first Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment in June 1919. In October 1919, Ames founded the Texas League of Women Voters and served as its first president until 1923. In 1923, she represented the national League of Women Voters at the Pan American Congress. She also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1920, 1924, and 1928. Ames served in several other organizations including the Texas branch of the American Association of University Women, Texas Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, and the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs. She was an officer of the Joint Legislative Council in Texas, also known as the Petticoat Lobby, and was on the Board of Education of the Women's Division of the Methodist Church. In 1924, Ames became the director of the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) based in Atlanta. In 1929, she moved to Atlanta to become the national director of the CIC Woman's Committee. Crockett State School The project to create a home and training school for delinquent African American girls was one of the few instances of interracial cooperation among Texas women. Between 1916 and 1945, the Texas Federation of Colored Women's Clubs (TACWC) campaigned for the creation of the institution and offered to donate the land. In 1923, the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and the Joint Legislative Council, both white women's organizations, endorsed the concept. That year, the TACWC raised $2,000 for the down payment on a home. The organization bought land in San Antonio and was able to offer $5,500 as a downpayment. In 1926, Ames toured the state speaking on behalf of the project to white women's organizations. The Texas legislature passed a bill in 1927 creating the home and school for delinquent black girls but made no appropriations. It took 18 years before the Texas legislature approved funding. In 1945, the legislature appropriated $60,000 to establish the Brady State School for Negro Girls located in a former prisoner of war camp near Brady, Texas. In 1950, the school relocated to Crockett, Texas, and was renamed the Crockett State School for Girls. Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching In 1930, Ames, with the CIC's financial help, founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL) with headquarters in Atlanta. The organization excluded African American women and appealed directly to white Southern women to stop lynching. The