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VOL. 24

Nannie Burroughs and the Rhetorical Resistance of The Worker

Veronica Popp

ABSTRACT

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Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961), Black clubwoman, activist, and creator of the National Training School for Women and Girls (NTS, 1909-1961), deliberately crafted a counter-narrative of resistance to white supremacist patriarchy through her educational, religious, and publishing endeavors, through The Worker and A Missionary Burroughs used these publications not just to uplift Black women as workers, missionaries, and educators but to position them as active agents in the political sphere, thereby asserting Black women’s rhetorical and political I demonstrate that Burroughs’ work represents an early, deliberate form of Black women’s rhetorical resistance—one that ties literary production and political activism to Black women’s autonomy, labor rights, and visibility through the early publication legacy of The Worker, originally launched in 1912, covering two publications in October 1920 and November 1921 Relaunched in 1934 as A Missionary Quarterly this essay focuses on three early editions in 1934, 1935, and My analysis connects Burroughs' publishing ambitions to her political ones, evoking her work of curating the literary sisterhood of other Black female writers and activists as an act of rhetorical resistance. Black women workers showing ambition, drive, and pride in their work and community was a way to rhetorically resist and combat Jane Crow racism which prevented Black women from working from many jobs due to a combination of sexism and racism. By embracing the do-it-yourself everyday aspects of womanism, Burroughs used her knowledge for social

Burroughs was a figure of labor and political activism through the creation and maintenance of her school; she located it within the nation's capital to indicate that the place for Black women was in Washington D.C. to influence political change and her publications were part of that vision. Her pedagogical stance was based on her deep understanding of racial pride. Through her collaboration with Carter G. Woodson, Burroughs held Black history as a graduation requirement in order for her students to understand and respect their background. Moreover, The Worker was an intentionally created rhetorical space to publicize the success of her school, and students, and to advocate for a specific political stance on the value of Black women workers who sought to shape and improve their lives. She also used The Worker as a venue to discuss Black women workers in the field, a collaborative learning teaching tool for students to gain experience in printing, and for her later and larger goal of ministering to the entire Baptist community, both white and Black, through A Missionary Quarterly with a partnership with Una Roberts Lawrence, a white Baptist In Burroughs’s mind, the civil rights ministry was a Baptist ministry.

I am building on already groundbreaking scholarly work on Black women who tied religious and rhetorical work to leadership and resistance. I credit Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Opal Easter, and Bettye Collier-Thomas for establishing a foundation for examining Black women's political activism in the church despite pushback from male church leadership. Furthermore, scholars such as Rosetta Ross and Monica Coleman also contributed to the scholarship about Black women's resistance in churches, self- advocacy through women's leadership is crucial to understanding Burroughs' triumphs and tribulations in establishing her school and My work contributes to the streams Ronisha Browdy identifies in “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s): A Conversation Starter for Naming and Claiming a Field of Study” inviting Black women to a seat at the table, promoting prominence, avoiding erasure by returning the power to the hands of the creators of the field, other Black women. Engaging with rhetorical scholars like Royster and Pittman, I center Black women as activists as subjects in their own stories, valuing their contributions through their everyday lives and resources. Aristotle's definition of ethos does not often extend to the lived realities of Black women; therefore, they have to create alternative ethos models by rewriting their identity. Burroughs made intentional choices about her writing and the framing of her magazine purposefully, choosing what Aristotle called the "available means of persuasion" to make her case as acts of rhetorical resistance.

The eighth and last chapter of Danielle Phillips-Cunningham's Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Tower of Strength in the Labor World argues that The Worker was an essential instrument for labor, women, and civil rights organizing, and is directly in conversation with this project. By providing a dual literary and labor analysis of The Worker (and A Missionary Quarterly), my work expands on Phillips-Cunningham's recovery of Burroughs as a key figure in the fields of religion, education, editing, and labor organizing. I argue that Burroughs' writings constituted a form of rhetorical resistance, highlighting the techniques she employed to mobilize Black women through both faith-based and labor-based writing. While Phillips-Cunningham highlights Burroughs's organizing and institutional work, I concentrate on the rhetorical aspects of her activism, specifically the use of biblical references, an alternative ethos, and narrative writing, which humanized and provided the readership with the opportunity to hear Black women speak about their passions, dreams, and career choices in their voices.

