“The process of racial inclusion and desegregation in the Girls Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital highlights the messiness, and push and pull, of the fight for equality in the Nation’s Capital.” Miya Carey, “Becoming “a Force for Desegregation,” The Girl Scouts and Civil Rights in the Nation’s Capital.”
Founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America were formed to foster and encourage the intellectual, moral and mental development of all girls nationwide with no distinction for race. While its purposes earned the organization a reputation as a force for civil rights, as Miya Carey explores in her recent Washington History article, the localized control of scouting often prevented D.C.’s black girls from joining white troops.
Carey, a graduate student at Rutgers University, traces the formation of D.C.’s separate black troops in the 1920s and their struggle for recognition from the white leaders of the Council of the Nation’s Capital. Carey examines the argument that access to healthy activities was a civil rights issue deserving of the support of the Girl Scouts organization.
Purchase the Fall 2017 issue of Washington History to read Miya Carey’s essay.