An early feminist, a founding member of the NAACP, a Unitarian, a pacifist and a socialist, she counted among her friends people like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Asa Philip Randolph and Jack London.

She regularly wrote for progressive newspapers of the time, including The Messenger, The Masses, the New York Evening Post and The Call. She also published several books including:

• Half a Man (1911) a study of Black Manhattan
• Status of the Negro in the United States (1913)
• Socialism and the Feminist Movement (1914)
• The Upward Path (1919) an anthology for black children
• Portraits in Color (1927) biographical sketches of prominent African Americans
• Reminiscences (1932) an autobiography
• The Walls Come Tumbling Down (1947) a history of the NAACP