Jack and Jill of America

In January 1938, Marion Turner Stubbs organized a group of 12 mothers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to establish a social and cultural union for their children, who were excluded from many activities because of segregation.

[8] The local group became an inter-city association, expanding to Pittsburgh; Baltimore; Boston; Buffalo; Columbus, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina; and Memphis, Tennessee between 1944 and 1946.

[8] In its early years, Jack and Jill was a prestigious club that helped African American children "fit into white America".

[8] Chapters began to offer Afrocentric programs, including an African rite of passage for teenagers going to college.

[1] In 1968, the organization created its philanthropic arm, the Jack and Jill of America Foundation, incorporated in the State of Illinois.

[8][2] The foundation has been responsible for the origin and funding of many educational and charitable projects benefiting children and families in communities across the United States.

It has contributed millions of dollars to Black-focuses organizations and projects, including: Africare, the American Red Cross, the United Negro College Fund, the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the March of Dimes, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

[10] Jack and Jill has been criticized by many African Americans as " a bunch of elitist, bourgeois, light-skinned Blacks who want to be white".