Mary A. Burwell

Mary A. Burwell

Mary A. Burwell was an only child, born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, of freed slave parents who were living in “humble circumstances”.  A visiting uncle who was impressed with her disposition asked for her to live with him and promised to have her educated in the city schools of Raleigh.  She was enrolled at Washington School when she was eight years old.

She then entered Shaw University, graduating after completing the remainder of the high school (called Normal Department – a three-year program), with a diploma from the Estey Seminary course. She was a student of Dr. Scruggs.

After graduating, she taught for several years in the public schools.  She then taught at the “colored” Oxford Orphanage, knowing that it was heavily in debt and she would receive no pay.

The orphanage consisted of one wood building with three rooms and housed eight children.  She trained the children for concerts and after a year took them travelling, soliciting contributions to help the school.  This included $1,000 from the General Assembly, and in less than two and a half years, she had raised more than $1,500.  Additional rooms were built, and forty children were cared for.

“She is an active, energetic, Christian worker, regarding no task too hard.”  She was a member of First Baptist Church in Raleigh.

This information is paraphrased from a book written by Dr. Lawson A. Scruggs, graduate of Shaw University’s Leonard Medical School.  He compiled a book about Black women and their accomplishments called Women of Distinction, which was published in 1892 and republished by his grandchildren in 2020.  In the preface he says,

“If from the contents of this volume the young women of our race shall gather a single ray of hope and encouragement which will enable them to stem the tide and become women of usefulness and distinction honored of men and blessed of God, then this barque (book) shall have accomplished one of the objects of its mission.

“Again, there have been a great many untrue things said by a part of the Southern press that have been against the best interests of the race….From these sources the womanhood of the race has suffered great and unmerited injustice when taken as a whole….

“If in such a short time of greatly abridged citizenship our women have accomplished so much, and if many of those heroines mentioned did develop such giant intellects during those dark days of our history, may we not be the more encouraged to make more diligent protracted and determined efforts in this brighter age?”