Name Sarah Overton | ||
Sarah Massey Overton (1850-1914) was a suffragist, women's rights activist, and African-American rights activist. She was born in Massachusetts but moved to California in the 1880s. There she attended St. Phillip’s Mission School. In 1869 she married, and then she ran a catering business with her husband. In the 1880s she became a leader in the fight to allow African-American children in California to attend public school. In 1906 she cofounded San Jose’s Garden City Women’s Club, and as a member of it she lobbied in favor of interracial women’s club coalitions for women's suffrage. She lobbied for women's suffrage in the 1911 statewide election in California, and was vice-president of San Jose’s interracial Suffrage Amendment League. She also did voter registration of men in California who supported women's suffrage, doing this through the Political Equality Club of San Jose. She was also president of the all-black Victoria Earle Matthews (Mothers) Club, which helped girls and women who had been sexually abused or threatened with such. She had a daughter named Harriet and a son named Charles.