The Preservation Champion You Might Not Have Heard Of: Mary B. Talbert
By Sarah Ford on May 27, 2014
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation
In 1917, readers of The Crisis magazine, the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), would have come across a powerful call to action, written by one Mrs. Mary B. Talbert.
Talbert, an educator, civil rights activist, and then-president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC) had turned her eyes to Cedar Hill, the Washington, D.C., home of abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The NACWC, at its biennial meeting just months earlier, had created a committee to consider the possibility of assisting the trustees of the Frederick Douglass Memorial & Historical Association(FDMHA) with the care of the house and the legacy Douglass left behind.