Uncrowned Community Builders

The Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women, Inc. was named for Drusilla Dunjee Houston and her poem Uncrowned Queens. It was written in 1917 and in response to the elite Black men who considered themselves the "Talented Tenth." It was at this time that these Black men, including Alaine Locks, Roscoe Dunjee, W.E.B. DuBpois, Carter G. Woodson and numerous others urged the Black matriarch to "go to the rear and be seated." Dunjee Houston refused to do this. She began a new column in her newspaper and urged people in the community to celebrate any person who had "planted one blade of grass and saw two blades return." This was an extraordinary Black woman and continued study of her work is definitely warranted.