Schools and publications like Burroughs' were not considered sites of active political organizing and places for Black women to demonstrate their worth. Unlike W.E.B. DuBois' The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, or A. Phillip Randolph’s The Messenger, the magazine of the Socialist Party, Burroughs' political interventions through publication were not made explicit. Unlike DuBois and Randolph, in the earlier years of The Worker, Burroughs published her magazine sporadically. She was producing work under highly constrained material circumstances, and this shaped the production and reception of the Consequently, Burroughs' pioneering publication work should be considered an act of rhetorical resistance due to the fewer resources she held compared to her male counterparts. Among Burroughs' implicit goals was stable employment for African American women and the creation of legislation for the betterment of African American lives, alongside her explicit goal of ministering to the Black community as equals to whites. Burroughs' multifaceted publications served a political purpose, by celebrating Black women workers, clubwomen, and missionaries, hampered by white supremacist patriarchy and oppression, even going so far as to code her editorial language in Biblical lessons which would have been diluted due to their political stances on behalf of the Black community. Black women due to occupational segregation were often relegated into low-paid or unpaid positions such as domestic or agricultural work, even when the positions were better styled, such as teaching or missionary work, they were often poorly paid. What Burroughs did was to re-cast this work as dignified and chosen as a way to uplift the race in the community with the ambition of gaining economic and political equity.

A Missionary Quarterly maintains the spirit of Burroughs’ earlier struggles for labor equity and her desire to serve as a literary launching pad for Black female talent. Yet, both The Worker and A Missionary Quarterly are two distinct magazines. Each magazine carefully selected and crafted images of Black women as writers, producers, and thinkers. The Worker held anoriginal motto, “Work to Support Thyself, To Thine Own Powers Appeal” which maintained an articulation of the values and theory embedded within the everyday experiences of Black women. In short, the worker was Black and female. A Missionary Quarterly is written with an educational aim to teach women and children about the Bible. What this tells readers is that Burroughs sacrificed control to maintain her audience to provide scholarship, both educational and political, for those willing to The selected pieces support the mission of promoting Black women in positions such as missionary and domestic work which were non-exploitative, presenting them as driven and dedicated to their work as a way to rhetorically resist oppressive stereotypes.

Burroughs’ Authorship

Burroughs believed that the liberty of Black women on American soil was possible and The Worker, like her educational program, promoted religious education and castigated racism, classism, and sexism in America, suggesting subtle forms of rhetorical resistance. In the November 1922 edition of a front-page article, Burroughs wrote about meeting a previous student by chance on a train to Philadelphia. Burroughs profiled Beatrice Oger not because she was the most talented, the loveliest, or the smartest, but because she was a symbol for the average African American girl. Oger worked, succeeded, and was educated enough to leave her employment in the hotel service industry to better position as a personal maid in Philadelphia. "Miss Burroughs, I am changing my place today for the first time. Don't you think that's fine? I am so glad I met you so I can thank you for all you did for me. The lady for whom I worked says she never had any one so well trained. I talk so much about 'our school' until she thinks it is the only place on earth. I am going to tell my new lady about our school." (Burroughs, "What Giving a Little Girl a Chance Did for Her").

To add theory to her practice, Burroughs collaborated closely with Elizabeth Ross Haynes, a Department of Labor employee who wrote the thesis and article, Two Million Negro Women at Work. According to Haynes, Black women and girls worked for low-pay positions in domestic service or laundry for fourteen to thirty-eight years, hoping to achieve financial independence. Burroughs felt that change had to happen immediately to improve the lives of Black working women. Oger was a symbol of that change if she attended Burroughs’ school, learned from her teachers, and encouraged subsequent generations of African American women and thinkers, "Many of them become upright, industrious, dependable citizens as full of smiles and gratitude as our little Beatrice" (Burroughs, "What Giving a Little Girl a Chance Did for Her"). Early copies of The Worker convey that Burroughs set out to promote positive images of Black women’s working lives who when exploited chose to resist and find fair wages, uplifting themselves to liberation and thereby, benefiting the entire community. Burroughs’ quotation from Oger noted the collaborative efforts that were ongoing within the NTS, the school was not owned by Burroughs, it was owned by all of the Black women whose lives were touched by it.

