Cecelia Cabaniss Saunders (1879 – February 23, 1966) sometimes written as Cecilia Cabaniss Saunders, was an African-American civil rights leader, and executive director of the Harlem, New York YWCA. She is best known for working against racial discrimination in wartime employment during World War II,Cecilia Cabaniss Saunders Papers, 1941-1945, New York Public Library."Social Work Agencies Here are Gratified that F. E. P. C. Is Cracking Down on War Plants" New York Age (June 27, 1942): 3. via Newspapers.com for broader work training and opportunities for African-American women,Traci C. West, Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women's Lives Matter (Westminster John Knox Press 2006): 18. and against police violence in Harlem.Thomas Lewis Schubeck, Love That Does Justice (Orbis Books 2015): 183.

Early life and education Cecelia Hayne Holloway was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1879 (though some sources give 1883, she was listed in the 1880 census as an infant), daughter of James Harrison Holloway, a harness maker and school principal, and his wife Harriet Huger Holloway.Harlan Green and Jessica Lancia, "The Holloway Scrapbook: The Legacy of a Charleston Family" South Carolina Historical Magazine 111(1/2)(January/April 2010): 5-33. She attended Avery Normal Institute, then Fisk University as an undergraduate, graduating in 1903,Catalog of the Officers, Students, and Alumni of Fisk University (Fisk University 1912): 96. and pursued some graduate studies at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research."Mrs. C. H. Saunders of Harlem Y. W. C. A." New York Times (February 24, 1966): 37.

Career As a young woman, Saunders taught at South Carolina State University.Ida E. Jones, Mary McLeod Bethune in Washington D. C.: Activism and Education in Logan Circle (History Press 2013): 99.

Saunders became executive director of the Harlem YWCA in 1914.Judith Weisenfeld, African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905-1945 (Harvard University Press 1997): 115. In that position, she worked with and nurtured African-American women leaders, including Elizabeth Ross Haynes, Anna Arnold Hedgeman (whom she hired in the 1920s as membership secretary),Jennifer Scanlon, Until There is Justice: The Life of Anna Arnold Hedgeman (Oxford University Press 2015): 55. Dorothy Height,Dorothy Height, Open Wide The Freedom Gates: A Memoir (Public Affairs 2009): 78. Emma Ransom,"137th Street Y. W. C. A. Has Closed Successful Year" New York Age (January 27, 1923): 1. via Newspapers.com missionary Helen Curtis, Pauli Murray, Ruth Logan Roberts, Ella Baker and Eunice Carter.Julie A. Gallagher, Black Women and Politics in New York City (University of Illinois Press 2012): 60. When she began as director, the Harlem YWCA was located in a private residence. When she retired in 1947, the institution was housed in a large complex with more than a hundred employees."Mrs. Cecelia Saunders Feted at Reception at YWCA; 400 Attend" The New York Age (June 21, 1947): 4. via Newspapers.com Rhea Callaway, "Friends Pay Public Tribute to Mrs. Cecilia Cabaniss Saunders" New York Age (February 28, 1959): 13. via Newspapers.com Judith Weisenfeld, "The Harlem YWCA and the Secular City, 1904-1945" Journal of Women's History 6(3)(Fall 1994): 62-78. The improvements she instituted included facilities for housing and summer camps. She also established a trade school there to train African-American women for jobs. She considered proper training a key step to overcome racial barriers in the workplace.

As director of the YWCA, Saunders testified to conditions in Harlem, especially conditions for women, at various hearings and before various commissions. In 1935, she spoke to the mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem, about women's work experiences with racial discrimination.Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present (Basic Books 2009): 179. In 1939, she was part of the work of the Committee on Street Corner Markets.Vanessa H. May, Unprotected Labor: Household Workers, Politics, and Middle Class Reform in New York, 1870-1940 (University of North Carolina Press 2011): 124. She was also presented as a speaker at YWCAs and YMCAs in other cities."Leading Business Figure at Y. M. C. A. Sunday at Four" Pittsburgh Courier (March 10, 1934): 8. via Newspapers.com Her work was important to the move towards racial integration in the YWCA system in 1946.Judith Weisenfeld, "On Jordan's Stormy Banks: Margins, Center, and Bridges in African American Religious History" in Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart, eds., New Directions in American Religious History (Oxford University Press 1997): 436.

In 1939, Tuskegee Institute recognized her work with an honorary Master of Science degree."Tuskegee Honors Mrs. Saunders" New York Times (May 23, 1939): 2. The New York Age said of Saunders' career and its impact, "When a proper history of the development of Harlem in a period from 1914 to 1947 is written, Cecilia Cabaniss Saunders will have star billing.""Cecilia Cabaniss Saunders' Role in the Development of Harlem, 1914-1947, Deserves Star Billing" New York Age (February 21, 1959): 13. via Newspapers.com

Personal life and legacy Cecelia Holloway married twice. She married her first husband, dentist Dr. James E. Cabaniss, in August 1912;Untitled wedding announcement, New York Age (August 29, 1912): 8. via Newspapers.com she was widowed before their first anniversary."Well-Known Dentist Dies" New York Age (May 8, 1913): 1. via Newspapers.com She married her second husband John D. Saunders in 1915.Judith Weisenfeld, "Saunders, Cecelia Cabaniss" , in Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: Religion and Community, Encyclopedia of Black Women in America (Facts On File 1997), at African-American History Online (accessed February 12, 2016).

She died in 1966, at the age of 86."Mrs. Saunders Dies in New York" Pittsburgh Courier (March 12, 1966): 7. via Newspapers.com

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