In 1919, she fundraised for the Red Cross, and led the drive to establish a chapter of the Urban League and a community center for African-American men.

That year, she also established a Kansas City chapter of the Negro Women’s National Republican League, of which she was elected chairman.

She and her fellow delegates “use[d] the congress as a forum for a critique of American society and of black responses within that society.”[3]: 128,165 By 1926, Becks was serving as the president of the City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

That year, the Federation clashed with the local NAACP when the latter called for a boycott of a performance of The Miracle, due to the show's purportedly segregated seating.

Becks and a friend eschewed the boycott; they purchased tickets and attended the show, in her words, "unmolested, in a section where very few colored people were seated.