Jessie Daniel Ames

Jessie Daniel Ames (November 2, 1883 – February 21, 1972) was a suffragist and civil rights leader from Texas who helped create the anti-lynching movement in the American South. She was one of the first Southern white women to speak out and work publicly against lynching of African Americans, murders which white men claimed to commit in an effort to protect women's "virtue." Despite risks to her personal safety, Ames stood up to these men and led organized efforts by white women to protest lynchings. She gained 40,000 signatures of Southern white women to oppose lynching, helping change attitudes and bring about a decline in these murders in the 1930s and 1940s.

Biography Ames was born Jessie Harriet Daniel in Palestine, Texas, on November 2, 1883. Her mother was Laura Maria Leonard and her father was James Malcolm Daniel. In 1893, the family moved to Georgetown, Texas. Ames was admitted to the Ladies Annex of Southwestern University at the age of 13 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1902. After graduation, she moved with her family to Laredo, Texas.

In 1905, Ames married Roger Post Ames, a surgeon in the United States Army, who had worked with Walter Reed in Cuba to prove that mosquitoes caused malaria. In 1923, she represented the national League of Women Voters at the Pan American Congress.

In 1923, the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and the Joint Legislative Council, both white women's organizations, endorsed the concept. That year, the TACWC raised $2,000 for the down payment on a home. The organization bought land in San Antonio and was able to offer $5,500 as a downpayment. The organization excluded African American women By 1940, more than 100 women's organizations had joined the movement against lynching. Ames opposed a federal anti-lynching law and advocated instead for individual state laws outlawing lynching.

Death and legacy Ames retired to Tryon, North Carolina, before returning to Texas in 1968 to live with her younger daughter.