Today I want to talk about Lizzie Weeks.

Lizzie was born in Washington DC in 1879 and came to Portland sometime before 1904, when she married her husband George.

When Oregon women won the hard fought right to vote in 1912, Lizzie organized Black Women to help them be empowered voters.

She was active in the Republican Party (a different Republican Party than we know today!) and worked to turn out black voters in Oregon to the polls. She was one of Oregon’s first black elected officials as a precinct committee person in 1918! 

She was the first Black social worker in Multnomah County, and later went on to be a probation officer and the matron of the juvenile detention center in Portland.

Mrs. Weeks passed away in 1976, leaving behind a legacy of voting rights activism in Portland and across Oregon. 

https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/weeks_lizzie/#.XFmUpLqIbDs