Nannie Helen Burroughs

Name of Historic Site
National Baptist Convention Foreign Mission Board office site (building no longer extant)
Event(s) / Use associated with woman/group/site
Location where Burroughs created the National Baptist Woman's Convention, the largest organization for black women in the U.S.
County
Jefferson
Address

726 West Muhammad Ali Blvd
Louisville, 40203
United States

Associated Organization
n/a - the original office building is no longer standing (currently a business, GLI Food Services)
Geographic Location
Your Affiliation
University of Kentucky
Additional Comments

Nannie Helen Burroughs of Washington DC worked part-time for the new National Baptist Convention (NBC) Foreign Mission Board, and when the NBC moved its offices to Louisville, Kentucky in 1898, she took a full-time job with the corresponding secretary, Lewis G. Jordan. In Louisville, she founded a club, the Association of Colored Women, which began offering night classes in business and home economics. She began studying business at the recently opened industrial school, Eckstein Norton University, in Cane Springs near Louisville. In 1900 at an annual meeting of the NBC in Virginia, she gave her speech "How the Sisters are Hindered from Helping." Her former teacher, Mary Virginia Cook-Parrish of Kentucky was also at this meeting and together they worked to found the National Baptist Women's Convention. This launched the Women’s Auxiliary of the NBC and Burroughs traveled throughout the U.S. on their behalf and organized twelve societies. By 1907 the membership of the Women's Convention grew to 1.5 million - the largest organization for black women in the U.S. In the 1910 US Census, Burroughs is listed in the building with Lewis Jordan who is the head of the "household" and his job is mission work.  Burroughs lists her occupation in the census as Secretary of the National Baptist Woman's Convention.

Writing for The Crisis in 1915, Burroughs emphasized that too many African-American men had squandered their voting rights in going along with ward bosses or taking bribes from white employers to vote against their own interests. She argued that black women needed the vote to advance their own interests as well as to support their race overall.

Reference Source of Information
<p>Nannie Helen Burroughs papers, 1900-1963. Library of Congress Manuscript Division Washington, D.C. 20540 <a href="https://lccn.loc.gov/mm80057026" target="_blank">https://lccn.loc.gov/mm80057026</a></p><p>&quot;National Training School for Women and Girls, Washington, D.C.&quot; 150 photographs. Part of: Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 1879- Nannie Helen Burroughs papers. <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004667312" target="_blank">http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004667312</a>/</p><p>Obituary, <em>Washington Post</em> (May 21, 1961).</p><p>Johnson, Karen Ann. <u>Uplifting the Women and the Race: The Educational Philosophies and Social Activism of Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs</u>. London &amp; New York: Taylor &amp; Francis, 2000.</p><p>Washington, Sondra. <u>The Story of Nannie Helen Burroughs</u>. Birmingham, AL: Woman&#39;s Missionary Union, 2006.</p>