It’s been awhile, we know. In fact, we haven’t released a new Dead Feminists broadside in over a year—that’s the longest we’ve ever gone between releases, and International Women’s Day felt like the right time to come back. Despite our radio silence, there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes. We’ve pivoted several times, embarking on several broadside ideas and then changing our minds (or postponing those ideas for later) as current events seemed to flash before our eyes. Before long there were more issues at hand than we could possibly touch upon with one broadside: the January 6 insurrection, a constant flow of pandemic mis- and disinformation, new voter suppression laws around the country, secretive court dockets, a resurgence in banned books, and the suppression of teaching our true history under the specter of “critical race theory” (a legal subject that has nothing to do with K-12 curricula). And then it dawned on us: we could touch upon all of these things with one broadside, if we found the right quote. Enter educator, activist and suffragist Nannie Helen Burroughs:

Education and justice are democracy’s only life insurance.

And then, while we were literally on press, Russia invaded Ukraine, and President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first Black woman to sit on the US Supreme Court. That’s when Nannie Helen Burroughs’ words truly hit home with us: without those two pillars of our society, our democracy and freedom will crumble.

Burroughs was one of many Black suffragists working in the late 19th century, often overshadowed in suffrage history by white women. She contributed to the movement through the circles of education and religion with grassroots efforts: writing for a Baptist newspaper in Philadelphia, founding the Women’s Industrial Club to teach vocational skills in Louisville, and working as secretary for the Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Convention (NBC).

The NBC gave her the platform and traction she needed, and in 1909 she created an industrial school in Washington, DC, under NBC auspices. The school was funded almost entirely from small, individual donations from women and girls.

At the National Training School for Women and Girls, Burroughs created a curriculum focused on teaching vocational skills.

To Burroughs it was crucial for women to be self-sufficient wage earners, so classes included cooking, millinery, domestic science, and more. There was even a print shop on campus. And every student had to pass an African-American history course taught by Burroughs herself, who was determined to teach them the truth about their country.

By 1928 she had expanded the campus to include several buildings, and the school welcomed students from all over the US, as well as the Caribbean and even Africa.

 

Burroughs devoted the rest of her life to the National Training School, while still supporting the NBC and Black women’s clubs (who have been a major force in voting rights activism for the past century and a half). Other prominent figures took note of her work, including National Association of Colored Women president Mary McLeod Bethune and Black history scholar Dr. Carter G. Woodson. In the above photo, taken c. 1958, she’s pictured with a young Thurgood Marshall. Just a few years later, he would become the first Black justice to sit on the US Supreme Court.

For our latest broadside, Knowledge Trust, we wanted to honor Burroughs by highlighting education as the foundation of our democracy. Our design is chock full of vocational underpinnings, with grid lines and pen strokes that reference the penmanship workbooks common in 19th century curricula.

It’s also festooned with democratic symbols, from a calligraphic eagle, to signatures that resemble the Declaration of Independence. The lavender ink honors traditional suffrage purple, while the deep green (also a suffrage color) evokes the muted color scheme of American currency. In the background is a coin marked with E  Pluribus Unum, representing grassroots activism and the coin-by-coin donations that built the National Training School. On the coin is a Black woman standing in a pose reminiscent of both the goddess Columbia (an allegorial figure frequently referenced in early American politics and propaganda) and the Statue of Freedom—a bronze female figure that stands atop the cupola of the United States Capitol building. An enslaved man, Philip Reid, was integral to its construction, and, by the time the statue was completed in 1863, was himself finally a free man. Our freedom figure wears a liberty cap, another 19th century symbol modeled on the Phrygian caps that the ancient Romans granted to enslaved people upon their emancipation. (The Statue of Freedom was also designed with one, but the man who oversaw the construction of the Capitol— Jefferson Davis—objected to the liberty cap and had it stricken from the design).

Even Burroughs’ portrait acknowledges the power of the pen, with her likeness rendered as a single-stroke copperplate doodle.

There’s one more design reference in there: a nod to the 19th century engravers and typographers who turned something so prosaic as insurance company documents into ornate works of art.

To help insure the next generation of students and voters, we are donating a portion of our proceeds to She the People, a non-profit focused on reaching and enfranchising women voters of color. In light of the situation in Ukraine, we will be making a second donation to Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights to aid the people fighting to save their own democracy there. The UAF Urgent Response Fund for Ukraine supports women, trans, and nonbinary activists on the ground by providing flexible funding and security support. We are supporting both organizations via Action Grants from the Dead Feminists Fund.

Purchase your copy in the shop!

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Knowledge Trust: No. 32 in the Dead Feminists series
Edition size: 190
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag (cotton) paper. Each piece is numbered and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
Nannie Helen Burroughs (c. 1879 – 1961) was born in Orange, Virginia and moved with her mother to Washington, DC after her father’s death. As a student at M Street High School, she met activists Mary Church Terrell and Anna J. Cooper. After graduating with honors, she moved to Kentucky to work for the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention (NBC). At NBC’s annual meeting in 1900, Burroughs’ speech “How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping” gained national attention and inspired her to co-found the NBC auxiliary Woman’s Convention (WC), the largest Black women’s organization in the United States. Here Black women could exercise their labor and organizing power independent of male membership and white women suffragists. Burroughs served the WC for over 40 years, first as corresponding secretary, then as president.

In 1907, funded by donations from women and children, Burroughs opened the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, DC, adopting the motto “We specialize in the wholly impossible.” To develop “the fiber of a sturdy moral, industrious and intellectual woman,” students learned vocational skills to become self-­sufficient wage earners. Burroughs’ African-American history class was a graduation requirement. She served as school president until her death. The former Trades Hall, now a National Historic Landmark, today houses the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, in gratitude to the Black women who have insured our democracy’s future beneficiaries. 190 copies were printed by hand at Springtide Press in Tacoma.