Ames, Jessie Daniel

Ames, Jessie Daniel

(1883–1972) suffragist, civil rights activist; born in Palestine, Texas. Educated at Southwestern College (1902), she made lynching a southern white women's issue by linking feminism to racial justice. She became director of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation Women's Committee (1929) and founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (1930–42). She remained politically active until 1968.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.