Ever since I began doing this column, particularly when pursuing the lives of significant Black women, the name of Nannie Helen Burroughs pops up. I silently say, “one day I will profile her.” Well, that day has arrived, and it’s time to live up to that promise.
Nannie Helen Burroughs was born May 2, 1879, in Orange, Virginia. She was the eldest daughter of enslaved parents, John and Jennie Burroughs. Her father, a Baptist preacher and a farmer, died when she was still very young. Although limited by chattel slavery, the couple managed to acquire skills that would benefit them after the Civil War ended.
In 1883, Burroughs and her mother relocated to D.C., where they lived with Cordelia Mercer, Nannie’s aunt and the older sister of Jennie Burroughs. Nannie attended the legendary M Street High School. At the school, she studied business and domestic science, and in her spare time, organized the Harriet Beecher Stowe Literary Society. The school was also a place where she met such notable freedom fighters as Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell, whom she cherished as her mentors.
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She graduated from M School with honors in 1896, but was unable to find work as a domestic science teacher in the city’s public schools. Her inability to find employment in her chosen field may have been because, unlike the other teachers in her line of work, most of the Black women had light complexions. “The die was cast,” she said, “to beat and ignore both until death.” The rejections had a positive outcome as she established a training school for women and girls.
In Louisville, Kentucky, from 1898 to 1909, she worked as an editorial secretary and bookkeeper for the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention (NBC). During her tenure at the NBC, the Women’s Industrial Club was organized, where domestic science and management courses were part of the curriculum. She was also a founder of the Women’s Convention, serving in various capacities for nearly half a century. For 13 years, she was president of the Convention.
The same year Nannie completed her studies at M School in 1896, the National Association of Colored Women was formed, and they had a memorable convergence later, and out of their meetings the National Association of Wage Earners (NAWE) was forged to amplify the issues faced by African American women. In concert with other notables, including Mary McLeod Bethune and Maggie Lena Walker, Nannie made the NAWE a formidable entity, inducing the participation of other formations.
When the sorority Delta Sigma Theta was founded, Nannie became one of the first honorary members; the other three were Mary Church Terrell, Coralie Franklin Cook, and Gabrielle L. Pelham, of the famous Pelhams of Detroit. In 1928, she was appointed to a committee on Negro housing by President Herbert Hoover. Among her several speeches was “How White and Colored Women Can Cooperate in Building a Christian Civilization.”
Despite her commitment to addressing the social and political issues Black women faced, Nannie was also a published playwright. In the 1920s, her one-act plays were performed by amateur church theatrical groups. Whether in the socio-economic arena or cultural affairs, upliftment of Black women, especially girls, was always uppermost on her agenda.
This dedication was often saluted with commendations and awards, as well as an honorary M.A. from Eckstein Norton University in Kentucky that later merged with Simpson University. Her image was included in the 1945 painting “Women Builders” by William Johnson as part of his Fighters for Freedom series. In 1964, the school she had founded as the National Training School for Women and Girls was renamed the Nannie Helen Burroughs School in her honor, and parts of it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
In 1975, Mayor Walter E. Washington declared May 10, Nannie Helen Burroughs Day. And two years later, the National Women’s History Project honored her during Women’s History Month. Nannie died on May 20, 1961 and is buried at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, where she was a member.
nice