Mary Burrill
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Mary Powell Burrill (August 1881 – March 13, 1946) was an early 20th-century
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
female playwright of the
Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ti ...
, who inspired Willis Richardson and other students to write plays. Burrill herself wrote plays about the Black Experience, their literary and cultural activities, and the Black Elite. She featured the kind of central figures as were prominent in the black society of Washington, D.C., and others who contributed to black women's education in early twentieth century.


Early life

Mary Powell Burrill was born in August 1881 in Washington, D.C., the daughter of John Henry Burrill and Clara Eliza Washington Burrill. In 1901, she graduated from M Street High School (later Dunbar High School) in Washington, D.C., which was one of the leading black academic, secondary schools in the country at the time. During Burrill's adolescence and early adulthood, she had an emotional and possibly erotic relationship with
Angelina Weld Grimké Angelina Weld Grimké (February 27, 1880 – June 10, 1958) was an African Americans, African-American journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet. By ancestry, Grimké was three-quarters white — the child of a white mother and a half-white f ...
, which allowed Burrill to encourage her to pursue playwriting as she would later become a famous poet, playwright and teacher. Burrill's family later moved to
Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
. There she attended Emerson College of Oratory (later Emerson College), where she received a diploma in 1904.


Career

After graduation, Burrill returned to Washington, D.C. From 1905 until her retirement in 1944, she taught English, history, and drama at Dunbar High School, her alma mater, and Armstrong High. For thirty-eight years, Burrill also gave dramatic readings and directed plays and musical productions at Dunbar and throughout Washington, D.C. Some of Burrill's students became educators and writers who were actively involved in the
Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ti ...
. Among these was Willis Richardson, the first African-American dramatist to have a play produced on Broadway in New York City. Another notable student was May Miller, who published her first play, ''Pandora's Box'', while she was still a student at Dunbar. In 1919, two of Burrill's most well-known plays were published. ''They That Sit in Darkness'' was published in
Margaret Sanger Margaret Sanger ( Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, founded Planned Parenthood, and was instr ...
's progressive ''Birth Control Review'', a monthly publication advocating
reproductive rights Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to human reproduction, reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights: Reproductive rights ...
for women. The other play, ''Aftermath'', was published in '' ''The Liberator'''', edited by socialist
Max Eastman Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy, and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radica ...
. Burrill's plays were considered protest plays because they advocated progressive stances on issues of race and gender. Burrill hosted literary gatherings in her home, which was known as “the Half-Way House.” It served as a meeting space for creative expression and intellectual discussions among many prominent writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance. For example, she was a friend of Jean Toomer, who had ties in Washington, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Burill even participated in the gatherings held at Johnson's S Street Salon, where female activists of the Harlem Renaissance would gather to discuss lynchings, women's rights, and the hardships facing African-American families.


''They That Sit in Darkness''

This one-act play written in 1919 focuses on the difficulties faced by working-class black families with numerous children. Malinda Jasper, a 38-year-old woman, works full-time and also takes care of her 10 children, her husband never sees their children because they are asleep when he gets home from his job. She dies of physical and mental exhaustion, forcing her 17-year-old daughter to take care of the family rather than go to college as she planned, a result that continues the
cycle of poverty In economics, a cycle of poverty, poverty trap or generational poverty is when poverty seems to be inherited, preventing subsequent generations from escaping it. It is caused by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to ...
for her and her siblings. Through Malinda's story, the play explores how legal restrictions that limited women's access to reproductive rights affected their welfare and that of their families. It was part of a campaign to legalize birth control, but this did not become legal until March 22, 1972. Burrill's work was controversial because it advocated
birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...
as a means to escape poverty long before women were given reproductive rights in the U.S. The play also features a southern dialect adopted by many former slaves which playwrights incorporated as a means to assimilate work with previously dictated guidelines for what "black theatre" was. In Burrill's work, she reclaims this accent in the empowerment of her characters throughout the length of the play.


''Aftermath''

This play is set in rural South Carolina and features John, an African-American soldier who discovers after returning home from World War I that his father has been
lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of in ...
. The play was produced by New York City's Krigwa Players in 1928. John had been awarded the French War Cross for single-handedly fighting off twenty German soldiers, and so saving the lives of everyone in his company. ''Aftermath'' (1919) was considered political because Burrill's portrayed John as a black male who selflessly and fearlessly confronted racial oppression. The production of the piece took place in New York City and the Little Black Theatre performed by the Krigwa Players.


Personal life

Mary Burrill was attracted to others of the same gender, at a time when this was discouraged. She sought to prevent her orientation from affecting her social positions, and her acceptance in African-American society. When she was 15, it appears that Mary Burrill had a dalliance with fellow Washingtonian Angelina Weld Grimke, who penned this note: "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'" In 1912, while teaching, Burrill met Lucy Diggs Slowe, an English teacher from Baltimore. After a few years, Slowe moved to DC to teach at Armstrong Manual Training Academy. She and Burrill bought a house together. Slowe and Burrill were together for twenty-five years, and their close friends, who were mostly other black female educators, treated them as a couple. Slowe was appointed in 1922 as Dean of Women at
Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...
, a historically black college; she was the first black dean of women there or at any American university. She and Burrill decided to buy a house at 1256 Kearney Street in nearby Brookland, then a predominantly white middle-class neighborhood in Northeast Washington. They lived there for fifteen years until Slowe died in 1937 from kidney disease.


Death and legacy

Shattered from the death of Slowe, Burrill moved out of their house and into an apartment near Howard. She retired from Dunbar High School in 1944. Upon her retirement from teaching in 1944, Burrill moved to New York City, where she died on March 13, 1946, in her early 60s. She is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The Slowe-Burrill House was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 2020.


References


Further reading

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External links


North American Women's Drama
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burrill, Mary P. 1881 births 1946 deaths African-American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American educators American feminist writers Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Washington, D.C.) Emerson College alumni Harlem Renaissance African-American LGBTQ people 19th-century American LGBTQ people 20th-century American LGBTQ people American LGBTQ writers American women dramatists and playwrights Writers from Washington, D.C. Reproductive rights activists 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American women writers Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.) alumni 20th-century African-American women writers 20th-century African-American writers