Mary Ellen Cable

Mary Ellen Cable was an American educator and activist. She served as an educator and principal of Indianapolis Public Schools no. 4, Indianapolis' first African American elementary school located in the Ransom Place neighborhood during segregation. She also founded Indianapolis' first chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Early life and education Mary Ellen Cable ( Montgomery) was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, on September 19, 1861. In the 1870s, she earned a degree from Leavenworth Teacher's Normal School allowing her to teach elementary students in Fort Scott and Topeka, Kansas. She went on to marry George Cable, a teacher, and together had one son, Dr. Theodore Cable.

In the 1910s, almost one third of the African American population of Marion County had tuberculosis. Around 1916, in collaboration with the Woman's Improvement Club (WIC) of Indianapolis and other Black women's clubs, Cable established one of the first three "fresh air” classrooms serving Black students in Indianapolis with tuberculosis.

In Cable's 17-year term as director of practice of teaching, 61 African American teachers were certified by the Indianapolis School Board, 5 of which went on to become principals.

Cable would go on to become principal of IPS School no. 4, Indianapolis' first African American elementary school located in the Ransom Place neighborhood from 1922 until her retirement in 1933. Under her leadership, the Indianapolis branch expanded in member numbers and led initiatives across the state against the Ku Klux Klan.

Cable was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E) Church and the Browning Literary Society.

In 1953, IPS School No. 4 was dedicated and named the Mary E. Cable Elementary School.