[2] She and her sister Myra Colson Callis both spoke at the 1915 commencement ceremony at Fisk.

In 1937 Colson chaired the committee to implement the program offering graduate courses to African Americans at Virginia State University.

She was among the first women to register to vote after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and she was the first African-American woman to become a lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

They occupied the house in Chesterfield County, Virginia, named "Azurest South", which was designed by Meredith.

[2] She died at the age of 96 in a Colonial Heights nursing home on January 17, 1985, and was buried at Eastview Cemetery, Petersburg City, Virginia.