Correspondence from the Field

Burroughs published letters from her students in the October 1920 and November 1922 editions of The Worker as a way to frame the autonomy and sovereignty of Black women taking control of their post-education lives as workers and writers, resisting the roles that white supremacy cast them into. Della E. Harris, and Clarice Gooding, graduates of her school missionary program, wrote often to Burroughs about their Borrowing from one of Gooding's letters is the phrase, "On the Firing Line." Burroughs used it to emphasize Black women's roles as Christian soldiers. To complicate that conversation, Burroughs was not creating women to labor unselfishly for God's favor. In her eyes, to be a Christian soldier, usually a male-centered term, was to practice self-reliance, engage in deep community work, and labor for change within the status of African Americans. She carefully curated these letters and edited them down from five, publishing two, "We are leading in the contribution of trained workers in foreign fields… we can give only excerpts from two letters from our brave girls who are now on the 'firing line'" (Burroughs, "Training School Leads in Sending Missionaries to Foreign Fields"). Harris from Royesville, Liberia, was a standout missionary, clubwoman, and prolific writer, therefore, Burroughs excerpted two of her letters but published longer sections from the second one: "I am exceedingly happy in my work here. I am only sorry that I did not come years ago. The day of work seems so short now. Pray for me continually, for I want to do a big work under God in this land that I love so dearly. Work toward the end of coming to Liberia for the dedication of my building" (Burroughs, "Training School Leads in Sending Missionaries to Foreign Fields"). Gooding from Dakar, West Africa, states, "I have seen the people in the marketplaces and about their huts. Above all, I see and feel their need. This is my first glimpse of the land to which I have wanted to come. The impressions will live forever in my mind. I am simply praying for strength to dedicate my life" (Burroughs, "Training School Leads in Sending Missionaries to Foreign Fields"). Burroughs was crafting an image of herself, her school, and Black women and girls as articulate, active, and hearty women workers who traveled, worked alone, and resisted the labor bondage of Jane Crow and the world from lack of faith ("On the Firing Line"). Dignity of labor and pride in one's race was integral to Burroughs' philosophy as an educator and as an editor and publisher.

Resurrection of The Worker as A Missionary Quarterly

A Missionary Quarterly began in 1934 when Burroughs' financial situation galvanized her to seek assistance from Lawrence and white Southern Baptists. An additional anxiety for Burroughs was the constant financial and power struggles over her The NTS was founded as a result of Burrough's tenacious organizing and criticism that Black church members did not take part in social activities to assist the average member of their race (162-164; 175). They did not provide significant financial support until 1949, due to a desire to have authority over Burroughs (Easter 69–75). The opportunity for financial relief was a growing desire as well as a partnership to increase the audience. In 1919, the largest number of subscribers of The Worker were from the South and West, including 241 from California, 585 from Florida, 376 from Louisiana, and 537 from Texas (Burroughs, Subscription and Literature File).

Lawrence was a writer, and like Burroughs' former students, a missionary worker for the Woman's Missionary Union (WMU) and Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) until 1947. Both Burroughs and Lawrence shared a desire to end segregation within the Baptist church. Similarly, they had the energy and enthusiasm to move forward, despite pushback from Lawrence's other conservative colleagues on the SBC. Yet, Lawrence's objectives were partially to maintain the status quo from the other, more racist members of the SBC, which occasionally caused friction between her and A key theme begins to emerge: as Burroughs began to lose editorial control due to the market circumstances, she coded her language within Biblical lessons to maintain her earlier goals for political action, which would have otherwise been erased. What this coded language revealed to Black women audiences was that the writing, labor, and faith-based lessons were for rhetorical (and political) resistance. Keeping in tune with her work in 1922, A Missionary Quarterly maintains that an equal Godly society cannot treat people of different races disproportionately.

Burroughs and Lawrence worked together to address racial injustices through the church. Listed as a "Special Contributor," Lawrence often disagreed with Burroughs' direct political links to her lessons (Collier-Thomas 388-393; Phillips-Cunningham 287-291). Burroughs notes the shift in seeking works that befit the publication's audience: "The best missionary writers will contribute material that will be of tremendous help to all women who are seeking light" (Burroughs, "The Three Long Steps"). She established other enterprises, including an African American-led cooperative, and began a lecture tour to raise funds to eventually re-open her school from Later iterations focused on stories where Black women direct their destinies towards liberation, focusing on their own power and overcoming adversity. By taking on an extraordinary intellectual sacrifice in the spirit of racial healing, Burroughs collaborated with Lawrence and had her magazine publication available to Baptist women all across America.This offering of her intellectual labor served as a transition point from the overt organizing and resistance to white supremacy, to the subtler resistance of cultivating Black women's strength through coded narratives. Burroughs skillfully noted the limit of a single approach, and then pivoted and evolved, undeterred, to try something different.

