THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Dr. Arnita Young Boswell
1920 – 2002
Dr. Boswell directed the women’s division of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s massive civil rights demonstration in Chicago in 1966.
Activist and educator dedicated to teaching and social services. A professor of social work at the University of Chicago from 1961 to 1980. First national director for Project Head Start. Appointed by President Nixon to the U.S Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, 1969. Member of the White House Conference on Children. Co-founded the National Hook-Up of Black Women (NHBW) during the fourth Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Weekend in 1974. Director of Social Services for families with children with special needs at the University of Illinois Chicago. Director of the Family Resources Center at the Robert Taylor Homes and the first National Director for Project Head Start and for the social workers of the Chicago Public Schools. Founder of the League of Black Women and the Women’s Board of the Chicago Urban League.
Photo. Arnita Boswell of the League of Black Women, receives an award from Chicago YWCA, 1973.
University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf1-09329], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
More About Arnita:
- Obituary
- Select newspaper clippings 1971 – 1991
- State of Illinois 92nd General Assembly Legislation Senate Resolution to honor the life of Dr. Arnita Young Boswell
- NHBW, Inc. website
- League of Black Women website
- Women’s Board of the Chicago Urban League facebook page
- Select archives
- Women’s History Week : Oral histories of Women Civil Rights Activists – 1940s-1960s
- Rev. Addie and Rev. Claude Wyatt Papers [Arnita Boswell Box 21, Folder 43], Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Chicago Public Library.
- Chicago Urban League records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago, Arnita Boswell, 1973 IV-123, IV – 1475
- Population and the American Future Report 1972
- White House Conference on Children, Report to the President, 1971
- Shirley Chisholm for President
- Learn about Dr. Boswell’s daughter, filmmaker Bonnie Boswell and Dr. Boswell’s brother Whitney Young Jr. in the documentary, The Powerbroker.
