Born: 7 November 1874, United States
Died: 13 December 1969
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
African-American suffragist, civic leader and civil rights activist Nellie F. Griswold Francis fought for women’s voting rights and against lynching in Minnesota. Francis founded and led the Everywoman Suffrage Club, an African-American suffragist group that helped win women the right to vote in Minnesota, and is one of 25 women recognised on the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial at the State Capitol. She also initiated, drafted and lobbied for a state anti-lynching bill, which was signed into law in 1921.
Francis would sometimes incorporate singing and acting with her appeals for causes, and wrote and produced original works like a play titled Magic Mirrors.
In 1914, Francis left her job as a stenographer to focus full-time on her activism, though she later taught shorthand for African-Americans unable to enter business schools. Francis served as president of the Baptist Missionary Circle and secretary of the Tri-State Women’s Baptist Convention as well as president of the Minnesota State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, the board of the local NAACP chapter, and volunteering for the Republican Party.
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