Agnes Jones Adams (1858 – April 1923) was a member of

National Association of Colored Women The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of ...

Social Purity Movement The social purity movement was a late 19th-century social movement that sought to abolish prostitution and other sexual activities that were considered immoral according to Christian morality. The movement was active in English-speaking nations fr ...

, and Woman's Era Club. Adams was one of the early pioneers for the advancement of black women's clubs.

Biography

Agnes Jones Adams was born in a well-known and respected family in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. She received her basic education in the public schools. Adams was a devoted church worker of the

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

and took on the job of day school teacher. After her marriage she moved to Boston, Massachusetts. In Boston, Adams joined the Woman's Era Club, the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

, and other organizations. Adams presided over the meeting to organize the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. She was the Boston branch leader of the NAACP. Adams was part of the executive board of the Woman's Era Club. She was present during the

First National Conference of the Colored Women of America The First National Conference of the Colored Women of America was a three-day conference in Boston organized by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, a civil rights leader and suffragist. In August 1895, representatives from 42 African-American women's club ...

at Berkeley Hall, Boston, Massachusetts on July 29–31, 1895. Where she discussed social purity and nationalism on Wednesday, July 31. Her speech, entitled "Social Purity," was important in that it asserted that being white was not a "criterion for being American." Hallie Q. Brown, a witness to the speech, stated that Adams treated the subject of black women's patriotism with "reserve and care, yet with firmness and clarity."

To this woman belongs the honor of, at a most critical time, the time when she and women of the same descent, were publicly and brutally attacked, of voicing an unanswerable appeal to justice, culture and civilization. And her heroism in "standing on the beaches" without stopping to count the cost in her endeavor to right a flagrant wrong entitles her to the highest praise for fidelity and fearlessness.Davis, Elizabeth Lindsay. "Lifting As They Climb", p. 269. National Association of Colored Women, 1933

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Agnes Jones 1858 births 1923 deaths American civil rights activists Women civil rights activists Activists from Baltimore Educators from Baltimore Activists from Maryland