Burroughs, Nannie

Khaula Murtadha

Educator, civil rights advocate, and religious leader, Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879–1961) was 21 years old when she gained notoriety as an advocate for equity and women's rights. At the annual conference of the National Baptist Convention in Richmond, Virginia, in 1900, she powerfully expressed the long-held frustrations of women in the Baptist Church who were made slaves by Whites and were suppressed by fellow Blacks. Burroughs's speech served as a catalyst for the formation of the Women's Convention Auxiliary, the largest women's organization in America. Her fight for social justice was fueled by what she had seen as a long-standing marginalization of Black women in both educational and religious institutions. Burroughs was born on May 2, 1879, in Orange, Virginia, to John and Jennie Burroughs. Educated in Washington, D.C., at the Colored High School (later renamed the M Street School), it was at this school that she met ...

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