Edith L. Williams (August 17, 1887 – June 9, 1987) was a United States Virgin Islands educator, women's rights activist, and suffragist. Williams was the first woman who attempted to vote in the Virgin Islands and when she was denied the right to register, she petitioned the court along with Eulalie Stevens and Anna M. Vessup to review their qualifications. They won their case and subsequently women throughout the Virgin Islands who were literate and property owners were allowed to vote. A bust of Williams was installed in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Veterans Memorial Park in Charlotte Amalie, and the James Madison Elementary School was renamed as the Edith L. Williams School in 1981 in her honor. Early life and education Edith L. Williams was born on August 17, 1887, on the island of Saint Thomas in the Danish Virgin Islands. Both of her parents had been born on Saint Croix. During her youth, she played cricket for the Harlem Virgin Islands Girls team and traveled several times to compete in matches in the United States. She was both a batter and a bowler in cricket, and also helped organize a girls' soft ball team in St. Thomas. Williams completed her education at the age of 13 in the missionary schools run by the Moravian Church. Career In 1900, Williams began teaching at the Moravian Town School in Charlotte Amalie. Early in her career, she had joined with other women to work on issues which would improve the lives of teachers and their students. They formed the St. Thomas Teachers' Association and worked to establish a Teachers' Institute to train candidates and improve the education of those already in the teaching profession. Members of the Association later voluntarily taught students who wanted to continue their education beyond the mandatory 9th school grade and were instrumental in graduating the first high school students in 1931 and establishing high school education on the island. Williams transferred to George Washington Elementary School from the Moravian School in 1917. In that year, the Danish West Indies was sold to the United States and the Colonial Law of 1906 passed by Denmark for governance in the islands was retained for the unincorporated territory. When women in the United States gained the right to vote in 1920 through the Nineteenth Amendment, it was widely believed that Virgin Islands women already had suffrage by virtue of the