Negro Home Demonstration Clubs Hold State Meeting, 1955

“Negro Home Demonstration Clubs Hold Annual State Meeting” from the April 1955 issue of Extension Farm-News

Nearly 3,000 Negro women from across the state met at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh recently for the 13^th annual state council meeting of the Negro home demonstration clubs.

Mrs. Ellen S. Alston, executive secretary of the Woman’s Baptist Home and the Foreign Mission Convention, guest speaker at the morning session, said: “I have noticed your steady but not-easy-to-make progress. Your home agents are making miraculous changes in the homes of North Carolina. They are teaching you how to live and how to do.”

She added: “You women are projecting a picture of better homes and better living to all. You may be assured that your world is a better place because you are in it. You’re making things happen because you are concerned about today’s home as a builder of tomorrow’s world.”

Mrs. Ashley Powell of Wake County, who presided, cited the responsibilities of homemakers. “Your district reports show that you women are living by your motto ‘lifting as you climb’. But we must realize that it takes more than bricks and mortar to build a home. We must have cooperation and recreation and spiritual guidance. We must have a mother and father who love each other and who love their children.  You, as mothers, must plan meals, for your children and your families that will build strong bodies and keep disease away.”

Special music on the day’s program was furnished by the Robeson County home demonstration chorus under the direction of Mrs. Rosetta Gerald.

The club women heard two Negro International Farm Youth Exchange Delegates tell of their experiences in other countries of the world. The two reporting on the IFYE program were Julia Maxine Young of Franklin County and Raphael Cuthbertson of Mecklenberg County.

Officers of the State Council of Negro Demonstration Clubs are Mrs. Ashley Powell of Wake County, president; Mrs. Ruth Stancill of Northampton, vice-president; Mrs. Bessie Inman of Robeson, secretary; Mrs. Martha Lipscombe of Rowan, assistant secretary; and Mrs. Ella Trice of Orange, treasurer.