W. Gertrude Brown was the first director of the Phyllis Wheatley House, which opened in 1924 as the first settlement house to serve Black people in Minneapolis.
hired to live there.
There is a a lot that is condescending and colonial in the settlement house movement, but elements of it that
And Gertrude Brown transcended the settlement house movement, building it into an organization providing crucial services—a library, day care, a medical clinic, and lodging. (The white women who founded Phyllis Wheatley House only thought to focus on recreation, education, music, and theater. All very nice, but not, as many Settlement Houses
Also vitally important, Gertrude Brown made and kept Phyllis Wheatley House a community space for — labor unions waging strikes and radical community organizing.