Women's History Month: Mame Stewart Josenberger

National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race

Small business owner and civil rights leader Mame Steward Josenberger of Fort Smith, Arkansas (1872-1964).

Mame Stewart Josenberger is another Arkansas trailblazer who should be more widely known. A graduate of Fisk University and a contemporary there of W.E.B. DuBois, Josenberger took a teaching position at Fort Smith's Howard High School — the only Black high school in western Arkansas — in 1890. After the death of her husband in 1909, she became the sole proprietor of the family's expanding business interests, including a funeral home, an entertainment venue and property in Little Rock. 

As professor Cherisse Jones-Branch has written, "Josenberger's community and organizational affiliations were considerable." They included lifetime membership in the NAACP, including service on the editorial board of its flagship publication, The Crisis; the National Negro Business League; and the National Association of Colored Women, serving as the latter's state president from 1929 to 1931.

Learn more about Josenberger at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.