Carrie Barnes Ross

Carolyn (or Caroline) V. Barnes was born in Kentucky in the 1880s^[1] to Charles Henry Barnes and Lillie Peters Barnes. She was raised by her widowed mother and maternal grandmother in Denver, Colorado.^[2] She graduated from Denver High School in 1902, and from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1905.^[3][4]

Barnes taught at Tuskegee Institute for three years after college.^[5] In 1908 she moved to Indianapolis and taught school in the segregated schools of the Indianapolis Public School District.^[6] She was active in the leadership for the Camp Fire girls and secretary of the Indianapolis chapter of the NAACP.^[7] She gave addresses at church and community events,^{[8][9][10][11]} and hosted meetings of a literary society in her home.^[12]

Barnes attended a 1912 woman's suffrage meeting at the home of Madam C. J. Walker, organized by attorney Freeman Briley Ransom.^[13] Ross was elected president of the resulting group,^[14][15] which was known as Branch No. 7 of the Equal Suffrage League of Indiana.^[16][17] "We all feel that colored women have need for the ballot that white women have, and a great many needs that they have not," she wrote of their work.^[18] For four years she worked for suffrage in Indianapolis's Black community.^[19] She often spoke at events with fellow teacher Frances Berry Coston.^{[6][20][21][22]}

Barnes married a dentist, Hubert Heaton Washington Ross, in 1916, and moved to Boston with him.^[23] She died shortly after giving birth to her son in 1918, in her thirties, in Boston.^[2][12] In January 2020, she was recognized by Congresswoman Susan Brooks on the floor of the United States House of Representatives for her suffrage work in Indiana.^[24] In 2023, her image was included in a new mural at Indianapolis's Bicentennial Unity Plaza.^[25]