Annie Clo Watson

Annie Clo (or Chloe) Watson was born in Repton, Alabama,^[1] and raised in Texas,^[2] the daughter of William Watson and Mattie E. Robbins Watson. Both of her parents were also born in Alabama; her father was a doctor.^[3] She attended Southwestern University in Texas, where she played basketball and was president of her class.^[4] She pursued further training in social work at Columbia University School of Social Work.^[5]

Watson became executive director of the YWCA's International Institute in San Antonio, Texas in 1928.^[6][7] She became executive director of the International Institute in San Francisco in 1932,^[8][9] and was president of the local chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. In 1944 helped to found the Fellowship Church for All People with Howard Thurman.^[10][11] She was active in the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Conference of Social Work.^[12]

During World War II, she organized the Pacific Coast Committee for American Principles and Fair Play,^[13] hoping to mitigate some of the impact of the internment of Japanese Americans, and worked on war relocation issues at the YWCA's national headquarters in New York.^[14] "She was among those who really went to bat for persons of Japanese ancestry at the outbreak of the war," commented an obituary in the Pacific Citizen newspaper.^[15]

In 1948 she testified before a Congressional hearing on housing issues in San Francisco,^[16] and spoke on a panel at the national meeting of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in Salt Lake City.^[17] In 1952 she testified before the President's Commission on Immigration and Naturalization, about the effects of changing laws on Asian Americans and Latino Americans in California,^[18] and wrote a report, "The Social Integration of Mexicans and Other Latin Americans in San Francisco and the Bay Region" for the National Council on Naturalization and Citizenship.^[19] Watson's writing on immigration was published in Journal of Educational Psychology.^[20] She chaired the International Institute's Committee for Information on the Adoption of Japanese Children.^[21] She retired in 1958, but continued as a consultant with the United Community Fund of San Francisco State College.^[15][22]

Watson won the Koshland Award for Social Work in 1945.^[23] The national JACL presented Watson with a Scroll of Appreciation in 1956.^[15] In 1960, after she died, the JACL encouraged donations to the Annie Clo Watson Scholarship for Social Workers as a memorial.^[24] Another memorial fund, the Annie Clo Watson Scholarship, funded a woman attendee at the West Coast Encampment for Citizenship.^[25]

Watson died from cancer in 1960 at her home in Berkeley, California, aged 68 years.^[15][22] Her gravesite is with her parents' graves, in Uvalde, Texas. The University of Minnesota holds a collection of Annie Clo Watson papers.^[26]