Terrell, Phyllis, 1898-1989

Phyllis Terrell Langston (April 2, 1898 - August 1989) was a suffragist and civil rights activist. She worked alongside her mother, Mary Church Terrell, in the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and the White House pickets during demonstrations made by the National Woman's Party.

Phyllis Terrell was born on April 2, 1898 in Washington, DC to Mary Church Terrell, an activist and civic leader, and Robert H. Terrell, the first Black municipal court judge in D.C., and was appointed by Presidents Taft, Roosevelt, and Wilson. She was named after Phyllis Wheatley, the first African-American author of a book of poetry, and had an adopted sister, Mary.

Terrell attended the best schools in the northern United States before graduating from Wilberforce University and becoming a teacher. While a senior student at Howard University College of Music, Phyllis was assigned to conduct piano classes in the absence of the professor. She was one of the most promising students in the College of Music, commended for her natural talent at playing piano.

Along with her mother, Terrell picketed the White House during the National Woman's Party demonstrations that called on President Woodrow Wilson to support a federal woman suffrage amendment. She and her mother received pins commemorating their participation in the White House protest in 1921. She later became the postmaster for new generations of suffragists and civil rights organizations. She assisted historians and scholars regarding the plight of African Americans and worked closely with National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Phyllis Terrell watched the launching of a ship with Harriet Tubman's name in 1944 with a group of women from the National Council of Negro Women.

In 1962, Terrell succeeded in getting the Frederick Douglass Home in Washington, DC declared a National Shrine by an Act of Congress. The Terrell family's summer home on the Chesapeake Bay in Highland Beach, Maryland, was just next door to the home that Major Charles R. Douglass built for his father, Frederick Douglass, in 1893.

Terrell married first Lieutenant William C. Goines in 1930, and later married Lathall DeWitt Langston. Her mother, Mary Church Terrell was the president of the National Association of Colored Women which exposed Phyllis Terrell to activism involving rights for women and races. Seeing her mother's work, prompted Phyllis to join the National Association of Colored Women. Phyllis and her mother, Mary, kept in contact through letters where Phyllis addressed her mother as "My dearest mother," and signed the letters "Your little daughter, Phyllis" or "Lovingly, Phippie" for almost 40 years.