Lucy Coles

{{Short description|American missionary}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Lucy Coles

| image = Lucy Ann Henry Coles born 1865.jpg

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| birth_name = 1865

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| nationality = American

|alma_mater = Virginia Union University

| other_names =

| occupation = American missionary

| years_active =

| known_for = One of the first black women missionaries in Africa

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}}

Lucy Ann Henry Coles (born 1865) was an American missionary who travelled to Liberia with her husband John J. Coles.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=htBKAAAAYAAJ&q=lucy+Coles|title=Black Women in American History: The Twentieth Century|first=Darlene Clark|last=Hine|date=19 December 1990|publisher=Carlson Pub.|isbn=9780926019157|via=Google Books}}Sandy Dwayne Martin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LQCjYGRpbaEC&dq=%22J.+J.+Coles%22+Liberia&pg=PA88 Black Baptists and African Missions: The Origins of a Movement, 1880-1915] (Mercer University Press 1989): 88. {{ISBN|9780865543539}} She was one of the first black women missionaries in Africa. She also served as president of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention after her husband's death. Elizabeth Coles Bouey was her daughter.

She was from Tennessee. She moved to Richmond at 10 and studied in public schools and then Hartshorn Memorial College for a short time until she married Rev. Coles.{{Cite web|url=https://vuuarchives.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/beyond-maggie-walker-6-other-richmond-women-from-the-turn-of-the-century/|title=Beyond Maggie Walker: 6 Other Richmond Women from the Turn of the Century|date=February 12, 2018}}

In 1898, Z.D. Lewis delivered what Coles described as a fiery speech opposing her attempt to collect funds for mission building in Liberia. Lewis was serving as moderator of the Richmond Minister's Conference.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LQCjYGRpbaEC&dq=z.d.+lewis+richmond&pg=PA160|title=Black Baptists and African Missions: The Origins of a Movement, 1880-1915|first=Sandy|last=Martin|date=1989|publisher=Mercer University Press|isbn=9780865543539|accessdate=4 June 2018|via=Google Books}}

In Liberia, she helped her husband with his work at the Bendoo Baptist Mission and was a teacher.