Biographical Database of Black Women Suffragists
Biography of PINKIE B. (WILLIAMS) BELCHER REEVES, 1888-1953
By Linda D. Wilson, Independent Historian
African American politico Pinkie B. (Williams) Belcher Reeves, born on November 28, 1888, in Tennessee, was the daughter of Thomas and Caroline (Ray) Williams. On June 29, 1904, she married Jesse Belcher in Calloway County, Kentucky. They had five children (Thomas, William, Pauline, Fred, and Christine). When Jesse Belcher registered for the draft during World War I, the family lived in Madison, Illinois. He died in East St. Louis, Illinois, on October 16, 1919, leaving her to rear the children. She later married Burton Reeves, who worked for Monsanto Chemical Company. They lived in East Saint Louis, where she worked as a clerk at the state free employment office in the 1930s and as a county juvenile probation officer in the late 1940s. In 1934 Pinkie Reeves helped organize a chapter of the Original Illinois Housewives Association in East St. Louis. The nonprofit organization, headquartered in Chicago, accomplished social and philanthropic activities as well as demonstrated improved housekeeping skills to African American women
Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Pinkie Reeves became active in the Republican Party in the 1920s. She was state organizer of the Colored Women's Republican Clubs of Illinois that had organized in 1922. She was also a member of its affiliated club known as the Central Colored Women's Republican Club, Number One, of East St. Louis and St. Clair County. As a paid canvasser, she participated in the successful Congressional campaign of Republican Ruth Hanna McCormick in 1928. Reeves heard McCormick speak at the Illinois Republican Convention in 1927. Like other African American women in Illinois, Reeves believed that McCormick would help women gain recognition for their accomplishments in the betterment of their communities through work and social efforts.
After McCormick was elected, Reeves continued to participate in politics. In the 1930s as district chairwoman, she spoke before organized meetings and women's teas of the African American Republicans. In October 1940, during the campaign of Wendell L. Willkie for president of the United States, Reeves addressed a Republican meeting in East Saint Louis.
Pinkie Reeves died on November 13, 1953, in East Saint Louis. She was preceded in death by three children. Her husband Burton Reeves died on July 21, 1969. All are buried in Booker T. Washington Cemetery in Centreville, Illinois.
Sources: Alton (Illinois) Evening Telegraph, January 29, 1930 and October 26 and 28, 1936. Burton Reeves, U.S. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014, and Find A. Grave, accessed on Ancestry.com, December 15, 2018. Chicago (Illinois) Tribune, October 25, 1940. East Saint Louis, Illinois, City Directory, 1948 and 1950, accessed on Ancestry.com, December 15, 2018. East Saint Louis (Illinois) Journal, November 16, 1953 and July 22, 1969. Edwardsville (Illinois) Intelligencer, October 28 and 30, 1936. Illinois Death Certificate for Pinkie B. Reeves, dated November 16, 1953. Kentucky Marriage Records, 1852-1914, accessed on Ancestry.com, December 15, 2018. Charles L. Lumpkins, American Pogrom: The East St. Louis Race Riot and Black Politics (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008). Lisa G. Materson, For the Freedom of Her Race: Black Women and Electoral Politics in Illinois, 1877-1932 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). Pinkie B. Reeves, Find A Grave, accessed on Ancestry.com, December 15, 2018. U.S. Census, 1940, East St. Louis, St. Clair Co., Illinois. World War I Draft Registration Card for Jesse Belcher, accessed on Ancestry.com, December 20, 2018. World War II Draft Registration card for Burton Reeves, accessed on Ancestry.com, December 15, 2018.
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