Black Women's Club Movement The Phillis Wheatley Association

Join Sherrie Tolliver as she shares her mother's artifacts and stories from her involvement in The Black Women's Club Movement. 

Jane Edna Hunter  (1882-1971) –  Activist

With the help of other women and $1,500, Jane Edna Hunter  opened the Working Girls Home Association, a boarding home for 10 women on East 40th, north of Central Avenue. The purpose of this voluntary association was to build a safe residence for the homeless, unprotected, newly arriving African American women and working women like herself.

The purpose of the Department was to build a national network of Phyllis Wheatley Associations to house self-supporting, self-respecting African American women and girls and  provide a meeting place for club women.

Hunter acquired a 2-story building and the name changed to the Phillis Wheatley Association, in honor of the late 18th-century Boston slavery survivor considered the first African American poet. The number of residents soon strained the capacity of the 23-room house. By 1919 the association purchased a 3-story building and An adjoining building,

The PWA was one of the first institutions designed to meet the needs of African American  social services  in Cleveland. Hunter wrote an autobiography, “A Nickel and a Prayer,” in 1940.