L. Pearl Mitchell (1883-1974) was born in Wilberforce, Ohio, to Amanda M. and Dr. Samuel T. Mitchell, president of Wilberforce College. Mitchell received her bachelor's degree from Wilberforce and worked in community service at war camps during World War I. After her father's death, she moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to work as a typist to help fund the education of her siblings. In 1926 she became a probation officer for the juvenile court, a post she held until her retirement in the 1940s due to ill health.
Mitchell joined the Cleveland Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1923 and served as president, executive secretary, national vice president, and national director of membership campaigns. In Cleveland she participated in protests against the public school systems operations of special-activity schools and segregated public housing projects. She served on the board of the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home and integrated the Columbus, Ohio facility. She also served on the Women and Manpower Commission, Greater Cleveland Fair Employment Practices Commission, and the Commission on the Aged. She was also a member of the Gilpin Players at Karamu House, and she performed in the first interracial production at the Cleveland Play House in its production of Jo Sinclair's The Long Moment .
click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for L. Pearl Mitchell
From the guide to the L. Pearl Mitchell Papers, 1875-1970, (Western Reserve Historical Society)
