Claytor brought racial awareness to YWCA

  To Helen Jackson Claytor, promoting racial harmony wasn't just something she did, it was a part of her very being.
    "It was just part of my blood and bones," she told the Grand Rapids Press in 1995.
     Born April 12, 1907 in Minnesota, she first faced discrimination as a well-trained Black teacher who was unable to find a job. Ms. Claytor turned to the YWCA, an organization that had been a large part of her childhood, and found work in New Jersey and Kansas. Today, she's remembered as one of the organization's most dedicated members and a key player in its desegregation.
    After the death of her first husband, Ms. Claytor joined the National YWCA as Secretary of Interracial Education, a position that brought her to Grand Rapids for a speaking engagement. There, she met her second husband, Dr. Robert Claytor, who convinced her to relocate a year later.
    Before resigning her national post to take on a Y board post in Grand Rapids, Ms. Claytor completed a nation-wide study on interracial relations and later led a race relations study on race relations and segregation in Grand Rapids, including a recommendation to integrate the public schools system.
    So great was her dedication and passion for eliminating racism, Ms. Claytor, while serving as the first Black president of the National YWCA Board, convinced the organization to include the elimination of racism in the organization's statement of purpose, an imperative still a part of the Y's mission today.
    Ms. Claytor passed away peacefully in May of 2005.

Sources:

Michigan Women's Hall of Fame
Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council
African American Registry