Alcenya Crowley | |
Birth Name: | Alcenya McElwain |
Birth Date: | 26 April 1926 |
Birth Place: | St. Paul, Minnesota, United States |
Death Date: | September 12, 2010 |
Death Place: | Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
Nationality: | American, Canadian |
Other Names: | Alcenya Crowley-Morrow |
Occupation: | Educator Activist |
Alcenya Crowley (April 3, 1926 – September 12, 2010), born Alcenya McElwain, was an American-born Canadian educator and activist.
Alcenya McElwain was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the daughter of William McElwain.[1] She was educated at the Minneapolis School of Business. She later studied marketing at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and earned a degree in political science from York University.
Crowley worked in a law office, in an accountant's office, at the Metropolitan Children's Aid Society, and then as a secretary for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She later taught business for the Toronto District School Board, retiring in 1991.[2]
Crowley joined the Canadian Negro Women's Association (CANEWA),[3] later the Congress of Black Women of Canada. She served as vice-president from 1957 to 1958 and as president from 1959 to 1960. She chaired CANEWA's first Calypso Carnival, drawing on the cultures of the organization's Caribbean-born members. She represented CANEWA at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.[4]
She married a Canadian podiatrist, William Richard "Buddy" Crowley, in 1951, and moved to Toronto with him.
Crowley was widowed when her husband died in 1963;[5] she died in Credit Valley Hospital in 2010, at the age of 84.[6]