Listener Relevance: Without people like Mary Church Terrell, we may not have had the rights we have at this moment. Segregation would not have been fought and women’s suffrage would not have been fought for.
Speaker Credibility: I researched vigorously on Mary Church Terrell and am able to give a good speech about her.
Attention Grabber: Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, these are people that you are probably familiar with in history as activists, but have you ever heard of Mary Church Terrell?
Thesis Statement: Today I am going to tell you about Mary Church Terrell, a woman who educated herself and used her education to change the world. Preview: You will learn about her early schooling life, her career as a teacher, her family life, and her role as a woman’s suffrage and civil rights activist.
Transition: Mary Terrell’s parents wanted her to have a strong education.
Main point one:
1. Mary Church Terrell was born in Memphis Tennessee on September 23, 1863. Both of her parents were former slaves who became small business owners.
2. She first started going to school in Memphis but her parents transferred her to Yellowstone, Ohio to attend Antioch College Model School when she was six. They did this because they felt Memphis schooling was not adequate for African American children.
3. She boarded with an African American family, the Hunsters, during her stay in Ohio. She went to the Model School for two years before switching to public school in Yellow Springs, Ohio. After her public schooling, she went to middle school at the Oberlin High School in Ohio. She graduated from Oberlin High School in 1879.
4. Mary did not stop acquiring knowledge after she graduated High School. She chose to attend Oberlin College. Unlike most women at Oberlin who chose the two-years of studies, Mary decided to study for four years which is what men usually took.
5. She performed very well in her studies and did many extracurricular activities on campus, such as choir and dance. She proceeded to graduate in 1884. She was among the top 100 of her graduating class. In 2001, Newman wrote in her reference entry to the book Black Heroes, “Her excellent education and her travels abroad helped equip her for a career that began with teaching and continued with leadership positions in the Colored Women’s League and the National Association of Colored Women.”
Transition: After she graduated, Mary Terrell started her career as a teacher.
Main point two:
1. In 1885, Mary Terrell started working for Wilberforce College in Ohio. She pursued her work even though her father forbade her to have a career and due to this her father did not talk to her for a year. She taught five different courses and was the college secretary.
2. After her time working at Wilberforce, Mary became employed at The Colored High School in Washington, D.C. She worked for the Latin department, under Robert Terrell.
3. She taught from 1885 to 1888. In 1888 she completed her Master’s Degree in Arts at Oberlin College.
4. She spent two years travelling around the world in 1888 and 1890 visiting Italy, England, Switzerland, Germany, and France. Visiting these places gave her a chance to experience a world without racial and sexual issues.
5. In her speech that she wrote in 1904 The Progress of Colored Women, Mary Terrell stated, “When one considers the obstacles encountered by colored women in their effort to educate and cultivate themselves, since they became free, the work they have accomplished and the progress they have made will bear favorable comparison, at least with that of their more fortunate sisters, from whom the opportunity of acquiring knowledge and the means of self-culture have never been entirely withheld.”
Transition: Returning to the United States Mary had a tough decision to make.
Main point 3: Family Life
1. Back in 1891 women could not be married and be public teachers. Mary had to decide whether to marry Robert
