Born a slave, Emma Ray was the saint of Seattle’s slums

A small African-American woman, born a slave in Missouri, Emma Ray walked unafraid in the meanest streets of Seattle because she believed that she was a child of God, and that her work was divine. As a local leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, her purpose, as she saw it, was to minister to the “lost people” of Seattle – alcoholics, prostitutes, addicts, and more. She went into the brothels, slums, prisons, and saloons, as well as places few entered. She even invited large numbers of destitute women, men, and children into her home, that they might get on their feet.
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