In addition, Mallory became a national leader in the COGIC Women's Department. From the 1940s, she helped to create wider civic engagement of church women; they worked for a "sanctified world." Through the National Council of Negro Women, of which Mallory was a charter member beginning in 1935 and vice-president for many years, she worked for education and civil rights for African Americans. She engaged with national leaders such as Mary McLeod Bethune in the NCNW to raise funds to support her school in Mississippi and to draw women leaders into greater public life. In 1963 she was appointed to serve in President John F. Kennedy's administration.