Who We Are

Members of The Links, Incorporated are influential decision makers and opinion leaders representing the worlds of business, government, media, academia, philanthropy, the arts, and more. The Links, Incorporated has attracted many distinguished women who are individual achievers and have made a difference in their local communities and the world.

Founding Members

On the evening of November 9, 1946, Margaret Rosell Hawkins and Sarah Strickland Scott, two young Philadelphia visionaries, invited seven of their friends to join them in organizing a new type of inter-city club. This organizing meeting of The Links was not a spontaneous action. In 1945, Hawkins had conceived the idea of a group of clubs composed of friends along the eastern seaboard and had spent many hours with Scott in thinking, planning and discussing the possibilities of such an endeavor. The two women envisioned an organization that would respond to the needs and aspirations of Black women in ways that existing clubs did not. It was their intent that the club would have a threefold aim-civic, educational, and cultural.

Based on these aims, the club would implement programs, which its founders hoped would foster cultural appreciation through the arts; develop richer inter-group relations; and help women who participated to understand and accept their social and civic responsibilities. Besides the two founders, the original members of the Philadelphia Club were Frances Atkinson, Katie Greene, Marion Minton, Lillian Stanford, Myrtle Manigault Stratton, Lillian Wall, and Dorothy Wright. The club elected Margaret Rosell Hawkins as president, Sarah Strickland Scott as vice president, Myrtle Manigault Stratton as recording secretary, Frances Atkinson as corresponding secretary, and Dorothy Wright as treasurer.

Margaret Roselle Hawkins

Margaret Rosell Hawkins

Margaret Hawkins was born Margaret Josephine Rosell on January 12, 1908, in Philadelphia. She was the youngest of two daughters of David and Anna Rosell. While attending the Philadelphia High School for Girls, her innate artistic talent was discovered and she entered the special program in the field of art.

However, she is probably best remembered at Girls’ High for leading her black classmates in a determined effort to attend the annual and, at that time, all-white senior prom. Rather than yield to the pressure for an integrated prom, school officers cancelled the affair. This co-founder and second national president of The Links graduated from Girls’ High in January 1927, and entered Philadelphia Normal School the following month. In June of that year, the Philadelphia Board of Education awarded her a four-year scholarship to the Women’s School of Design, later known as the Moore Institute of Art.

Sarah Strickland Scott

Sarah Strickland Scott, co-founder and first national president of The Links, Incorporated, was born in Philadelphia. The daughter of Dr. George G. and Minnie L. Strickland, she was also the sister and widow of physicians. Scott attended elementary and secondary schools and college in her home city. After majoring in English at the University of Pennsylvania, she began her career as a teacher in the Philadelphia high schools. Scott did graduate study in the field of guidance and received her master’s degree from Columbia University. For many years she was a guidance counselor at the Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware.

In her profession as well as in her avocational activities, Scott projected a deep and abiding concern for the well being of young people who needed some direction in their life choices. Many of her activities were youth or family oriented. She was active in Jack and Jill and served a term as national president of that organization. She was married to Dr. Horace C. Scott and was the mother of one daughter, Marjorie Ann Scott Upshur, who pre-deceased her. She had two grandchildren, Robert Scott and Lisa Upshur.

Sarah Strickland Scott

Frances Atkinson

Frances Vashon Atkinson was born in St. Louis and began her education there. Later she attended schools in Cleveland…read more

Marion Minton

Marion Minton was also born in Philadelphia and attended the University of Pennsylvania…read more

Katie Murphy Greene

Katie Murphy Greene, the daughter of Sidney and Belle Glascow Murphy, was born in Eugaula, Alabama…read more

Lillian C. Stanford

Lillian C. Stanford was born in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, and graduated from West Virginia State College…read more

Myrtle C. Manigault Stratton

Myrtle C. Manigault Stratton was a native of Philadelphia although at the time of the organization she was living…read more

Lillian Hudson Wall

Lillian Hudson Wall, wife of Dr. Lonnie C. Wall, was a native of Waynesborough, Georgia…read more

Dorothy Bell Wright

Dorothy Bell Wright is a native of Philadelphia. She attended the School of Accounts and Finance of the University of Pennsylvania…read more

Honorary Members