By Aleena Malik, 2025/2026 Power in Place Research Collaborator
A woman known for many firsts, paving the way for like-minded African American women to rise into leadership, Margaret Briggs Gregory Hawkins wasn’t just partaking in history; she was shaping it. She was building the infrastructure that enabled progress. In a time when Black women were expected to stay silent, she pushed a revolutionary passion that insisted that full political rights were not a favor to be granted, but a right to be claimed. Hawkins was a founding member and the first president of the DuBois Circle, and by 1913, she was already serving on the Baltimore NAACP executive committee. Her leadership didn’t stop there. She became vice president of the Colored Women’s Suffrage Club of Maryland (1920–1921) and then president of the Cooperative Women’s Civic League (1921). In 1926, she joined the Baltimore Urban League’s executive committee, and from 1933 to 1945, she made history again as the first Black woman on the Board of Managers of the Maryland Training School for Colored Girls, serving two six-year terms. In 1943, she broke another barrier as the first Black woman on the YWCA Central Branch (Baltimore) executive board. That list of “firsts” matters, but what matters even more is what those firsts did: they opened doors, normalized Black women’s authority, and proved that leadership could look different than what society had been pushing for people to believe. Connecting Hawkins to the present starts with understanding what she was really fighting for: an egalitarian society, a society where people are equal. In Hawkins’ world, inequality wasn’t just social; it was built into the government, their surroundings, and most importantly, the ballot box. Even after the 19th Amendment passed, voting was not automatically “equal” in practice for Black women. That’s why Hawkins’ work didn’t end when the amendment did. She understood something that modern voting-rights campaigns still repeat today: rights on paper hold no power if people aren’t able to use them. That is why she valued and taught civic engagement, and the importance of that education is seen today as so many voting-rights efforts focus on the same core idea Hawkins championed: civic education as protection. Modern organizations run voter registration drives, teach first-time voters, fight misinformation, and help communities navigate rules that can feel confusing on purpose. Hawkins did the same kind of work as an educator, teaching women how to use their vote to create change, not just celebrate the existence of the right. She gave them the tools for prosperity when society expected them to fail. Her strategy mirrors what we still see now: real democracy depends on people being informed and can only flourish when people participate.
Hawkins’ story also echoes in current conversations about representation. Her “firsts” weren’t symbolic; they were proof that Black women belonged at decision-making tables. That idea continues today when Black women step into leadership roles that historically excluded them. For example, in 2019, Adrienne A. Jones became the first woman and first African American to serve as Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates. That moment wasn’t random; it reflects the kind of path Hawkins helped carve, one where Black women are not just supporting movements, but leading chambers, shaping policy priorities, and pushing public institutions toward racial justice. What moves me about Hawkins is that her work shows how progress is usually made: not by one dramatic moment, but by patient, strategic pressure over time. She faced uncertainty, hardship, and oppression, yet she still chose to organize and to lead. She, after so much hardship and fighting, chose to believe that Black women deserved full political power regardless of whether someone was willing to give it to them completely. That unwavering stance is exactly what modern campaigns for equality are still built on. In the end, Margaret Hawkins didn’t just fight for her own success. She fought to make leadership and political rights the norm for the women who came after her. Her legacy lives whenever civic engagement is being taught to the youth and when women of color step into leadership, proving that reclaiming power is truly how revolutions and change begin.
References
Brennan Center for Justice. (n.d.). Voter suppression. Retrieved January 20, 2026, from https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/voting-elections/voter-suppression DePuyt, B. (2019, May 1). After intense battle, Jones emerges as compromise choice for speaker. Maryland Matters. https://marylandmatters.org/2019/05/01/after-intense-battle-jones-emerges-as-compromise-choice-for-speaker/ Maryland Department of Human Services. (2021). Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame Hawkins. https://dhs.maryland.gov/maryland-womens-hall-fame-hawkins/ Maryland Department of Human Services. (2024). Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame Awardees Jones. https://dhs.maryland.gov/maryland-womens-hall-fame-awardees-jones/ Maryland Historical Trust. (n.d.). Margaret Briggs Gregory and Dr. Mason Albert Hawkins House (B-1373-6), 1532 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore City: Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties form [PDF]. https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/medusa/PDF/BaltimoreCity/B-1373-6.pdf Maryland State Archives. (2023). Margaret Briggs Gregory Hawkins. Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame Biographies. https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/womenshallfame/html/mhawkins.html Maryland State Archives. (n.d.). Adrienne A. Jones, Maryland State Delegate. Maryland Manual On-Line. https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa02630.html National Park Service. (2024, July 9). National Register of Historic Places continuation sheet: Sharp Street Memorial U.M. Church (B-2963), Baltimore City, Maryland (NR reference no. 82004749) [PDF]. https://apps.mht.maryland.gov/medusa/PDF/NR_PDFs/NR-689.pdf Norwood, C. (2019, May 2). First African American and woman to serve as Maryland House speaker. Governing. https://www.governing.com/archive/tns-new-maryland-house-speaker-adrienne-jones.html Novara, E. A. (2020, August 26). The suffrage struggle after the 19th Amendment. Library of Congress Blogs. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2020/08/the-suffrage-struggle-after-the-19th-amendment/