.
Evelyn K. Davis’s work was recognized by Governor Robert Ray, who named Ms. Davis to a newly established task force on early childhood development in 1974, and the Iowa Children’s Council in 1978.
Today, her work continues at the Evelyn K. Davis Center for Working Families in Des Moines, which offers a variety of resources and services for children, families, and small business owners.
Photo from Des Moines Register Archives, May 14, 1968
Willie Stevenson Glanton was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Her father, E.S. Stevenson was a hotel manager, Baptist church deacon, and founder of the Hot Springs, Arkansas Negro Civic League. He believed that women should be teachers.
Willie attended Tennessee State College in Nashville, TN where she was a member of the History Study Club, Forensics Club, Alba Ross Social Club, and Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She graduated in 1942 with degrees in education and business. Willie Stevenson went on to attend Robert H. Terrell law school in Washington, D.C.
While married to Iowa’s first Black judge, Willie Stevenson Glanton continued to pursue her own remarkable career. She continued to practice law at Glanton and Glanton law firm and travelled to Africa and Southeast Asia as part of a U.S. State Department sponsored cultural exchange. In 1956, Mrs. Glanton was appointed Assistant Polk County Attorney, marking the first time a Black person or a woman had held such a position in Iowa, or the U.S. as a whole. In 1964, Willie Stevenson Glanton was elected to the Iowa State Legislature, making her, again, the first woman and first Black person to hold office. During her tenure with the Iowa State Legislature, Mrs. Glanton championed diversity and equity. She was a staunch and vocal opponent of the death penalty and an early advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. Mrs. Glanton was an outspoken supporter of abortion rights and the federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In 1980, Mrs. Glanton became the first Black woman and first Black person to be elected to the Des Moines City Council.
Throughout her life, Willie Stevenson Glanton was active in a variety of causes and organizations, including the League of Women Voters, National Foundation and Society for Crippled Children, Wilkie House, NAACP, Corinthian Baptist Church, Iowa Association of Colored Women, State and County Bar Associations, Good Government Panel, Urban Renewal Board, Des Moines International Commission for Adult Education, Des Moines Board of International Education, Polk County Welfare Department, Des Moines Public Library, and the YWCA.
Sometimes referred to as “Iowa’s Rosa Parks,” Edna Griffin was a freedom fighter long before the televised Civil Rights protests that marked the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1948, Edna Griffin filed a suit against Katz Drug Store in Des Moines after being denied service due to her race. She was joined by two Black men, John Bibbs and Leonard Hudson, as well as a white man named Kenneth Walker who was also denied service at Katz because he was with a Black person. State of Iowa v. Katz was a landmark case which applied some much needed pressure on the state to actually enforce the Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1884 which outlawed discrimination at “inns, restaurants, chophouses, eating houses, lunch counters, and all other places where refreshments are served, public conveyances, barber shops, bathhouses, theaters, and all other places of amusement.”
Ms. Griffin was a frequent contributor in the Des Moines Register’s letters to the editor. Edna Griffin spoke out for progressive causes, including fair housing, voicing support for early version of Polk County’s pre-trial release program, as well as commending four members of Iowa’s 1964 Congressional Delegation who voted in favor of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 Civil Rights Act.
She was an active member of Iowa’s Progressive Party, and was elected chair in 1952. Ms. Griffin was also a member of the Pre-Trial Board of Directors in Polk County in the 1960s.
In 1946, eight years before Brown v. Topeka, Harriette Curley graduated at the top of her teachers’ program at Drake University and was hired on as a kindergarten teacher at Perkins Elementary School. A group of neighbors attempted to pressure Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Newell McCombs to remove Ms. Curley, claiming that a Black teacher at the neighborhood school would bring down property values in a white neighborhood. A formal petition was never filed, and in the end, Superintendent McCombs supported Ms. Curley, as did her school principal.
Windsor Presbyterian church was particularly vocal in favor of Miss Curley. The minister, Reverend Orr was very vocal in his support of Harriette Curley. On September 13, 1946, the Register published an article that Windsor Presbyterian Church’s congregation had passed a unanimous resolution in support of Harriette Curley hiring and retention.
AFL-CIO Union weighed in: On September 11, 1946, the Register published an article wherein the AFL-CIO issued a statement in Harriette Curley’s favor.
Ms. Curley’s hiring was the culmination of a nearly 50-year effort. In 1899, a group of Black community leaders expressed the need for a minimum of 2 Black Teachers and 1 school board seat in the Des Moines Public School system. The following year, Des Moines Public Schools went on to hire an additional five Black teachers.
Research by Kari Bassett, M.B.A. and Simone Sorteberg-Mills, PhD.
Photo from Des Moines Register Archives, September 4, 1946.
This month, St. Paul A.M.E. Church celebrates 150 years. We’re going to celebrate with them, and take a closer look at some of the congregation’s most influential members and their contributions to Black life in central Iowa.
Today we’ll kick off our series with Gertrude Rush. Mrs. Rush caught my attention as the only woman featured on a stone memorial outside of St. Paul’s A.M.E. church. When St. Paul was founded in 1872, Gertrude Rush was a 2 year old living in Navasota, Texas. She moved to Des Moines in 1907 and graduated from Des Moines University. She went on to read the law with her husband, James B. Rush, and became Iowa’s first Black woman lawyer in 1918. Mrs. Rush passed the bar in 1918, but was denied admission to the American Bar Association because of her race and gender. In response, Mrs. Rush, her husband, and three other Black attorneys (all men) established the National Negro Bar Association (later the National Bar Association) in 1925. She maintained licenses to practice law in both Iowa and Illinois, and split time between her Des Moines and Chicago offices. Mrs. Rush was the first and only Black woman attorney in Iowa until the 1950s, when Mrs. Willie Stevenson Glanton emerged on the scene.
Gertrude Rush was an influential figure in creating opportunities for Black Des Moines residents to enjoy arts and culture. She was involved in multiple theater productions, both as a director and a playwright.
Gertrude Rush died in 1962, and was admitted to Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. The photo below is from Iowa State University’s Catt Center collection.
Black history research collective 