Burroughs' first editorial in and lesson in 1934 was directly connected to Black women's leadership within the Baptist church alongside subtle resistance through truth, plain speaking, and forward-thinking. Her example is of a young woman from North Carolina who attended her missionary course at her school and the resulting speech she gave at the convention:

"Some years ago a very plain, droll, everyday, matter of fact girl from North Carolina came into our Training School in Washington. She took the Missionary Training Course and returned to her rural community to work. She was requested by the program committee of her little association to speak at their annual meeting. Of course, she had been off to school and the people were anxious to see and hear 'MS.' She had not lost one bit of that delightful droll, straightforward matter of fact way of putting things. Here in school she never lost an opportunity to talk about the woeful condition of the people of her community and the type of people who assumed leadership. It worried her. Those leaders were entrenched. The people were woefully handicapped. Well, that droll country girl accepted the invitation to speak; and in her language she 'roused many' her topic was 'Get the Fools from Up Front.' A leader might have very little education- of course- the more the better- but she must be a learner. She must have a sense of values. She must be spiritual-minded. She must be progressive. If she does not possess these qualifications, she becomes a stumbling block- a traffic blocker. Leaders must be able to go ahead or go behind. The people want to go forward. Our Missionary Societies need leaders who can “speak unto the Children of Israel that they go forward.”(Burroughs, "What Kind of Leaders Do Our Mission Societies Need?")

This editorial integrated her new audience of the SBC and her previous audience from the predecessor publication through the NTS, The Worker. Burroughs uses Biblical allusion, an alternative ethos, and narrative to articulate the value of Black women to American society. She cites Exodus 14:15–16, when Moses addresses the Israelites' release from slavery and bondage, saying, "Speak unto the Children of Israel that they go forward." Burroughs articulates and publishes that Black women have to speak in their authentic voices. True leadership comes from honesty and a progressive mindset, like the droll country girl from North Carolina. Only through action could Black women resist white supremacy in religion and politics.

In continuing to promote her vision of Black women’s rhetorical resistance, Burroughs published a piece on a labor rebellion. Paired with ministrations and reprinted poems by white authors is a piece on the life of Andrew Bryan, a freed slave and clergyman. Instead of directly writing about labor and racial injustice in the South, she selected noted journalist and historian Drusilla Dunjee Houston to compile a piece about a historical slave uprising.After being baptized by a traveling preacher, Bryan preached to the people of Yamacraw, South Carolina, in 1788:

"The greater his influence among the slaves, the more the masters were inclined to believe that his work could result only in that of servile insurrection. It became more difficult, therefore, for slaves to attend his meetings the patrols whipped them sometimes even when they had passes and finally a large number of the members were arrested and severely punished. The culmination was that Andrew Bryan, their pastor himself, and his brother, Sampson Bryan, one of the first deacons, were inhumanly cut and their backs were so lacerated that their blood ran down the Earth as they with uplifted hands, cried unto the Lord; but Bryan, in the midst of his torture declared that he rejoiced not only to be whipped but would freely suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ." (Houston, "Thrilling Little Stories of Beginnings Among Negro Baptists").

He endured Christ-like suffering and imprisonment within the carceral system from his white counterparts due to his preaching and was whipped for his refusal to give up his faith. Bryan's supporters eventually organized to purchase his freedom after hearing of his impassioned pleas to God for his oppressors, gifting him both land and a home. His tale, which promotes self-help and spiritual elevation, is veiled in religious precepts to conceal its deeper meaning—that of African Americans turning to religion as a means of emancipation from white dominance following the theft and exploitation of their labor. Even when white supremacists damaged Bryan's reputation, he stayed loyal. His objection stemmed from his belief that freedom is a gift from God, not from man. Houston was an activist, clubwoman, journalist, teacher, and school runner in Oklahoma. Her magnum opus Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire (1926), was a historical treatise promoting a deeper understanding of Ethiopians including a complex early history and national identity. By publishing and promoting Houston's work, Burroughs tied herself to a woman who dedicated her career to liberating Black people from a white European historical perspective. As a resistance act, this work is doubly effective due to its role within A Missionary Quarterly. Burroughs’ relationships cultivated talented Black women writers, and glorified labor rebellion in the guise of faith. Houston recasts the image of the Black Bryan into Christ whose freedom was purchased with the closing line dedicating the work to forward thinking and advancement, “That is the Christian way and the sign of the times indicate that we are going back to it and work together” (Houston, "Thrilling Little Stories of Beginnings Among Negro Baptists"). Like Burroughs and Lawrence uniting under the banner of interracial cooperation among the Baptists, this story should be taken for its decrying of racism and plea for acceptance and cooperation under the banner and guise of following the examples of Andrew Bryan, the first Black Baptist minister,and Jesus Christ.

