Founded in 1946, The Links, Incorporated is an international, not-for-profit corporation comprised of more than 17,000 professional women of African descent. Our organization has nearly 300 chapters in more than 40 states, the District of Columbia, the Bahamas, and the United Kingdom. The Links is one of the nation’s oldest and largest community service organizations, committed to enriching, sustaining and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other persons of African ancestry. Click here to learn more about The Links, Incorporated.
The History of The Links, Incorporated The year was 1946. In the wake of World War II, Philadelphia matrons Margaret Roselle Hawkins and Sarah Strickland Scott called together seven friends in hopes of starting a new type of organization, a chain of women’s clubs composed of friends along the Eastern seaboard who would respond to the needs and aspirations of Black women. There were other groups in existence, but the two women envisioned a service-oriented organization that would have a twofold purpose – to promote civic, educational, and cultural concerns and to lead Black women into postwar America. The original nine members were Frances Atkinson, Katie Green, Margaret Hawkins, Marion Minton, Myrtle Manigault, Sarah Scott, Lillian Stanford, Lillian Wall, and Dorothy Wright.
That founding meeting on November 9, 1946, launched what is now The Links, Incorporated, an international women’s service organization. From that modest first meeting of nine women, the organization born in the wake of World War II has expanded and refined its mission and membership. In 1949, The Links became a national organization when 40 members, representing 14 chapters, convened the first national assembly in Philadelphia. The organization has been incorporated since March 29, 1951.
The Links Incorporated has endured social and racial upheavals to emerge with a dynamic membership of nearly 14,000 women of African descent in 282 Chapters located in 41 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The members of The Links, Incorporated are physicians, dentists, judges, attorneys, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs, elected officials, non-profit executives, authors, corporate executives and homemakers. They use their collective resources to improve the quality of life for others. Over the years, the organization has lived out its implemented programs with the purpose of fostering cultural appreciation through the arts, developing richer inter-group relations, and helping women who participate understand and embrace their social and civic responsibilities.