Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Oberlin College during the 1880s and taught in Ohio and Washington, DC. Following the completion of her graduate degree, Mary Church traveled and studied languages abroad. In 1890, she returned to DC, where she taught at M Street High School. In October 1891, she married fellow teacher Robert H. Terrell (1857-1925). He was an attorney and the second African American to serve as a justice of the peace in Washington, DC.
Mary Church Terrell is a figure of national historic significance. She was the president of the National Association of Colored Women and, later, a member of the National American Suffrage Association. In 1895 she became the first Black woman in America to be appointed to a school board. Terrell served two terms on the DC School Board, from 1895 to 1901 and again from 1906 to 1911. Her terms were defined by work towards quality education, fair hiring practices, and more adequate appropriations for schools. It was during this period that Mary Church Terrell lived in the 1892 house.
She also led the successful fight to integrate DC restaurants. After she and her colleagues were refused service at Thompson Restaurant, she filed a lawsuit against the eatery. While waiting for the case to move forward, she engaged in boycotts and sit-ins targeting other segregated restaurants in the city. Her lawsuit resulted in a 1953 Supreme Court decision that found the practice of segregating DC’s eating places to be unconstitutional.
In their time living in DC, the Terrells’ purchase of their home was instrumental in integrating LeDroit Park. Today, the house is a National Historic Landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a contributing structure to the LeDroit Park Historic District.
Despite sporadic attempts at restoration, the Terrell House remained vacant and in a deteriorated state. In 1999, it was listed on DC Preservation League's Most Endangered Places list. In 2023, Howard University, with assistance from the National Park Service, completed a rehabilitation project, which included the restoration of exterior and interior architectural features. The project was funded in-part by the Historic Preservation Fund's African American Civil Rights Grant Program. The restored home will house visiting Howard University scholars.
DC Inventory: May 21, 1975
National Register: May 15, 1975
National Historic Landmark: May 15, 1975
Within LeDroit Park Historic District
This site is included in the Women's Suffrage in Washington DC tour for its role as the home of suffragist leader Mary Church Terrell, president of the National Association of Colored Women.
]]>Established in 1873, LeDroit Park represents an important aspect of the development of Washington. It is an early example of a planned, architecturally unified subdivision. This development of substantial detached and semi-detached homes, designed by one architect, James H. McGill, was intended by its developers as an affluent and exclusive subdivision. The architectural style is borrowed from pattern books influenced by A.J. Downing, and the houses are designed in the style of Italian villas, Gothic cottages, and many variations in between. Most of the McGill houses were constructed between 1873 and 1877. LeDroit Park presently contains approximately 50 of the original 64 McGill houses. The remaining brick and frame rowhouses were constructed in the late 1880s and 1890s.
LeDroit Park is also important because it represents an early, unsuccessful attempt at integration, and it has served as home for many prominent white and black Washingtonians, including many educators at Howard University. Today, LeDroit Park retains much of the same scale and character and most of the architecture that it had at the turn of the century. A walkthrough of the area reveals many of the original freestanding houses scattered among the slightly later brick and frame rowhouses.
DC Inventory: November 27, 1973
National Register: February 25, 1974
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