Search

The Māori Women's Welfare League is a national organisation in New Zealand whose mission is to improve the physical, social, economic and spiritual wellbeing of Māori women and their families. The first national organisation for Māori women, it was established in 1951 to give Māori women a forum to address concerns and promote wellness in accordance with Māori traditions and values.

The Colored Women’s League (CWL), also known as National League of Colored Women and Washington Colored Woman’s League, emerged in Washington, DC, when black women African American women active in education, benevolent, and literary societies joined together in June 1892 in an effort to improve conditions for African Americans. Helen A. Cook, wife of the Honorable John T. Cook, served as president, and the recording secretary was Charlotte Forten Grimké, a teacher from Port Royal, South Carolina. Other founders included Coralie Franklin Cook, wife of a Howard University administrator; teachers Anna J. Cooper, Mary Jane Patterson, Mary Church Terrell, and Anna E. Murray from M Street School; and Josephine B. Bruce, the first black teacher in the Cleveland schools, who later married Senator Blanche K. Bruce. African American women Colored Women’s League[Colored Womens League]

NOW was established on June 30, 1966, in Washington, D.C., by women attending the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women. The organization hopes to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society in a truly equal partnership with men. NOW achieves its goals through intensive lobbying in Congress, mass marches and rallies, grassroots political organizing, and litigation, including class-action lawsuits. Through its Legal Defense Fund, NOW plays a role in many of the gender-related cases that come before the Supreme Court.

NOW was created by a group of educated, politically active American women to protest discrimination against women. Its organization has been largely federally oriented, with a national center in Washington, D.C., but much effective decision making reserved to local and state chapters. Over the years, NOW has focused on many issues, including equality in hiring and in the workplace, improving the media portrayal of women, increasing women’s political presence, passing the Equal Rights Amendment Equal Rights Amendment , guarding women’s reproductive rights, and antirape programs. Steinem, Gloria Chung, Mary National Organization for Women

During the 1930’s, African American women built upon a strong legacy of activism against racism and segregation. To expand their influence during the 1890’s, black women had formed the National Federation of Afro-American Women and the National League of Colored Women. These groups combined in 1896 as the National Association for Colored Women (NACW), which had more than 100,000 members by the mid-1920’s. The Depression weakened the NACW financially, reducing the organization’s effectiveness. To build more powerful leadership for black women, Mary McLeod Bethune, who was the NACW president from 1924 to 1928, began in 1930 to consult with directors of more than two dozen organizations for black women (including the NACW) and promote a forum for their work. The result was the establishment of the National Council for Negro Women with Bethune as its first president and Washington, D.C., as its home.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization whose mission is to achieve full rights for women, social justice throughout the world, and an end to all scopes of violence. The organization seeks to ensure peace, freedom, and justice for all by establishing the ethical and societal conditions necessary for these ideals. Informally established in 1915 by a group of international female antiwar activists, the organization expanded its activities to more than forty countries by the 2010s. The ultimate goal of each chapter is to inspire the human race to achieve global peace.

In February of 1891, social reformer and feminist Frances Willard, president of the National Council of Women of the United States, spoke at that organization’s first triennial meeting in Washington, DC. During her address to the group, she commented on the long-standing inferior position of women in American society, particularly in the realms of labor and politics. Citing the examples of international female leaders as well as the observations of prominent American thinkers, she expressed hope that women would one day be considered equal members of American society.

In 1890 President Benjamin Harrison’s wife, Caroline Harrison, founded the DAR, a national patriotic organization for female descendants of Americans who served in the Revolution. Congress chartered the organization in 1895. Since then the DAR has promoted patriotic history education, but its opposition to liberal social reform has attracted criticism. As a primarily white organization it has also often been accused of racism. In 1939 it denied use of its headquarters, Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., to the black contralto Marian Anderson Anderson, Marian for a concert sponsored by Howard University. When black pianist Hazel Scott Scott, Hazel was barred from the hall in 1945, DAR member Bess Truman Truman, Bess —the wife of President Harry Truman—compared DAR policies to Nazism. In the 1960’s, the group denounced the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as left-wing and anti-Christian. Daughters of the American Revolution

Near the end of the eighteenth century, grave concerns about African Americans being treated as second-class citizens compelled a group of African American women to move beyond their local and state associations to devise plans for the formation of a national body that would systematically and professionally address the problems that they believed threatened the very survival of African Americans. Economic disparities, political disfranchisement, and social ostracism presented the greatest threats to African American aspirations for freedom and inclusion in the American system of democracy. Meeting at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC, in July 1896, the National Federation of Afro-American Women and the National League of Colored Women joined forces to form a national organization known as the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). Mary Church Terrell served as the organization's first president.