MARGUERITE ROSS BARNETT

Barnett (1942- ) was born in Charlottesville, VA, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Chicago in 1966 an d1972 respectively. She was a lecturer at that university during the early 1970s before becoming a professor at Princeton, Howard, and Columbia universities. It was in 1986 that Barnett was appointed chancellor and professor at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, serving there until being appointed president of the University of Houston in 1990, the first African American and the first woman chief administrator of that four-campus system. She is on many boards and councils, and has won many awards.

MATILDA BOOKER

Booker (1887-1957) was born in Halifax County, Virginia, and became the principal of a school in 1911 and a district supervisor two years later. Thereafter she worked tirelessly to improve educational facilities and opportunities for black students and teachers. in Cumberland and Mecklenburg counties. Her eloquent speeches were done to show the importance of education, family life, and hard work.

HALLIE Q. BROWN

Brown (c. 1845-1949) was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and was exposed at an early age to a concern for education and humanity. After moving to Canada and then to Ohio, she graduated from Wilberforce University in 1873. She taught at little schools all over the South until teaching and serving as dean of Allen University from 1875 to 1887. Brown then taught at Wilberforce and met W.E.B. Du Bois there. She toured Europe during the 1890s and was well-known for her elocution, speaking on black life, songs, folklore, and temperance. She resumed teaching at Wilberforce in 1906 and became active and vocal on the issue of women’s rights. She served as president of the National Association of Colored Women from 1920-1924, and authored several books.

Reference
Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit; London: Gale Research Inc., 1992. 116-120.

ALICE DUGGED “MOTHER” CARY

Cary (?-1941) was born in New London, Indiana, and graduated from Wilberforce University in 1881 with an M.Pd. degree, and then studied at summer school at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. In 1886 she became the second principal of Morris Brown College in Atlanta, the first woman to hold that position. She later chaired the English department until 1921. Cary also served as the first librarian of the Auburn Avenue Branch of the Atlanta Public Library, thus providing blacks with an access to the library that had previously been denied to them. Before dying on the campus of Morris Brown College, she had realized her dream of establishing a home for delinquent black girls in Macon, Georgia.