The Political Implications of Black Health and Black Labor

To Burroughs, a healthy body was needed to achieve her political goals; she connected the physical health of Black people to the economic health of the nation in A Missionary She argued on two occasions that Black health was failing due to white supremacy. In 1934 she stated, "The white community is largely (not wholly, mind you) responsible" She reinforced in 1935, "The white community is largely responsible. What are the facts? What can be done about them?" (Burroughs, "Negro Health Week"). The addition of the questions did nothing to dampen the impact of the message to white Southern Baptists. She continued by stating the housing prices were unfairly inflated for Black people who already suffered from redlining, "The Negro population is set off in ghettos. The city government, which is always white, neglects the Negro community, in matters of street cleaning, sewage, garbage disposal, paving, police protection, etc." (Burroughs, "Negro Health Week"). Burroughs tasked white people with encouraging the passing of stronger laws to help with the conditions of Black homes, promoted interracial groups and cooperation, supported charity for Black people who were in need, and finally encouraged the destruction of unsound homes, so they could not be occupied. Without fair application of zoning laws to ensure clean and affordable housing from whites, Burroughs recommended Black people take ownership of their destinies through fundraising and mutual aid when society failed them. She specifically called on club women's institutions, private Black-run businesses, and Y.W.C.A. associations, local churches, neighborhood associations, and other spaces where Black people could resist these illegal practices and fill in the gaps. By writing and actively publishing about the link between housing and healthcare, Burroughs made a direct intervention by maintaining her long-standing critique of racial health disparities, demonstrating the rhetorical resistance role of Black club women's institutions in driving their fates when their political institutions failed them, while still placing blame on white supremacy.In the approach that frames Black suffering as a result of white oppression, Burroughs places agency on the white public to right the wrongs.

Burroughs steered clear of anything overtly political and used religious lessons to continue her subtle resistance following her disagreement with Lawrence via the WMU from her editorials. Burroughs faced the possibility of losing her patronage as a result of her refusal to retract, she wrote, “I do hope that your women are not to hold you responsible for anything that I say or do. I shall never be bitter in my discussions of the problems that are very real to all of us--black and white. I shall always try to be patient and tolerant, but on the other hand, I shall have to speak the truth with kindness.” (Burroughs, Letter to Mrs. Una Roberts Lawrence). Burroughs’ truth with kindness was led by her belief in the importance of Biblical ministry. To maintain her resistance practices, yet continue financial support, Burroughs begins to code her language in Biblical terms, “Between July 1935-1943, Burroughs tempered her language and rarely served up any direct indictments of white Christians or referred to race problems” (Collier-Thomas 392). In 1937, she shifted to telling stories where Black women direct their destinies towards liberation, placing the power directly in their hands. On the one hand, it relinquishes a call for real injustices to be halted, but on the other hand, it builds a vision of power centered on the Black women themselves that could allow them to overcome the adversity thrust upon them.

