Year Honored: 2019
Birth: 1872 - 1952
Born in: Wisconsin
Biography
Born in 1872, Blanche Williams Stubbs was the tenth of fifteen children born to John Ebenezer Williams and Elizabeth Bisland. Stubbs attended Howard University in Washington D.C, graduating in 1892, after which she taught for five years at The Howard School in Wilmington, the only four-year high school for black students in Delaware during the 1890s.
Stubbs married J. Bacon Stubbs in 1897, and in 1912, the two assisted in creating the only agency at the time that was directed at serving the African American Community, the Garrett Settlement House, named after famed Wilmington Abolitionist, Thomas Garrett. Stubbs was the first director of the Agency and stayed in that position until 1949.
Heavily involved in the city’s African American community, Stubbs was a strong supporter of the Wilmington NAACP, and eventually served as her local branches Vice-President. She also helped to establish the Delaware Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, an affiliate of the National Association of Colored Women, becoming that groups first president. During her time at the Federation, it founded the Delaware Industrial School for Colored Girls.
Also active as a suffragist, Stubbs served as “Colored Marshall” at the state’s first mass suffrage march in Wilmington, though African American members marched separately from white suffragists. Stubbs wrote letters to local papers advocating for universal suffrage and scheduled public lectures on ‘The Equality of Men and Women.’
Stubbs also served as State Chairman of the black-led National Republican Women’s Auxiliary Committee, attended the 1927 Pan-African Congress, and, along with the NAACP, worked with Louis L. Redding to “mitigate the routine humiliations of segregation.”
After her death in 1952, Stubbs was eulogized as one of the most prominent women in Wilmington’s African American community. For her work and contributions to the civic life of Wilmington, she was honored by the Alumni Association at Howard University in June 1951.
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Sources and Additional Readings
Carol A. Scott, fl. 2017. (n.d.). Biographical sketch of Blanche Williams Stubbs. Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3593126#page/1/mode/1/chapter/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C3593126.
Honoring Blanche Stubbs. Blanche Stubbs research. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://www.wgs.udel.edu/news/college/Pages/blanche-stubbs-research.aspx.
Women Who Paved the Way. Old Swedes Historic Site. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://oldswedes.org/women-who-paved-the-way/.
- Collections: 2019, Black History Month, Delaware Suffragists