Helen Appo Cook (July 21, 1837 – November 20, 1913) was a wealthy, prominent African-American community activist in Washington, D.C., and a leader in the women's club movement. Cook was a founder and president of the Colored Women's League, which consolidated with another organization in 1896 to become the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), an organization still active in the 21st century. Cook supported voting rights and was a member of the Niagara Movement, which opposed racial segregation and African American disenfranchisement. In 1898, Cook publicly rebuked Susan B. Anthony, president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, and requested she support universal suffrage following Anthony's speech at a U.S. Congress House Committee on Judiciary hearing.
Early life
Helen Cook was born to William Appo, a prominent musician, and Elizabeth Brady Appo, who owned a millinery business in New York. Because of William Appo's music career, the family lived in various cities, such as Baltimore and Philadelphia before settling permanently in New York.
As a teenager, Helen Cook attended meetings about women's rights with her mother. She self-identified with the women's cause: I was born to an inheritance of appreciation and sympathy for the cause of women's rights, my mother before me being so ardent a supporter of its doctrines that I felt myself, in a measure, identified with it. Among my earliest recollections are the Sunday afternoon meetings, held at the home of Lucretia Mott, on Arch street, in Philadelphia... on one of those occasions...I heard that eloquent advocate of human freedom, the English abolitionist, George Thompson.
As an adult, Cook attended the first suffrage convention held in Washington, D.C., in January 1869 and organized by the Universal Franchise Association.
Leadership and activism
National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children
In 1864 the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children was incorporated by an act of the United States Congress to provide "suitable home, board, clothing, and instructions, and to bring them under Christian influences". Elizabeth Keckley, seamstress and confidant to former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, was one of the founding association member. Helen Cook was a member for nearly 35 years and held various leadership positions. In 1880, she was the first African-American woman to be elected secretary of the association, a position she held for ten years. African-American men also supported the association. Frederick Douglass paid for life membership in 1866. Dr. Charles B. Purvis and James Wormely, an owner of the Wormley's Hotel in Washington, D.C., joined the Board of Trustees in 1872. John F. Cook, Jr., Helen Cook's husband, joined the board in 1885, provided financial assistance, and helped influence Congress for continued funding. Congressional appropriations, though, ended in 1892. The Association maintained a building for people without housing and orphans at Eighth and Euclid Streets, Northwest, with standing committees on Admission and Dismission, Household Management, Education, and Clothing. At the time of her death, Helen Cook was President of the association.
Colored Women's League
In 1892, Helen Cook, Ida B. Wells, Anna Julie Cooper, Charlotte Forten Grimké, Mary Jane Peterson, Mary Church Terrell, and Evelyn Shaw formed the Colored Women's League in Washington, D.C. The goals of the service-oriented club were to promote unity, social progress, and the best interests of the African-American community. Helen Cook was elected president.
Cook wrote the first "Washington Letter" about the activities of the Colored Women's League (CWL) in The Woman's Era (1894–1897), the first national newspaper published for and by African American women. Cook shared the CWL's 1894 accomplishments that included raising $1,935 towards a permanent league home; hosting a series of public lectures for girls at a local high school and at Howard University; establishing CWL-sponsored classes in German, English literature and hygiene; the establishment of a sewing school and mending bureau with 88 students and ten teachers; the payment of tuition for two nursing students and part salary to hire a kindergartner teacher. CWL member Mary Church Terrell provided subsequent updates from Washington, D.C., league efforts to the newspaper.