Mary Ann Shad Cary

February 24, 2008

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Profile America for the 24th day of Black History Month. Mary Ann Shadd Cary dedicated her life to improving the quality of life for others. Born in Delaware in 1823, her family moved to Pennsylvania so she and her 12 siblings could attend a Quaker school. She and a brother then moved to Canada, where she established a racially integrated school and started a newspaper promoting civil rights and black self help. After the Civil War, Cary returned to the U.S. where she entered Howard University Law School — graduating in 1883 and becoming only the second African-American woman lawyer in the nation. Now, there are 965,000 lawyers across the U.S., almost a third of them women and 5 percent African-American. This special edition of Profile America for Black History Month is a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.