In 1891, she was awarded a book prize for being the top reader and a silver cup for being crowned the winner at a tri-school spelling bee.

In this role, she traveled extensively to raise funds for Simmons University, lecturing on the importance of a Christian education.

Parrish spoke at a number of Baptist Conventions on the importance of an equal education for all, women's rights and social reform.

[7] In an edition of the woman's column in the journal American Baptist, she wrote: White faces seem to think it their heaven-born right to practice civil war on negroes, to the extent of blood-shed and death.

The negro is still clothed in swarthy skin, and he is still robbed of his rights as a citizen, made clear and fairly won to him by the death of those who fell in the late Rebellion.

On January 26, 1898, after working for a short time as a secretary for the Eckstein Norton Institute in Cane Springs, Kentucky, she married Charles Henry Parrish.

Parrish and her husband led the establishment of the Kentucky Home Finding Society for Colored Children in Louisville in 1908,[10] and she served on the board until it was closed in 1937.

[11] Parrish led the efforts of the Louisville affiliate of the National Association of Colored Women in addressing education reform, health care and child welfare.

[12] In the 1930s when Parrish learned she could not join a Parent Teacher Association in Louisville, Kentucky, she organized her own in the city's black-only school.