1878-1956
(Thanks to George Robb who did much research on Harris, his full biographer is linked below.).
Blanche Harris was active in the suffrage movement in Newark. Her obituary said she was a “member of one Newark’s first Negro families and active many years in community affairs” and “a pioneer in the Newark NAACP branch and one of the founders of the Lincoln-Douglass memorial celebrations in this city”. She was president of the Lincoln-Douglass Memorial Association.
Blanche was president of the Lincoln Branch, Women’s Political Union of Newark. She spoke around the state on suffrage in this role.
Blanche was also active in political campaigning. In 1912, she worked on Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign. In 1920, Harris became President of the Colored Women’s Republican Club of Newark and was featured in the Competitor in 1921.
Blanche helped the campaign of the first African American, Dr. Walter G. Alexander, to the New Jersey Assembly. She was vice-chairman of New Jersey’s Colored Republican State Committee in 1924 and worked on Calvin Coolidge’s presidential campaign and Hamilton F. Kean’s Senate Run, again speaking around the state.
In the 1930s she worked as an attendant in the Newark courts. In 1941, we know she worked on the campaign of John A Brady.
Blanche was born in Maryland and moved to Newark with her family in the late 1880s. She was a graduate of Barringer High School, and the widow of Paul Harris. She worked as a dressmaker and helped organize several branches of the Independent Order of St. Luke, as well as a lyceum for young people at St. John’s Methodist Church.
Bibliography
Robb, George. Suffrage database
Robb, George, Discover NJ Women’s History
Newspapers.com
Newark Eagles Papers
65 mentions in the Newark News
Lincoln-Douglass Memorial Association pamphlet, Newark Associations Collection, Newark Library
“Mrs. P Harris, Funeral Held” Newark News Feb 17, 1956
