Born: January 1872, United States
Died: 14 April 1951
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Irene L. Moorman
African-American businesswoman, club member and suffragist Irene Moorman Blackstone worked with Alva Belmont to promote interracial cooperation among suffragists. After the 19th Amendment passed, she focused her activism on supporting the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and other programs that worked to uplift the African-American community and prevent their exclusion and discrimination in gaining socio-economic and political equality.
In her 20s, Moorman built a white collar career in New York, working in brokerage and later at the Metropolitan Mercantile and Realty Company. Active in the women’s auxiliary of the Negro Business League of New York, she served as a board member of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and, in 1906, founded the Metropolitan Business Woman’s Club of Brooklyn. The club’s goal was to fund securing a building that African-American businesses and associations could use for meetings and other activities. With the support of prominent African-American activists like Dr. M. Cravath Simpson and Mary Church Terrell,the space opened with several rooms and a business office. However, Moorman came into conflict with other club members when she incorporated the Moorman-Harper Company in 1909 to manage the hall, leading to allegations that she had usurped the entity that they had raised money for, and legal judgments against her.
In 1910, she joined Alva Belmont in the Political Equality League and began speaking in favor of suffrage. The following year, she married a minister, James H. Blackston (she would later style this as Blackstone), but they separated within six months. Facing financial difficulties, she was investigated for alleged fraud during this time and her husband filed for an annulment in 1914, claiming he hadn’t known of her previous legal troubles and that this meant they had married under false representations. The case was dismissed the next year and the judge ordered him to pay Moorman damages. She sued for separation in 1916, and was awarded alimony, $3 per week.
Also in 1916, Moorman attended Marcus Garvey’s first public lecture in New York City, and became the president of the New York chapter of UNIA’s Ladies’ Division. She later helped Garvey incorporate UNIA, and was appointed one of six board directors along with Carrie B. Mero and Harriet Rogers. She was one of the first stockholders for Garvey’s Black Star Line, which launched in 1919.
In 1930, she was chosen to be vice president of the New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs and in 1931, became president of the organization’s local and state branch. In 1944, she was elected a vice president in the Ethiopian World Federation.