From NCpedia

Helen Edmonds was an American historian, university professor and civic leader. She is especially noted for her 1947 Ph.D. dissertation as well as her thirty-six-year career at North Carolina Central University. Her Ph.D. research uncovered a more accurate narrative of the 1898 white supremacist political coup in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Ms. Edmonds also contributed at the local, national and international level to many social and civic causes. She was active in national Republican Party efforts. And she was a member of the U.S. Armed Forces Defense Advisory Council on Women. She chaired the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. in 1970, and she served on the Peace Corps’ National Advisory Council. She was an active member of several African American women’s organizations, as well as the NAACP.