The United States' 19th-century women's club movement has both inspiring and complicated legacies. Many fought for civil rights, but in ways that were segregated.
Some white women were doing radical things under a cloak of respectability that helped change America. But then they were often exhibiting racism and not living up to their own ideals.
Lorna Truck, 76, the Des Moines club's historian, said: They were social activists, ahead of their time. Our motto is: Discussion stimulates thought.
The clubs that still exist are now changing, becoming more diverse and also grappling with some of the legacies of their own racist pasts.
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