Nannie Helen Burroughs

Educator and activist

• Born: May 2, 1879
• Birthplace: Orange, Virginia
• Died: May 20, 1961
• Place of death: Washington, D. C.

A tireless crusader for women’s education and self-sufficiency, black pride, and women’s rights, Burroughs founded the National Training School for Women and Girls and was responsible for the establishment of the Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Convention, using it as a vehicle by which black women could address political, social, and religious concerns.

Early Life

Nannie Helen Burroughs (NA-nee BUH-rohs) was born in 1879 in Orange, Virginia. She was the elder of the two children of John Burroughs, a farmer and an itinerant Baptist preacher, and Jennie Poindexter Burroughs, a domestic worker. After her sister died in infancy, Burroughs grew up as an only child. When she was five, she and her mother moved to Washington, D.C., to find work and better schools. They lived with her aunt, Claudia Mercer. Jennie, a former slave with limited work skills, struggled to provide for her family, and Burroughs became acutely aware of the value of self-sufficiency.

Typhoid fever caused Burroughs to miss more than two years of elementary school, but she worked hard to catch up. She attended the M Street High School, one of the best schools in the nation at the time. In high school and in the Baptist church, she became a well-respected orator, organizer, and leader. Burroughs organized the Harriet Beecher Stowe Literary Society and participated in many school and church activities. She graduated with honors in domestic science and business. Burroughs’s mentors were Mary Church Terrell and Anna Julian Copper, with whom she would later work. She was greatly influenced by her pastor, the Reverend Walter H. Brooks, who was active in social reform.

After graduating from high school, Burroughs was well qualified to become a domestic teacher but could not find a job. She took the civil-service examination and earned a high score but was told that there were no positions for “colored girls.” She moved to Philadelphia to work as a secretary for The Christian Banner, then for the National Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board. She moved to Kentucky in 1900 when the convention’s headquarters were relocated there.

Burroughs’s disappointment at her limited job opportunities—possibly because of her race and class—motivated her to empower African American women, especially those in the lower classes, through education.

Life’s Work

By the age of twenty-one, Burroughs already had begun building organizations and demonstrating her leadership skills. She organized a women’s industrial club that offered evening vocational classes to black women. Burroughs also led the push for the establishment of a Woman’s Convention (WC) as an auxiliary arm of the National Baptist Convention (NBC). In a speech titled “How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping” at the NBC in 1900, she expressed dissatisfaction with the prohibition against women working in the ministry. This persuasive speech was instrumental in gaining approval to establish the WC, which would become the largest black women’s group in the United States. Burroughs was elected secretary and served in this position until 1947. Through Burroughs’s vigorous efforts, in just three years the WC represented more than one million black Baptist women, raised large sums of money for missions, organized missionary education and missionary societies in every state, and supported missionaries in several other countries. Burroughs also made an impact on the international level when she was one of the major speakers at the first meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in London in 1905. In 1948, she was elected president of the WC and served in that role until her death. The WC was pivotal in the struggle for women’s rights and other social reforms. Burroughs also is responsible for the celebration of the annual Women’s Day in the African American Baptist Church.

Though not college-educated, Burroughs was a renowned educator. She believed that education could lift African Americans and wanted to give women and girls of all classes a chance to be self-sufficient. Burroughs approached the WC to build a school to prepare women for domestic and professional service, train them for missionary work, and prepare them to be Sunday school teachers. In 1909, the National Training School for Women and Girls opened in Washington, D.C. It incorporated training in practical and professional skills, Christian morality, and leadership. The school was renamed the National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls in 1934, and then became the Nannie Helen Burroughs School in 1964. It was later converted into a private, coeducational elementary school.

Burroughs was a champion for equality and spoke out against political and social injustices, including racial discrimination, sexism, lynching, employment discrimination, pay inequity, denial of voting rights, and racial and social prejudice. She used WC meetings to address these topics of social reform. Her adamant stands on these issues even caused her to be placed on a government watch list.

Burroughs also contributed to the success of a number of organizations outside the church, including the National Urban League and the National Association of Colored Women, of which she was a regional president. In 1922, she organized the short-lived National Association of Wage Earners, she was one of the organizers of the International Council of Women of Darker Races, and in 1924, she was a founding member and president of the National League of Republican Colored Women.

A compelling orator, Burroughs was frequently called upon to give speeches. Her candor, especially on sensitive issues regarding integration, gender, and race, was not always welcomed by the NBC. She also published many pamphlets designed to help African American women. Her first handbook was What to Do and How to Do It (1907). Her pamphlet “Twelve Things the Negro Must Do for Himself” emphasizes her ideology of self-reliance. In 1908, she wrote a humorous play, The Slabtown District Convention.

Burroughs received many accolades, including an honorary degree from Eckstein-Norton University in 1907, an Honor Roll plaque for distinguished public service from The Afro-American newspaper in 1959, and the designation of May 10, 1975, as Nannie Helen Burroughs Day in the District of Columbia. Burroughs died on May 20, 1961, in Washington, D.C.

Significance

Burroughs was a pioneer for women’s rights. She devoted her life to uplifting her race, especially through the education of young African American women. Through the Women’s Convention, her school, and other organizations in which she was involved, she worked vigorously for racial and gender equality.

Bibliography

Easter, Opal V. Nannie Helen Burroughs. New York: Garland, 1995. Includes excellent information on Burroughs’s life, her school, and her other adult-education efforts.

Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. “Nannie Helen Burroughs.” In Black Women in America, edited by Darlene Clark Hines. 2d ed. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Provides useful biographical information and a description of Burroughs’s involvement in various social causes.

Johnson, Karen Ann. Uplifting the Women and the Race: The Lives, Educational Philosophies, and Social Activism of Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs. New York: Modern Library, 2004. Historical and biographical study of Burroughs’s early life and her educational philosophy, contributions to education, and her role as a political and social activist.

Smith, Karen E. “Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961): A Voice for Social Justice and Reform.” In Twentieth-Century Shapers of Baptist Social Ethics, edited by Larry L. McSwain. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2008. Offers detailed information on Burroughs’s work for equality for black children.

Taylor, Traki L. “Womanhood Glorified: Nannie Helen Burroughs and the National Training School for Women and Girls, Inc. 1909-1961.” Journal of African American History 87 (Autumn, 2002): 390-402. Examines Burroughs’s background, the founding and activities of the National Training School, the establishment of the Women’s Convention, and the conflicts over it.