Entry · catalog no. 4354
lifting as we climb
/ /ˈlɪftɪŋ æz wiː klaɪm/ /LIF-ting az wee klyme
phrase · National; founded in Washington, DC · 1890s
✓ Verified
1.
The principle that individual advancement is illegitimate unless it raises the rest with it — specifically a Black woman's obligation to carry poorer Black women and the community along while she is climbing herself.
“She took the appointment and took four of us with her. Lifting as we climb.”
Origin & Attribution
Motto of the National Association of Colored Women, formed in July 1896 in Washington, DC, out of the merger of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Woman's Era Club of Boston and the Colored Women's League. Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Frances E. W. Harper and Mary Church Terrell were among its members; Terrell, its first president, is commonly credited with the phrase, though that particular attribution is softer than the 1896 date. The motto was adopted to show, in the Association's own words, an ignorant and suspicious world that our aims and interests are identical with those of all good aspiring women — racial uplift and respectability politics in a single line.
1896
The National Association of Colored Women forms in Washington, DC, and adopts the motto
1900s
Carried across the Black clubwomen's movement and its affiliates nationwide
2010s
The Smithsonian's NMAAHC displays a Lifting as We Climb banner
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
National; founded in Washington, DC · 1890s
Spoken by
Black clubwomen; sororities and Black women's organizations
$LIFTINThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring130 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
64/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1896
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
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@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
National Association of Colored Women founding, Washington, DC
1896
■
National Museum of African American History and Culture, Lifting as We Climb banner
2010s
■
+ Cite a sourceBlackPast, National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc. (1896)
2007
See also