Richetta Randolph Wallace (May 12, 1884 – March 1, 1974) was an American administrator, and the first staff member hired by the NAACP.
Early life Richetta G. Randolph was born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, the daughter of Richard E. Randolph and Martha Jane Chapman Randolph."Mrs. Martha Randolph" The Courier-News (March 18, 1941): 2. via Newspapers.com Her father was choirmaster at Fillmore Avenue Baptist Church in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey."Colored Minister Held for Grand Jury" The Courier-News (May 16, 1903): 1. via Newspapers.com She attended Gaffey's Business School in New York City. She was related to labor leader A. Philip Randolph, but their specific relationship is unclear.Guide to the Richetta Randolph Wallace Papers, Brooklyn Historical Society.
Career Richetta Randolph began working for white suffragist and journalist Mary White Ovington in 1905, as her private secretary."NAACP Honors Richetta Randolph" New York Age (January 9, 1943): 4. via Newspapers.com In 1912, she became the first member of the administrative staff at the NAACP. She was the organization's office manager; "it was her machine that in 1909 typed the original 'Call' to organize the N. A. A. C. P.", recalled Ovington, of Randolph's involvement. "More than anyone else, she knows the history of the Association and we turn to her with questions of the past as well as the present."Mary White Ovington, "A Visit to the National Office" The Crisis (May 1936): 144, 150, 154-156. She served as clerk of the annual NAACP conferences, and served as personal secretary of James Weldon Johnson and Walter Francis White. She "arranged and typed" the first issue of The Crisis,James H. Hogans, "Call Mrs. R. Wallace Perfect Secretary" New York Age (March 14, 1959): 7. via Newspapers.com and corresponded with W. E. B. Du Bois. "It would have been difficult to have secured a more efficient person to do the exacting clerical work of the young N. A. A. C. P.", commented George Schuyler in a 1942 profile.George S. Schuyler, "Richetta G. Randolph" The Crisis (December 1942): 382, 396. She worked for the NAACP for over thirty years,"NAACP Honors Oldest Member" New York Age (January 13, 1945): 4. via Newspapers.com until her retirement in 1946."Richetta G. Randolph" The Crisis (March 1943): 88.Alice A. Dunnigan, "NAACP's 50-Year Progress is Cited" Pittsburgh Courier (December 26, 1959): 33. via Newspapers.com
Before and during retirement, Randolph Wallace worked for the Rev. O. Clay Maxwell, pastor of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem. She was the first woman to serve on the church's board of trustees."Richetta Randolph Honored by NAACP" The Pittsburgh Courier (January 16, 1943): 10. via Newspapers.com"Yonkers Church Also Has a Woman Trustee" The New York Age (February 11, 1922): 1. via Newspapers.com She performed in a 1928 church pageant,"'March of the Nations' Pageant for Mt. Olivet" The New York Age (May 26, 1928): 7. via Newspapers.com and wrote a historical pageant, "Mount Olivet Yesterday and Today" (1953), about the church's founding.
Personal life Richetta G. Randolph married Frank E. Wallace in 1914, and was widowed when he died in 1921. She died in 1974, in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where she had lived since 1933.Kate Ludwig, "Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Richetta Randolph Wallace" Brooklyn Historical Society blog (March 2, 2011). Her papers are archived in the Brooklyn Historical Society.
References
External links Photograph of Richetta G. Randolph at a table with Arthur B. Spingarn and Walter White in the 1940s, from the Library of Congress. "Letter from Richetta G. Randolph to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 20, 1925" W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, University of Massachusetts Amherst.