Barbara Bynum Henderson (1880-1955) was a white women’s suffrage activist known at the state level. Henderson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1902 with membership in the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa. She met her husband, Archibald Henderson, at UNC, and they married in 1903. Her husband accepted a teaching position in the sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the couple also supported the school’s drama department.
In addition to her academic acclaim and widespread recognition as a poet and translator, Henderson helped to lead the women’s suffrage movement in North Carolina. She organized the Equal Suffrage League of North Carolina, wrote many pieces on its behalf, and represented the organization at the General Assembly in 1915. Her most famous suffrage poem is March of Women (1915); in the poem, Henderson encouraged not just women but people of all genders, races, sexual orientations, and physical abilities to pursue their equal place in society, arguing that women’s suffrage cannot be separated from other civil movements.