Nellie F. Griswold Francis (November 7, 1874 – December 13, 1969) was an African-American suffragist, civic leader, and civil rights activist.

Francis founded and led the Everywoman Suffrage Club, an African-American suffragist group that helped win women the right to vote in Minnesota.

[2][3] When she and her lawyer husband, William T. Francis, bought a home in a white neighborhood, they were the targets of a Ku Klux Klan terror campaign.

[3] She gave a passionate talk at the high school's commencement titled "The Race Problem", winning second place for oratory.

In 1892, for example, The Appeal reported that "several young ladies will conduct a mock trial, Misses Fannie Dodd and Nellie Griswold will act as lawyers.

Or they must reap in the bitterness of sorrow the fruits of our passivity and indifference; the frittering of our strength by suffering, petty strife and narrow jealousies to becloud the larger vision of our responsibility to coming generations."

In 1914, Francis resigned from her job to devote herself full-time to community work and civil rights activism, particularly women's suffrage and racial discrimination and violence.

[13] She also served as the president of the Minnesota State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs,[8] the board of the local NAACP chapter, and was active in the Republican Party.

Three young African-Americans who worked in a visiting circus, 19-year-old Elias Clayton, 22-year-old Elmer Jackson, and 20-year-old Isaac McGhie, were among a group accused of gang-raping a white woman, although there was no direct evidence a rape occurred.

[21][22] Francis responded by initiating a campaign for legislation, drafting an anti-lynching bill, and using her considerable community and political influence to build support for the law.

[2] In presenting her with a silver loving cup, James Loomis, of the NAACP, said: "Ever since girlhood and her graduation she has devoted the principal activities of her life to the uplift of our race.

The creation of the Anti-Lynching Bill and the work, time and energy spent by her in order to secure its passage, proves that her ambition is to help her fellowmen.

[27] The Francis' would themselves become the targets of escalating racist abuse and Ku Klux Klan attacks a few years later when they bought a home in a white neighborhood in St.

[4] The couple bought a two-storey house (with a title held in Juno Frankie Pierce's name) in Sargent Avenue, Groveland Park, experiencing an increasingly vicious Ku Klux Klan campaign to stop them moving in.

In 1930, the United States House of Representatives voted not to grant her the equivalent of a year of her husband's salary, on the grounds that it was not shown that she was dependent on him.

[4] Around that time, Francis was living in Long Beach, California, after attending the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

In 1921, Francis was honored with a silver loving cup and a ceremony at the Pilgrim Baptist Church, "on behalf of the race, men and women of St. Paul, as a small token of appreciation for your effort in behalf of the race, in conceiving and working for the consummation of the Anti-Lynch Law passed in the Legislature April 18, 1921".

[2] Francis was honored by the Nashville Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women in a tribute at the Student Union Center of Fisk University in 1962.