She was the first Black woman to be a major party's nominee for a Congressional seat, when she was the Republican candidate who opposed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1944.

Her father was a lawyer and newspaper editor; her mother was a pianist, organist, music educator,[1][2] and founder of the Detroit Study Club.

Pelham graduated from Dunbar High School and from the University of Michigan in 1924, where she majored in chemistry,[5][6] and protested unequal treatment at a lunch counter near campus.

[16] The New York Amsterdam News framed her loss as holding the promise of future success: "The old precedent has been broken and the way opened for a Congresswoman from the ranks of Negro women.

[8][18] Speaks was active in the Urban League,[19] Delta Sigma Theta, the New York State Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.