Sarah Massey Overton

She was born in about 1850 in Lennox, Massachusetts. Her family moved to Gilroy, California, in the 1880s and eventually they settled in San Jose, California.^[3][2] She attended the Phoenixonian Institute in San Jose, California, led by Rev. Peter William Cassey.^[3][2]

In 1869, she married Jacob Overton, native of Kentucky.^[3] She ran a catering business with her husband.^[2]

In the 1880s, she became a leader in the fight to allow African-American children in California to attend public school.^[2] In 1906, she cofounded San Jose's Garden City Women's Club, and as a member of it she lobbied in favor of interracial women's club coalitions for women's suffrage.^[2][4]

She lobbied for women's suffrage in the 1911 statewide election in California, and was vice-president of San Jose's interracial Suffrage Amendment League.^[2] She also did voter registration of men in California who supported women's suffrage, doing this through the Political Equality Club of San Jose.^[4] She was president of the all-black Victoria Earle Matthews (Mothers) Club, which helped girls and women who had been sexually abused or threatened with such.^[2]

Overton had two children, a daughter named Harriet and a son named Charles.^[5] Overton died on August 24, 1914, in San Jose, California.^[2]