Trailblazer: Florence Spearing Randolph

Rev. Florence Spearing Randolph (1866-1951) founded the New Jersey Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1915 and served as president until 1927.

Randolph also served on the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association executive board and played a pivotal role in securing support for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

She was the first Black woman to become a student at Drew University and among the first women to be ordained as a pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.  She built her own church in Summit in 1925.

Editor’s note: For a closer look the history of Black women in New Jersey politics, read ““Black Women’s Christian Activism: The Struggle for Social Justice in a Northern Suburb” by Betty Livingston Adams.