Butler, Selena Sloan (1872–1964)

American child welfare activist who established the first black parent-teacher association. Born Selena Sloan in Thomasville, Georgia, on January 4, 1872; died in October 1964; daughter of Winnie (Williams) and William Sloan; graduated from Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary (now Spelman College), 1888; attended Emerson School of Oratory (now Emerson College), 1894; married Henry Rutherford Butler (a doctor), May 3, 1893; children: one son.

Selena Sloan Butler, the daughter of an African and Indian woman and a white man, was separated from her family and received her early education from the Thomas County missionaries. Following graduation from the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, she held a series of teaching positions before her marriage to Henry Rutherford Butler in 1893. While her husband continued his medical education at Harvard University, Butler studied speech and elocution at Emerson School of Oratory. Upon their return to Atlanta in 1895, Selena resumed her teaching career; she also established and edited the Woman's Advocate, a monthly paper devoted to the interests of black American women.

Butler's interest in the parent-teacher relationship began when she and neighboring mothers could not find a preschool teacher for their children, and Butler set up a kindergarten program in her own home. In 1911, with the help of other concerned black women, she established the first black parent-teacher association in the country and patterned it after the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. Butler subsequently developed a state organization (Georgia Colored Parent-Teacher Association) in 1919 and served as its president for many years. Her efforts were expanded to the national level with the formation of the National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers in 1926, which adopted the principles and objectives of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. As the founding president of the new organization, Butler worked closely with the white National Congress, and the Congress assisted the new organization through an integrated advisory group. Although the new black association served primarily in states that maintained segregated schools, the relationship to its sister organization encouraged greater cooperation between black and white groups in local school systems. In Butler's words, the organization became "a conduit for effecting interracial work."

Active in other local and state organizations, Butler served as the first president of the Georgia Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. Both she and her husband were members of the Georgia Commission on Interracial Cooperation, which helped improve race relations during the years between the two world wars. After her husband's death in 1931, Butler traveled to London with her son; while there, she was active in the Nursery School Association of Great Britain. Returning to the U.S. at the onset of the Second World War, she established a Gray Lady Corps at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where her son was stationed. Butler spent her later years with her son in Los Angeles and remained active in church and welfare organizations until her death in 1964.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts