Mary P. (Mamie) Burrill

 

Biographical Database of Black Woman Suffragists

Biography of Mary "Mamie" P. Burrill, 1881 - 1946

By Elizabeth Cobb and Jordyn Curl
Undergraduates, University of Michigan-Dearborn

Mary P. Burrill was born to African Americans, Clara E. and John H. Burrill, in Washington D.C. in the early 1880's.* (See note at sketch's end) She graduated in 1901 from the prestigious, all-African American M. Street High School, later renamed Dunbar High School. After her family relocated to Boston, Burrill furthered her education, graduating from Emerson College in 1904. Burrill's passion for education prompted her to become an educator herself. From 1905 until her retirement in 1944, Burrill taught English and drama at her alma mater, Dunbar High School. Burrill was well-respected among her students, holding high standards for their education and personal achievement. Some of her students went on to become educators and writers actively involved in the Harlem Renaissance, an African American cultural arts movement during the 1920s.

Burrill's passion for education and drama led to her to write two plays, They that Sat in Darkness and Aftermath, both in 1919. Both one-act plays addressed racism and gender inequality. Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Review, a monthly publication advocating for women's reproductive rights, published Burrill's Sat in the Darkness, illustrating birth control as a way to escape poverty. Burrill identified her plays as essential to her personal activism---her words were her way of highlighting and protesting the social injustices of her time.

During Burrill's adolescence and early adulthood, she had an emotional and erotic relationship with Angelina Weld Grimke, later a famous poet, educator, and playwright. Letters between the two date back to 1896, when Angelina and Mary were about 15 years old.* Grimke wrote to Burrill,

My own darling Mamie, If you will allow me to be so familiar to call you such. I hope my darling you will not be offended if your ardent lover calls you such familiar names… Oh, Mamie, if you only knew how my heart beats when I think of you and it yearns and pants to gaze, if only for one second, upon your lovely face. If there were any trouble in this wide and wicked world from which I might shield you how gladly would I do it if it were even so great a thing as to lay down my life for you. I know you are too young now to become my wife, but I hope, darling, that in a few years you will come to me and be my love, my wife! How my brain whirls how my pulse leaps with joy and madness when I think of these two words, "my wife." (1896)

Parental disapproval led them to end the relationship by the end of their high school years.

In 1912, while teaching, Burrill met Lucy Diggs Slowe, an English teacher from Baltimore. Slowe was a founding member and the first president of the first black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, at Howard University. She also became the first African American woman to win a major sports title, when she won the American Tennis Association's national title. After a few years, Slowe moved to DC to teach at Armstrong Manual Training Academy, and she and Burrill bought a house together.

Slowe later became the Dean of Women at Howard University and President of the National Council of Negro Women, in which Burrill was a member. The residence Burrill and Slowe shared became an informal gathering place for young Howard women, who idolized their dean and admired her lifestyle. This caused problems for Slowe with the president of Howard University, who, as cultural perceptions and opinions about sexuality shifted, became uncomfortable with Slowe acting as a role model for these students. He retaliated by not paying Slowe her full, promised salary and insisting that Slowe leave her home with Burrill and move into a dorm, which she refused.

Slowe died in 1937 of kidney disease. Even after Slowe's death, the president of Howard tried to belittle Slowe and undermine her achievements and status during her life. Burrill wrote to leaders at Howard after Slowe's death, defending her reputation and demanding their respect. Shattered, Burrill moved out of their house and into an apartment near Howard. She retired from Dunbar in 1944. Burrill then moved to New York City, where she lived until her death in 1946, in her early 60's.

 

Mary "Mamie" P. Burrill

 

 

Angelina Weld Grimke

 

Lucy Diggs Slowe
htttp://bygonebrookland.com/portraits-lucy-diggs-slowe.html

 

Mary P. Burrill and Lucy Diggs Slowe in the backyard of their DC home
(courtesy Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University)

Notes

*Varied birth dates were found during research for Mary P. Burrill. Many sources cited Burrill's date of birth as 1881 and others cited 1884. If Burrill was born in 1884, the love letters were found dated 1896 between Angelina W. Grimke and Burrill would have been written when Burrill was only 12 years old, leading the authors to conclude Burrill's birth date might actually have been 1881, making her 15 in 1896. In addition, sources cited her death in 1946 at the age of 63, which would mean that Burrill was actually born in 1883, which would have made Burrill 13 in 1896. Without certainty, the authors have concluded that Burrill's life spanned from the early 1880s to 1946.

