Huntsville Women Who Made History! Celebrating Huntsville’s Black Suffragists

Video recording of a history-making event on Sunday, October 24 at 2:00 PM, when the Historic Huntsville Foundation (HHF) unveiled a historic marker at William Hooper Councill High Memorial Park recognizing the first Black women who registered to vote in Madison County. This marker is the FIRST historic marker in Alabama recognizing Black suffragists.

Following the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, over 100,000 Alabama women registered to vote, including 1,373 Madison County women. Of those, only six were Black women: Mary Wood Binford, Ellen Scruggs Brandon, India Leslie Herndon, Lou Bertha Johnson, Dora Fackler Lowery, and Celia Horton Love. Their names are now permanently inscribed in the Huntsville landscape.

This momentous occasion was marked with a momentous community-wide celebration. Festivities kicked off at 1:00 PM, with tours of William Hooper Councill Memorial Park led by former students of Councill High. In addition to remarks by Governor Kay Ivey, the program includes three grandchildren of the Black suffragists, who will share memories of their grandmothers. Costumed interpreters will portray the women, giving guests up close and personal history lessons.

Madison County’s first Black women voters lived during a period in our nation’s history when their political and civil rights were threatened by the rise of white supremacy. The ratification of the 19th amendment offered some Black women an opportunity to defend their community, their families and themselves through the exercise of their voting rights.

All of Madison County’s Black women voters were the daughters and granddaughters of formerly enslaved people who had established a foothold of success in the decades following slavery. Their fathers, brothers and husbands had voting rights before the 1901 Constitution. In fact, several of their male family members held elected office. Huntsville voters elected Henry C. Binford, Sr., the father-in-law of Mary Binford, and Daniel Brandon, the husband of Ellen Brandon as city aldermen.

The women and their husbands were successful members of Huntsville’s Black community. Ellen and Daniel Brandon owned a prosperous construction company. Lou Bertha and Shelby Johnson owned Grand Shine Parlor, a dry-cleaning business. India and A. J. Herndon owned Citizens Drug Store, and Dora and Leroy Lowery owned businesses in the Church Street business district. Leroy Lowery also served on the Board of the Supreme Life Insurance Company of Illinois.

Celia Love McCrary was the only woman whose income was related to agriculture. She and her husband owned a large farm in Mullen’s Flat, now part of Redstone Arsenal. Her husband, Adolphus Love, was reputed to be the wealthiest Black man in Madison County. Recent research revealed that the Loves donated property in 1917 for the establishment of the Silver Hill Rosenwald School in Mullins Flat, on land that is now owned by Redstone Arsenal. This one-room schoolhouse offered Black students their opportunity for an education.

All the women had formal educations. In fact, Binford, Herndon, and Lowery taught at the school eventually named for William Hooper Councill. Mary Binford and her husband, Henry C. Binford, Jr. both graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Henry Binford retired as the principal of Councill High in 1918.

Mary Binford was the likely catalyst behind the women’s political activism. Binford was one of the few women of this era to earn a four-year college degree. She married Henry C. Binford, Jr., a member of the very influential Binford family of Huntsville, in 1899. After their marriage, she joined her husband in Huntsville before his teaching career took them to Baltimore, Maryland and Kansas. They returned to Huntsville in 1908.

While Mary Binford attended Howard University, Washington D.C. became the epicenter of the Black suffrage movement. In 1896, luminaries including Mary Church Terrell, Mary Margaret Washington and Ida B. formed the National Association of Colored Women, later called the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. The Association’s founding principle, “lifting as we climb,” encouraged successful Black women to take on leadership roles and spearhead reform in their local communities.

These principles reflect the actions of Huntsville’s Black women voters within their community- as wives, mothers, educators and business owners. All the women were members of Lakeside Methodist Church, the hub of spiritual, cultural and educational activities in Huntsville’s Black community. The first public-funded school for Huntsville’s Black students began in Lakeside’s basement.

Integrating the stories of Huntsville’s Black women into our public history shows that Huntsville is strong enough to tell the difficult chapters of our history with honesty and empathy and smart enough to learn their lessons.