League of Women Voters ^®
of California

Frances "Fannie" Barrier Williams was an African American suffragist, civil rights activist, and educator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her commitment to creating a more just and equitable society is an example of what can be achieved when individuals stand up for what is right.

Read our Executive Director, Stephanie Doute's Love Letter to the League in observance of our 103rd anniversary since the founding of the League of Women Voters on February 14, 1920.

Francis Ellen Watkins Harper was a renowned African American teacher, lecturer, poet, and novelist who was a crucial figure in the Women's Suffrage Movement. She was born in Baltimore in 1825 and became the first woman to be published in the United States in 1845. In the same year, she moved to Ohio, where she started her career as a teacher.

Ida B. Wells was an iconic civil rights activist who dedicated her life to the fight for racial justice and women's rights. She was born July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi and attended Rust College and Fisk University, where she became a teacher after graduating. In 1889, she became one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was an active participant in the suffrage movement.