In her July–September 1937 editorial addressing Black domestic workers, Burroughs fought the disparaging term "blind alley occupation" by linking political opposition to a biblical message of following Christ. Although Burroughs did not use the term "Black" directly, she was speaking to Black women who worked as domestics. The profession was predominantly Black, to the point that, two years earlier, domestic workers were denied access to the Social Security Act of 1935 and coverage under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, as well as federal union rights. Her editorial borrows from that lesson through its criticism of the classist, sexist, and racist presumption that it was a dead-end job, “Qualified domestic workers with character and purpose, have as good a chance to get out of the so-called ‘blind alley occupation,’ and hit the highway as workers in any other field” (Burroughs, “The Domestic Worker”). She argued that by following Christ, the Biblical Joseph of Genesis rose from the pit and demonstrated self-help, "That incident is not written simply to fill up the Bible, but it is written to show what an individual can do if he has sense enough" (Burroughs, "The Domestic Worker"). Joseph was a prophet whose dreams foretold both his success and the seven-year famine which would damn Egypt. By following God, he fell from the highest favor to being sold into slavery, rising again as Pharaoh's advisor, and innovating storage protocols for the seven-year famine ahead. Burroughs glorified the role of domestic labor as both a temporary stopgap for Black women and professional careers which demanded fair wages for the training which her school offered resisting the label of the servant class. If Black women could actively choose dignified domestic work, it would elevate the entire profession. Finally, Burroughs actively planted the seed of resistance within this editorial. Joseph, like the ancestors of the majority of her readership, was enslaved and rose from the depths; by following Christ and resisting man's law, they could instead follow God's law and uplift themselves into grace. Finally, she aimed to reach a newer audience of white Southern Baptist women who would potentially employ Black women workers and ideally provide them with equitable wages and fair treatment for their labor.

In her notes from 1937, Burroughs draws on 2 Kings 5 to spotlight Naaman’s wife’s unnamed maid, an enslaved girl who points her master toward healing through faith. Burroughs frames this biblical figure as a foundational model of laboring Black womanhood, asking, “Have we ever thought, too, that this little maid was the first missionary and the very first medical missionary?” (Burroughs, “Naaman’s Wife’s Little Maid”).By crediting an enslaved domestic worker with initiating Naaman’s healing, Burroughs links Black women’s labor to faith and medical care: “This little Jewish girl must have felt race pride” (Burroughs, “Naaman’s Wife’s Little Maid”). Her lesson reframes domestic labor as sacred and not profane or undignified, in particular for the Black women who are denied access to these careers due to Jane Crow. Burroughs uplifts the domestic worker as central to salvation, sowing religious and rhetorical seeds for the next generation of Black women workers.

Conclusion

Burroughs emphasized the need for Black Christian women to have access to literature and teaching materials to prepare themselves to be leaders in church and life as early as 1902. In her corresponding secretary's report to the Woman's Convention, titled "Home Fields,'' she asserts, "The work of reclaiming what is lost at home cannot be performed by Christians on stilts nor in kid gloves" (Burroughs). Reclamation meant doing deep community work, which included on-the-ground engagement, neither at a distance nor with dainty hands. She took her career opportunity within the Baptist organizing community as a chance to utilize her background in writing, editing, education, and her in-depth understanding of Black women's experiences to promote and enhance Black women writers. She called for literature to be written for Black women and by Black women for their brethren, "We need next the Holy Bible, home (redacted), and a wealth of good literature on every table and these things put in everyday use at every family altar" (Burroughs, "Home Fields"). She articulated that both literature and the Bible were equally important to maintaining the family unit. Burroughs knew how important it was for Black audiences to read material created by Black women as an overtly political act of rhetorical resistance. While The Worker began in 1912, it folded due to the circumstances of the Depression. Yet, after 1934-1935, with A Missionary Quarterly and censure from Lawrence through the WMU, Burroughs' political messaging took a more coded stance. Through Biblical messaging, she encouraged Black women's vision of creating their definition of citizenship in America, one of equal access. Overall, Burroughs used The Worker and A Missionary Quarterly work to promote Black women as writers, producers, and thinkers through her message, first explicitly, and secondly, strategically. We flatten her legacy when we forgo the connections between her educational institutions and her print publications. Her actions framed her practices of rhetorical resistance, using her editorial control to imagine and ultimately build a new world for Black women in the United States. This piece fulfills Browder’s aim of beginning and crafting a new subfield of Black Women’s Rhetoric(s), creating a homeplace of resistance like Burroughs did via The Worker and A Missionary Quarterly.

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Ross, Rosetta E. “Religion and Public Life.” Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights, Fortress Press, 2003.

Royster, Jacqueline Jones. “When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 47, no. 1, 1996, pp. 29–40. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/358272.

Walker, Alice. “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens.” Within the Circle: An Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present, Ed. Angelyn Mitchell. Duke UP, 1994.

