1893-1939
Prominent in church and women’s circles. Active in St. Philips Church and the NJ State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs of which she was Recording Secretary and Financial Secretary. Active in the Phyllis Wheatly Society, where she was secretary, and the Lit-Muse Club. She was secretary, and later treasurer, of the Newark Branch of the NAACP and a speaker for the group. She was financial secretary of the Kenny Memorial Hospital
The Herald News called her “the late lamented Mildred Free” and ran the news of her death as the top headline.
Educated in Newark public schools. Her father James Miller was the “first of his race” to work for the City Water Department. Her sister Helen A. Miller was an early black school teacher who the Herald called an “energetic school marm”. When she married George Free the family lived at 131 Oraton with one son Theodore.
Bibliography
Kukla, Barbara Defying the Odds
Census Records
“”Mildred Free Famed Civic Worker Dies, Mildred Free Succumbs” New Jersey Herald News June 10, 1939
“Sally’s Chatterings” New Jersey Herald News Jun 17, 1939
“Women’s Federation Meet in Bordentown” New Jersey Herald News July 16, 1938
“Newark, NJ” New York Age May 5, 1928; Oct 6, 1928; Dec 14, 1929; May 21, 1927
“Mrs. Ida Brown Elected President of NJ State Federation of Womens Clubs” New York Age Jul 30, 1938
“New Jersey Clubwomen to Hold Conference” New York Age July 11, 1936
The Crisis, Jan 1935