Belles of the Ball

A 1911 photograph of a girls basketball team at the Normal School, No. 2 in the DC.

“This particular photograph, Belles of the Ball; Basketball Team, Normal School No. 2, Washington, D.C., is one of many highlighting the lives and contributions of women,” said Tracy Crawford, a librarian in the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division.

“Some of the women associated with the school, which later became Miner Teachers College and is now the University of the District of Columbia, include renowned artist and teacher, Alma Thomas; Ruby Hurley, an influential NAACP administrator; Charlotte E. Ray, the first Black American female lawyer in the United States; and Nellie May Quander, an incorporator and the first international president of the sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc.”

DC Public Library; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture