Post office to be named after Black suffragist, journalist

FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2020, file photo, mail delivery vehicles are parked outside a post office in Boys Town, Neb. The United States Post Office said Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021 that it has chosen Oshkosh Defense to build its next-generation mail-delivery vehicle, part of an effort to make the USPS more environmentally friendly by switching a portion of its huge fleet to electric vehicles. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)(AP/Nati Harnik)

WILMINGTON, Del. — A post office at in Delaware will be renamed after a Black woman who was an abolitionist, suffragist and newspaper editor in the 19th Century.

The Delaware State News reported Wednesday that the post office in Wilmington will be renamed after Mary Ann Shadd Cary.

Cary was the first Black woman to establish and edit a North American newspaper. She helped recruit Black soldiers for the Civil War. And she later became a suffragist who helped pass the 14th and 15th amendments.

Delaware Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester was instrumental in getting the renaming legislation passed. So were Delaware’s two U.S. Senators, Tom Carper and Chris Coons.