Hedgeman, Anna Arnold, 1899-1990

Anna Arnold Hedgeman (1899-1990) spent more than six decades working in the fields of interfaith and civil rights organizing, government service, and urban affairs. The author of two memoirs, The Trumpet Sounds (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964) and The Gift of Chaos (Oxford, 1977), Hedgeman was a pioneer in opening civil service and political jobs to African-American women.

Raised in Minnesota, Hedgeman was the first African-American graduate of Hamline University in St. Paul. From 1924 to 1933, she served as an administrator for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Ohio, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, including five years as membership secretary of the Harlem branch. She married musician Merritt Hedgeman in 1933.

During the New Deal and early years of World War II, Hedgeman worked for the Emergency Relief Bureau, worked as a consultant on racial problems for New York City, and monitored race relations for the Federal Office of Civilian Defense. In 1944, the Hedgemans relocated to Washington, D.C., where she became executive director of A. Philip Randolph's National Council for a Permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission. After working on Harry Truman's presidential election in 1948, Hedgeman was appointed to an administrative position in the Federal Security Agency.

From 1954 to 1958, Hedgeman was a mayoral aide in the cabinet of Robert F. Wagner, Jr. As was often the case throughout her career, Hedgeman was the first African-American woman appointed to this post. From 1958 to 1962, she worked briefly in business and also covered civic and international affairs as a radio commentator and New York Age columnist.

In the 1960s, Hedgeman was at the center of national civil rights organizing and was the first female member on the administrative planning committee for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Returning to ecumenical work from 1963 to 1967, Hedgeman served in several capacities for the National Council of Churches' Commission on Religion and Race, where she coordinated efforts of clergy and lay leaders to win passage and ensure implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Hedgeman started a consulting service and throughout the 1970s worked as a freelance specialist on interfaith activism, urban affairs, and black studies. She also continued her commitment to public service as a member of countless community committees and government advisory bodies until her death in 1990.