the source of inspiration to
which it is destined.

And so lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and
striving and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will
burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage born of success
achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we
must continue to assume we look forward to the future, large with
promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color or patronage
because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice and ask for an
equal chance.

THIRD PAPER.

WHAT ROLE IS THE EDUCATED NEGRO WOMAN TO PLAY IN THE UPLIFTING OF HER
RACE?

BY MRS. ROSA D. BOWSER, OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.

[Illustration: Mrs. Rosa D. Bowser.]

MRS. ROSA D. BOWSER.

The writer of the subjoined article is a native of Virginia,
and belongs in the front rank of educators of her race in
this grand old commonwealth, which may justly boast of the
eminence to which its black as well as white citizens
attained before and since the war. The first president of
the black republic on the West Coast of Africa, Joseph
Jenkins Roberts, as well as the foremost Baptist leader,
Lott Carey, were Virginians.

Mrs. Rosa D. Bowser was born in Amelia County, and was
reared in the city of Richmond. She passed through the
grades of the public schools, and completed her school work
at the Normal School of that city under the instruction of
its founder, Mr. Ralza Morse Manly, of Vermont, a
distinguished educator in the North as well as the pioneer
educator in Virginia among the Negro race. Mrs. Bowser
received special training from Mr. Manly, having been
instructed by him in the higher mathematics and Latin. She
early developed a taste for drawing, painting and music, and
made commendable progress in the fine arts. Mrs. Bowser's
work as an educator has not been limited to the school room,
in which she has been so efficient for the last twenty-five
years, but she has been conspicuous in other and wider
fields of usefulness among her people within and without the
State.

This is evidenced by the following facts: She founded the
Woman's League, which rendered signal service in the
Lunenburg trials; she is President of the Richmond Mothers'
Club; she is a member of the Executive Board of the Southern