Talbert, Mary Morris (1866–1923)

African-American educator and civil-rights activist. Name variations: Mary Burnett Talbert. Born Mary Morris Burnett in Oberlin, Ohio, on September 17, 1866; died of coronary thrombosis in Buffalo, New York, on October 15, 1923; youngest of eight children of Cornelius J. Burnett and Caroline (Nichols) Burnett; Oberlin College, S.P. degree, 1886, B.A., 1894; married William Talbert (a city clerk and realtor), in 1891; children: Sarah May Talbert (who became an accomplished pianist and composer).

In 1887, when Mary Morris Talbert was hired as assistant principal of Bethel University, she became the first woman in the state to hold that position; by the following year, she was principal of Union High School in Little Rock. With her marriage to William Talbert, a successful city clerk and realtor, she moved to Buffalo and became active in the African-American community there; she was also a charter member in the highly active Phillis Wheatley Club.

The Talberts were prominent in the black protest movement, founding the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church in 1892, and frequently sharing their home with reformers, including Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Nannie Helen Burroughs . Talbert also worked regularly alongside fellow Oberlin alumnae Anna J. Cooper and Mary Church Terrell in the National Association of Colored Women (NACW); from 1916 to 1920, Talbert was its president.

In 1921, as vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Talbert took on a national crusade to support the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, raising much-needed funds to advertize the atrocities. She was the first woman to receive the coveted Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

sources:

Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1992.