MISSION.
The League of Women for Community Service is one of the oldest continuing Black women’s service organizations in the United States, straddling both the civil rights and suffrage movements.
Its purpose is to engage in historic preservation, educational and cultural programming, and service-based activities, and to collaborate with other like-minded organizations working toward the same end.
THE LEAGUE TODAY & OUR FUTURE.
Today
Throughout its history, LWCS has been a volunteer-led organization with varying degrees of administrative infrastructure and philanthropic support. Even with its modest organizational structure, over the years LWCS has had a tremendous impact. Whether supporting Black soldiers stationed in and around Boston during World War I, serving as the state’s Welfare Department site during the Great Depression, or supporting African American female students during the 1940’s and 1950’s who were unwelcome in their college dormitories, including Coretta Scott King, LWCS has always been a nexus of civic and social activism and leadership.
Today, LWCS is experiencing a renaissance. A committed group of volunteer leaders, helmed by Kalimah Redd Knight, are focused on the restoration and renovation of its historic properties, enhancing its financial infrastructure and capabilities, and working on a strategic plan focused on long-term sustainability, along with preservation, access, and education, including the development of a breadth of community and youth education programs and events. The organization is preserving and making more accessible its extensive and historically significant archive, which offers a remarkable and typically hidden bridge to American history through the eyes of a group of African American women who dedicated their lives to advancing civil rights for all people.
Our Future
LWCS seeks to use its headquarters as a gathering space for all people, including those from community, corporate and academic backgrounds, to socialize and in some cases come together to help Boston residents grapple with and identify solutions to pertinent current issues that affect the social, economic and general well-being of the community. Such topics might include, but not be restricted to: access to equitable health care, approaches to solving educational disparities, closing the racial wealth gap, environmental justice and climate resilience, among other relevant social concerns and issues.
By sharing its story and dynamic assets through community and educational programs, and ensuring the preservation and accessibility of its vast archive, LWCS seeks to honor the instructive legacy and experiences of its founders; provide a unique educational experiences for students across the educational spectrum, and serve as a hub of intellectual thought leadership that provides an inviting space for diverse members of the entire community to gather, collaborate and actualize strategies for positive social advancement.
