A long-time educator and a frequent contributor, Washington devised articles to magazines and newspapers typically concerning some aspect of racism in America.

According to Hines, her great-grandfather took care that their children received an education and also broke with common practice in allowing his slaves to learn basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

After her graduation she taught mathematics at Howard University until her marriage in 1888 to Dr. Samuel Somerville Hawkins Washington brought her to Birmingham, Alabama.

[5] She covered the gauntlet of issues concerning African-Americans, including employment and educational opportunities, the raising of children, and the challenges that threatens the bond between women and men.

With an eye to discrimination on all levels of society, Washington noted, for instance, the playgrounds that were set aside for the exclusive use of white children, while black children "look on longingly, but dare not touch the sacred structure.These and other articles are gathered in Rita Dandridge's edition of The Collected Essays of Josephine J. Turpin Washington: A Black Reformer in the Post-Reconstruction South (University of Virginia Press, 2019).