When there's any mention of the pivotal role Black women played in the suffrage movement, Mary Church Terrell is often among the first names spoken.

Despite their bondage, her parents became successful business owners who could afford to send their daughter to college, according to the National Park Service (NPS), which lists Terrell among the "Suffrage Movement Leaders You Should Know."

In addition to serving as president of the National Association of Colored Women, Terrell also supported the Black women's right to vote.

After Terrell's and Frederick Douglass' appeals to President Benjamin Harrison failed to produce a public condemnation of lynching, she formed the Colored Women's League in Washington to address social problems facing Black communities, according to BlackPast.org.

Four years later, Terrell helped create the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and became its first president.