Crystal Dreda Bird Fauset was a trailblazing civil rights activist, social worker, educator, and politician, renowned as the first African American woman elected to a state legislature in the United States. Born on June 27, 1893, in Princess Anne, Maryland, she was the youngest of nine children to Benjamin Oliver Bird, the first principal of Princess Anne Academy (predecessor to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), and Portia E. Bird (née Lovett). Orphaned by age seven after her father died in 1897 and her mother’s in 1900, Fauset was raised by her maternal aunt, Lucy Groves, in Boston, Massachusetts, where she attended integrated public schools.
Fauset graduated from Boston Normal School in 1914 and earned a B.S. in education from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1931. She began her career as a public school teacher in Boston (1914–1918) before serving as a field secretary for the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) from 1918 to 1926, focusing on programs for Black youth and working girls. In 1926, she joined the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), where she became a prominent speaker on race relations, delivering 210 speeches to over 40,000 people between 1927 and 1928. Her work aimed to highlight the humanity of African Americans and foster interracial understanding. In 1931, Fauset married Arthur Huff Fauset, an educator, anthropologist, and civil rights activist, who was the half-brother of Harlem Renaissance writer Jessie Redmon Fauset. The couple became a dynamic political force in Philadelphia, though they divorced in 1944. That same year, Fauset helped establish the Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College, serving as executive secretary and documenting employment and housing discrimination against African Americans.
Fauset’s political career surged in the 1930s. In 1932, she founded the Colored Women’s Activities Club for the Democratic National Committee, mobilizing African American women to register to vote. Her efforts led to her appointment as director of the Women and Professional Project in Philadelphia’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935, where she eliminated racial quotas for sewing jobs, expanding employment opportunities for Black women. She also served on the Federal Housing Advisory Board, advocating for better urban housing for low-income communities. In 1938, Fauset made history by winning election as a Democrat to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing Philadelphia’s 18th District, which was 66% white. During her term (1939), she introduced nine bills and three amendments addressing public health, affordable housing, public relief, and women’s workplace rights, including an amendment to strengthen the Pennsylvania Female Labor Law of 1913. She resigned in January 1940 to become assistant state director of the WPA’s education and recreation programs, seeking a broader impact on race relations.
In 1941, with support from her friend First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Fauset was appointed to the Office of Civilian Defense as a race relations advisor, joining President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet.” She promoted civil defense planning in Black communities, recruited African Americans for military service, and addressed racial discrimination complaints. Disillusioned by the Democratic Party’s slow progress on civil rights, Fauset switched to the Republican Party in 1944, supporting presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey and later serving on the Republican National Committee’s Division on Negro Affairs.
In her later years, Fauset turned to global activism, co-founding the United Nations Council of Philadelphia (later the World Affairs Council) and traveling to Africa, India, and the Middle East in the 1950s to support independence movements. She also founded Africa House in New York around 1955 to foster cultural exchange. Fauset’s commitment to human rights earned her two Meritorious Service Medals from Pennsylvania (1939, 1955) and recognition as a central speaker at the National Council of Negro Women in 1939.
Crystal Bird Fauset died on March 27, 1965, in Philadelphia, leaving a legacy of breaking barriers, advocating for economic and racial justice, and inspiring civic engagement. A historical marker at 54th and Vine Streets in West Philadelphia commemorates her contributions, and efforts have been made to honor her with a U.S. Postal Service stamp.