Sources

Angelina Weld Grimke. In Black History Now: Black History Biographies from the Black Heritage Society. September 7, 2011. http://blackhistorynow.com/angelina-weld-grimke-2/.

"Angelina Weld Grimke (1880-1958)." n.d. Poem Hunter. Keltis. https://www.poemhunter.com/angelina-weld-grimk/.

Angelina Weld Grimke, American Journalist and Poet (1880-1958). In Afro Poets: Poetry Soothes the Soul. http://www.afropoets.net/angelinagrimke.html.

Beemyn, Genny. 2015. A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C. 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge of the Taylor and Francis Group.

"Burrill, Mary, 1884-1946," The United States Library of Congress, http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no97053570.html

Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe. 1930s. Archives, Howard University, Washington, D.C. In A Campus Divided (The University of Minnesota). 2017. http://acampusdivided.umn.edu/index.php/person/lucy-diggs-slowe/.

Hamalian, Leo, and James Vernon Hatch. 1992. "Mary Burrill (1884-1946)." In The Roots of African American Drama, 134–40. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Hebel, Udo J. 1996. "Early African American Women Playwrights (1916-1930) and the Remapping of Twentieth-Century American Drama." AAA: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 21 (2): 267-86.

Herron, Carolivia. 1991. "Grimke's Life and Career." In Selected Works of Angelina Weld Grimke. Oxford University Press.

Hutchinson, George. 2018. "Harlem Renaissance." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

Jones, Jae. 2017. "Lucy Slowe: One of the Founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha and the First Black Woman to Win a Major Sports Title." Black Then: Discovering Our History. Elite Cafe Media Lifestyle. January 19. https://blackthen.com/lucy-slowe-one-founders-alpha-kappa-alpha-first-black-woman-win-major-sports-title/.

Lindsey, Treva B. 2017. "Climbing the Hilltop: New Negro Womanhood at Howard University." In Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C., 36-51. University of Illinois Press.

Lucy Diggs Slowe. In Raw Thoughts. January 24, 2016. https://rawthoughts.net/lucy-diggs-slowe/.

Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill in the Backyard of 1256 Kearney St. Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C. In Bygone Brookland: Tales From a Storied DC Neighborhood. April 15, 2015. http://bygonebrookland.com/portraits-lucy-diggs-slowe.html.

Malesky, Robert. 2015. "Portraits: Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill and the Fight to Stay in Their Brookland Home." Bygone Brookland: Tales from a Storied DC Neighborhood. Robert Malesky. April 15. http://bygonebrookland.com/portraits-lucy-diggs-slowe.html

Martinac, Paula. 2009. "Howard's Intrepid Dean." Web log. The Queerest Places: LGBTQ History and Historic Sites. Wordpress. June 16. https://queerestplaces.com/2009/06/16/howards-intrepid-dean/.

Mary P. Burrill. In The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project. July 25, 2014. http://ubleproject.tumblr.com/post/92855689707/mary-p-mamie-burrill-circa-1944-just-before

Perkins, Kathy A. 1990. Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950. First Midland Book Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. 1998. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1885-1920, 70. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Women Hold Special Meet at Howard U. 1936. The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), May 16. http://0-search.proquest.com.wizard.umd.umich.edu/docview/492503611?accountid=14578.

Suggested Readings

Beemyn, Genny. 2015. A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C. 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge of the Taylor & Francis Group.

Hamalian, Leo, and James Vernon Hatch. 1992. The Roots of African American Drama, 134–40. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Lindsey, Treva B. 2017. Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C., 36-51. University of Illinois.

Perkins, Kathy A. 1990. Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950. First Midland Book Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. 1998. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1885-1920, 70. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

 

Related Writings in Database

View works by

View works about

Related Works in DuBois Online Correspondence: 5

 
back to top