Mary Ann Shadd Cary, an American-Canadian, was the first Black woman publisher in North America and the second Black woman to attend law school in America. She was the oldest of thirteen children and was born to free African American parents in Wilmington, Delaware. Her family’s home served as a safe house on the Underground Railroad. In 1833, the family moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, after Delaware banned Black children from attending school. She attended a Quaker school there, and her family continued their work on the Underground Railroad.
After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, her family moved to Canada. There, Mary Ann established a racially integrated school for Black refugees. She founded the newspaper Provincial Freeman in 1853, which advocated for equality, integration, and self-education for Black people in Canada and the US.
Cary was married in 1856 but widowed in 1860 while expecting her second child. She continued her work despite being a widow with two young children.
Cary returned to the US during the American Civil War and recruited soldiers for the Union Army. In 1880, Cary founded the Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise Association, which promoted African American women’s political and social rights. In 1883, she received her law degree from Howard University Law School. Throughout Cady’s legal career, she fought for equality and justice in civil rights and women’s suffrage.
In front of the House Judiciary Committee, Cary advocated for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. While she supported the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted African American men the right to vote, she was critical of it because it did not extend voting rights to women.
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