Dates

• Existence: 1925 - 2000

Biography

Martha Ann Furgerson Nash, civil rights activist and community and religious leader, was born September 26, 1925 in Sedalia, Missouri, to Dr. Lee B. and Lily Nina Williams Furgerson. She attended school in Waterloo, Iowa, and graduated from East High School in 1943. Furgerson earned a B.A. in history (with honors) from Talladega Collegein Talladega, Alabama, in 1947. The following year she married Warren Nash. They moved to Omaha, Nebraska, while he attended medical school at Creighton University and returned to Waterloo when he graduated in 1953.

Over the next four decades, particularly in the1960s and 1970s (as she bore and raised seven children), Nash under took numerous responsibilities within her community, on local, national, and international levels. Among many other commitments, she served on the board of directors of the Black Hawk County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for over a decade beginning in 1962. From 1965 to 1971 she was involved with the Iowa State Conference of NAACP Branches. Nash chaired the Black Hawk County Conferenceon Religion and Race from its inception in 1963 until its demise three years later. She and Warren Nash participated in its Home Visits Project, where people of one race visited people of anotherin their homes. From 1966 to 1983 she served in most leadership positions in the Dubuque Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women (ACCW), including the presidency. Nash was also a member of the Dubuque Archdiocesan Pastoral Council from 1972 to 1982 and of the Black Hawk-Bremer County League of Women Voters board of directors from 1974 to 1982.

On the national level, Nash chaired theInternational Affairs Commission for the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) from 1970 to 1973, in which capacity she attended a United Nations seminar for non-governmental organizations in 1971 and a 1972 international Cyprus peace conference.

During the 1980s Nash's career took a slightly different turn as she became more deeply involved in education and healthcare. She was executive director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Education and Vocational Training in Waterloo from 1981 untilher retirement on February 1, 1995. She ran for Black Hawk County supervisor in 1982, became a radio talk-show host on KBBG-FM (Iowa's first black-owned and operated radio station), and served on the Waterloo Community Schools Career Education Advisory Council and the State Planning and Accountability Report Committee of the Iowa Department of Public Instruction. Nash also was president of the Board ofDirectors of the Waterloo People's Community Health Clinic, a member of the Community Health Planning Council of Black Hawk County, and on the Board of Directors of Adults Care, Inc. (since 1974), an adult day-care center in Waterloo, among other duties.

On March 27, 1979 her husband, Warren Nash, died.

As of 1995 she was a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Waterloo,the Black Hawk County Branch of the NAACP, and the Black Hawk-Bremer County League of Women Voters.

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