Nannie Helen Burroughs (May 2, 1879 – May 20, 1961) was an educator, public speaker, and civil rights activist.
Early Life
Raised by her widowed mother, she grew up in Washington D.C. where she attended the M Street High School along with Anna J. Cooper and Mary Church Terrell. She graduated with honors in 1886 and applied to teach in the District of Columbia public schools. However, she was rejected because of her dark skin color. From 1898-1909, she worked as a secretary and bookkeeper for the Foreign Mission Board of the Baptist Convention. While there, she founded the Women’s Convention where she served as president for thirteen years.
Founding of the National Training School
In 1908, Burroughs founded the National Training School for Women and Girls. There she taught job skills as well as academics, reflecting her belief that classical and industrial education belonged together. While most courses were in traditional female occupations, courses were offered in non-traditional ones as well. She also created a course in African American history and made it a requirement for graduation.
Accomplishments
She had many other accomplishments. One of her one-act plays, The Slabtown District Convention, written for performance by church theatrical groups is still performed today. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover appointed her chair of the committee on African American housing.
Legacy
Nannie Burroughs never married. The school, where she served as principal for sixty-one years, was her life’s work. She played a major role in numerous organizations, including the NAACP and National Association of Colored Women. She gave numerous speeches. Her speech at the 1900 National Baptist Convention brought her recognition and acclaim. In 1934, she was the first woman to give the commencement speech at Tuskegee University
In Her Own Words
The following excerpt is from From a Woman’s Point of View, a speech delivered January 1, 1936. It might be something we need to ponder today.
The majority of the people who are going to vote on November 3 are terribly confused. They might know for whom they are going to vote but they do not know for what they are going to vote. They have been so fed up on political swill, ballyhoo, vagaries, personalities and bunk that even those who have been doing the feeding are distressingly skeptical as to just what the millions of voters will heave up on election day.
In our desire to head off both of the men who are candidates for the presidency of the United States, we have succeeded in putting both candidates in the class of “public enemies number one” and in throwing both of the major parties into the political limbo.
If all that we hear of the lack of fitness of each one of the presidential candidates is true, which-ever way the election goes, the voters will find themselves locked up in a political inferno for the next four years or to the end of time.
The fact is the cracked-brained revenge seeking campaigners are so busy trying to head off the candidates for the presidency that we might wake up on November 4 and find that we forgot that we should have kept one eye on the presidency and the other on the men who are running for the Congress. The congressional candidates need as much watching and exposing as the presidential candidates. Some of the congressional candidates are very glad to help keep the eyes of the voters on the candidates for the presidency, so that they can slip through unscratched.
Those who know their United States congress, know too well that if the voters let a gang of half-baked political rubber stamps and nondiscripts slip by in this election, such legislators will be a greater menace to the safety of the government than any president can be, however revolutionary or reactionary he might try to be.
After all, no president can get very far from taw, if the men who sit on Capitol Hill have sense and courage enough to “sit tight.” It is necessary for the right man in to the presidency, but with all of our putting, it is just as necessary to put the right men in the Congress of the United States. There is always great danger of unfit men being swept into Congress on a party landslide.
Nannie Helen Burroughs’ Writings
Nannie Helen Burroughs’ papers can be found in the Iowa State Archives of Women’s Political Communication Here are links to the documents:
Equality of Opportunity Is the Eternal Goal – Sept. 9, 1959
On the National Front – c. 1953
What Are Men Fighting For? – April 4, 1943
Talk at Faculty Meeting – Nov. 22, 1942
Tribute to William H. Jernagin – Nov. 1942
There is Nobody Home – Undated, circa 1942
Statement Made at the Close of her Annual Report to Woman’s Convention, at St. Louis – Sept. 8, 1938
From a Woman’s Point of View – Votes for Justice and Jobs – 1936
The Challenge of the New Day: Commencement Address at Tuskegee University – May 24, 1934
How White and Colored Women can Cooperate in Building a Christian Civilization – March 29, 1933
Unload the Leeches and Parasitic “Toms” and Take the Promised Land – c. 1933
What the Negro Wants Politically – 1928
With All Thy Getting – July 1927
The Negro Woman and Suffrage – June 15, 1923
Black Women and Reform – Aug. 1915
Up from the Depths – Jan. 25, 1904
How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping – Sept. 13, 1900
A Great Woman – Mary B. Talbert – Undated
Appeal on Behalf of District of Columbia Unemployed – Undated
Churches do Not Care for the Bible – Undated
Let Your Lights Shine – Undated
What is Social Equality? – Undated
The book Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Leader is a published collection of her writings. edited by Kilisha A. Graves
More about Nannie Helen Burroughs
Black Past Nannie Helen Burroughs
What an inspiring woman! And how prescient: “If all that we hear of the lack of fitness of each one of the presidential candidates is true, which-ever way the election goes, the voters will find themselves locked up in a political inferno for the next four years or to the end of time.”
Thank you for your comment. Sometimes it seems like we are the first to experience events and experiences. But digging into history often shows we have more in common with the past than we imagine.