Susie Isabel Lankford Shorter (January 4, 1859 – February 23, 1912) was an American educator, philanthropist, and writer.

Early life

Susan Isabel (or Isabella) Lankford was born in

Terre Haute, Indiana Terre Haute ( ) is a city in Vigo County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 58,389 and Terre Haute metropolitan area, its metropolitan area had a populati ...

, the daughter of Whitten Strange Lankford and Clarissa Carter Lankford. Her father was a minister in the

African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan theology, Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexionalism, connexional polity. It ...

. She was educated at

Wilberforce University Wilberforce University (WU) is a private university in Wilberforce, Ohio. It is one of three historically black universities established before the American Civil War. Founded in 1856 by the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC), it is named after ...

in Ohio.

Career

Susie Lankford taught for a few years before she married. As a faculty wife at Wilberforce, she ran a student store, offered a free kindergarten for local children, and provided care for sick students in her home. She was president of the Wilberforce Ladies' College Aid Society.Jessie Carney Smith, ed.
''Notable Black American Women, Book 2''
(VNR AG 1996): 595–597. Shorter wrote articles for church publications. Her booklet "Heroines of African Methodism" (1891) was written to celebrate the eightieth birthday of Bishop Daniel Payne. "We are proud of our women," she wrote. "Little has been written concerning them. They are walking in all life's avenues successfully, daring and doing what the women of other varieties of the human race dare and do." She also wrote a column, "Plain Talk to Our Girls", for ''Ringwood's Afro-American Journal of Fashion'', published by Julia Ringwood Coston. She wrote the song, "Lifting as We Climb", for the Ohio chapter of the

National Association of Colored Women's Clubs The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of ...

.Charles Harris Wesley
''The History of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs: A Legacy of Service''
(NACWC 1984): 54.

Personal life

Susie Isabel Lankford married Joseph Proctor Shorter, a professor at Wilberforce University, in 1878. They had eight children together; at least three of their children died before reaching their teens. Susie Lankford Shorter was widowed in 1910 and died in 1912, aged 53 years.

References

External links

Susan Isabella Lankford Shorter's Ohio gravesite
at Find a Grave. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shorter, Susie Lankford 1859 births 1912 deaths African-American women writers African-American educators African-American women educators People from Terre Haute, Indiana Wilberforce University alumni Educators from Indiana American women educators 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women