Julia A. J. Foote (1823–1901)

Julia Foote was born in Schenectady, New York, to parents who were former slaves. As a child, she worked as a domestic servant to help support the family.
Julia was troubled by her inability to read, especially to read the Bible for herself, and even after she became literate at about age nine or ten, she longed for additional education.
The family moved to Albany, where they attended the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, to which Julia became committed. At age 16, she married George Foote, a sailor, and moved to Boston, where she began to preach at an AME Zion Church there despite opposition from her husband and the pastor. Expelled from this congregation in 1844, Julia traveled to cities and towns across the northern USA and as far west as Ohio as an itinerant preacher. She drew crowds as large as 5,000 people in 1878. In 1894, Julia became the first woman to be ordained a deacon and in 1900, the second to be ordained an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Her autobiography was entitled A Brand Plucked from the Fire: An Autobiographical Sketch.