Una Roberts Lawrence Collection. Nannie Helen Burroughs correspondence, 1931–1935. Letter to Mrs. Una Roberts Lawrence. June 29, 1935. Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. Box 1, Folder 29. Nashville, TN.

FOOTNOTES

1To prevent reader confusion, The Worker is Burroughs' publication, and A Missionary Quarterly is the co-publication.

2For stylistic variation, I employ both African American and Black terminology.

3As of a 2023 visit to the Library of Congress, early copies of The Worker from 1912 to 1920 could not be located for use in this piece and is the subject of ongoing research. Burroughs' school suffered from a fire in 1926, the financial crisis in 1933, and her papers at the Library of Congress suffered flood damage in 2019 ("National Training School Damaged by Flames”).

4Bettye Collier-Thomas republished the front page of Burroughs’ earliest known edition of The Worker from February 1915 in her book Jesus, Jobs, and Justice. The headline, “What the Belgians did to the Negro” connects the previous historical atrocity of the Congo genocide to lynching in the American South. Burroughs skillfully educates and empowers Black people about historic labor exploitation and cultural damage from European colonial powers (389).

5Coined in the 1970s by Alice Walker, womanism is a framework for understanding Black women's resilience and experiences. Some forms of womanism are religious-based, such as Christian womanist theology. Others explore spirituality without reference to religion. For a useful discussion of the diversity within womanism, see Monica Coleman's introduction to Ain't I A Womanist, Too? Third-Wave Womanist Religious Thought.

6Susie Green is profiled as holding a "mechanical mind" as the owner of her own print shop which was work recommended to her by Burroughs during her school attendance (Burroughs, Making Their Mark).

7Coleman in “Must I Be Womanist” discusses feminist thought from a religious perspective exploring how the Black church has oppressed Black women for their sexuality and encouraged heteropatriarchy, downplaying women’s leadership roles (89). Ross frames Burroughs as a race woman who, through her activism, sought full citizenship for African American women as a religious calling (28; 31).

8In her own words, “I am a very poor woman, because I work for a small salary… I’ve had to make undreamed of personal sacrifices to help carry on the work for the national training school.” (Burroughs, Letter to Carter G. Woodson).

9Burroughs sought an international reach as early as 1919 with (unsuccessful) plans for a global readership in Cuba (qtd. Phillips-Cunningham and Popp 26).

10Harris was born in Barbados and lived in Washington D.C. She graduated from the National Training School for Women and Girls (NTS) in 1916 with a certificate in missionary training (“Burroughs, “Graduate Certificates”). She served approximately five years in Africa (Burroughs, Making Their Mark). Gooding was originally from Nova Scotia and served as a missionary for twelve years, eventually returning to D.C. to serve at Shiloh Baptist Church. She graduated with a diploma in Social Services from the NTS (“Burroughs, “Graduate Certificates”). She sought to undertake service with zeal at the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Board and briefly returned to domestic service to offset the cost (Burroughs, Making Their Mark).

11As early as 1921, William Pickens noted the troubling relationship Burroughs had with the NBC male membership in her struggle for control of her school, “Many another soul would kow-tow a bit to race prejudice and free itself from this awful burden. And. it has not been so easy as some might think to get support for this National Institute from the Colored Baptists, inasmuch as in every State of the South they have local Church colleges to support. But the Training School is owned by all the states and all must support it” (36).

12According to Phillips-Cunningham by 1937, Burroughs held greater control of the magazine (289-290). Collier-Thomas noted that Lawrence left the SBC in 1947 (630n329), and Burroughs regained control within the Baptist community by being elected to the Women's Convention (WC) in 1948. Each of these sea changes, alongside the ending of the Depression, led to Burroughs returning with greater editorial control.

13Burroughs served in the Committee on Negro Housing in 1931, publishing a report a year later, and traveled all across America viewing the disreputable home conditions, calling for immediate federal and state board intervention to build affordable housing for African Americans. She never minced words and stated, "The entrance of a Negro into a white community results in an immediate depreciation of land value" (Burroughs et. al 117).

14Burroughs served in the Committee on Negro Housing in 1931, publishing a report a year later, and traveled all across America viewing the disreputable home conditions, calling for immediate federal and state board intervention to build affordable housing for African Americans. She never minced words and stated, "The entrance of a Negro into a white community results in an immediate depreciation of land value" (Burroughs et. al 117).