Williana "Liana" Jones Burroughs (January 2, 1882 – December 24, 1945) was an American teacher,

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

political activist A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some ...

, and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. She is best remembered as one of the first women to run for elective office in New York.

Biography

Early years

Williana Jones, known to family and friends as "Liane," was born on January 2, 1882, in

Petersburg, Virginia Petersburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,458. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg (along with the city of Colonial Heights) with Din ...

.Philip Sterling, "Williana J. Burroughs: Ousted from New York Public School System, Now Communist Candidate for Comptroller," ''The Daily Worker,'' vol. 10, no. 232 (September 27, 1933), p. 5. Her mother had formerly been a slave for 16 years, her father died when Williana was just four years old. Her widowed mother left

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, bringing Williana together with a sister and a brother (Gordon Jones), where she worked as a cook. Her mother proved unable to care for her children adequately, however, so Williana spent the next seven years in the Colored Orphan Asylum, located at the time on the corner of 143rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

. Her mother was able to retrieve her three children from the orphanage only when Williana was 11. Williana attended

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

in New York, where she was an excellent student. In 1909, Williana Jones married Charles Burroughs, a postal worker and actor. After graduation, she attended New York City Normal College, known today as

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, where she achieved credentials to become a teacher. In 1910 she obtained her first teaching position, in charge of a

first grade First grade (also called Grade One, called ''Year 2'' in England or Primary 2 in Scotland) is the first grade in elementary school and the first school year after kindergarten. Children are usually 6–7 years old in this grade. Examples by r ...

classroom. In 1926, Burroughs moved to P.S. 48 in

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long I ...

, where she taught first and second grade children. She was soon recruited into the New York City Teachers Union, in which she was active as part of the Communist-led "Rank and File caucus."

Political career

Williana Burroughs joined the Workers (Communist) Party in September 1926."Files of the Communist Party USA in the Comintern Archives," Russian State Archive for Social-Political History (RGASPI), f. 515, op. 1, d. 1599, l. 1. Available on microfilm, reel 122. She became active in the campaign for defense of the Scottsboro boys and was chairman of the Blumberg Defense Council, an organization formed to defend Isidore Blumberg, a teacher removed from the New York public schools system due to his political views. The Communist Party sent Burroughs to the 6th World Congress of the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

in the summer of 1928 as a representative of the

American Negro Labor Congress The American Negro Labor Congress was established in 1925 by the Communist Party as a vehicle for advancing the rights of African Americans, propagandizing for communism within the black community and recruiting African American members for the p ...

, a Communist Party auxiliary group.Mark Solomon, ''The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-36.'' Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1998; p. 264. Burroughs traveled with her husband and her two youngest sons to the convention, with the boys remaining in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

to attend school thereafter. Burroughs would not be reunited with them until 1937.Solomon, ''The Cry was Unity,'' p. 265. Burroughs made use of the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

"Mary Adams" in the communist movement during the 1920s and 1930s, publishing an article for the party's daily newspaper under that name for

May Day May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. T ...

1928. She became prominent within the party organization and was selected as an alternate delegate to the 6th National Convention of the Communist Party USA in March 1929. Upon returning to the United States in January 1931, she resumed teaching. In 1933 Burroughs spoke out at a meeting of the New York City Board of Education, and in June 1933 Burroughs was dismissed from her post for "conduct unbecoming to a teacher and prejudicial to law and order." After loss of her teaching position, Burroughs was the Communist Party's candidate for

New York Comptroller The New York State Comptroller is an elected constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the New York state government's Department of Audit and Control. The New York State Comptroller is the highest-paid state auditor or t ...

in the fall of 1933 and the Communist Party's candidate for

Lieutenant Governor of New York The lieutenant governor of New York is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the Government of the State of New York. It is the second highest-ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governor is elected on a ticket wit ...

in 1934. She also ran the Harlem Worker's School from 1933 to 1934. Burroughs was regarded as one of the CP's most effective witnesses during the public hearings over the

1935 Harlem riot The Harlem riot of 1935 took place on March 19, 1935 in New York City, New York, in the United States. It has been described as the first "modern" race riot in Harlem, because it was committed primarily against property rather than persons. Harl ...

. She returned to the Soviet Union in the spring of 1937, the year of the

Great Terror The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

, where she worked as an announcer and editor for the English-language broadcasts of

Radio Moscow Radio Moscow ( rus, Pадио Москва, r=Radio Moskva), also known as Radio Moscow World Service, was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993. It was reorganized with a new name ...

, the international

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...

news service of the Soviet government. Burroughs remained in Moscow for virtually the rest of her life. In the spring of 1940 she made a request to return to the United States together with her sons but was persuaded to stay owing to the lack of capable Americans remaining in the USSR.Ross to Dimitrov, September 14, 1942, RGASPI f. 495, op. 73, d. 152. Translated and published in full in Klehr, Haynes, and Firsov, ''The Secret World of American Communism,'' pg. 201. The war intervened and Burroughs and her sons remained in Moscow until 1945, when she finally managed to return to New York with the younger boy.Klehr, Haynes, and Firsov, ''The Secret World of American Communism,'' p. 200, fn. 4.

Death and legacy

Williana Jones Burroughs died on December 24, 1945, at the Manhattan home of her friend Hermie Huiswoud, just two months after her return to the United States and barely more than a week before what would have been her 64th birthday. Her son Charles Burroughs, the oldest of the boys who had been left in Moscow, retained his American citizenship and was inducted into the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

early in 1945. After his military service he returned to the United States and in 1961 co-founded the

DuSable Museum of African American History The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, formerly the DuSable Museum of African American History, is a museum in Chicago that is dedicated to the study and conservation of African-American history, culture, and art. It was founded i ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, of which he remained curator until 1980. A Chicago

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

is named after him. Her granddaughter Carola Burroughs was interviewed by Yelena Demikovsky for the documentary ''Black Russians - The Red Experience'', about African-Americans who moved to the Soviet Union.

Footnotes

Works

* (as "Mary Adams"): "Record of Revolts in Negro Workers' Past," ''The Daily Worker,'' May 1, 1928. * ''The Road to Liberation for the Negro People.'' Contributor with A.W. Berry;

Benjamin J. Davis Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr. (September 8, 1903 – August 22, 1964), was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. He faced increasing opposition from outside Harlem a ...

; James W. Ford; Benjamin Carreathers;

Angelo Herndon Angelo Braxton Herndon (May 6, 1913 in Wyoming, Ohio – December 9, 1997 in Sweet Home, Arkansas) was an African-American labor organizer arrested and convicted of insurrection after attempting to organize black and white industrial workers in ...

;

William L. Patterson William Lorenzo Patterson (August 27, 1891 – March 5, 1980) was an African-American leader in the Communist Party USA and head of the International Labor Defense, a group that offered legal representation to communists, trade unionists, and ...

;

Harry Haywood Harry Haywood (February 4, 1898 – January 4, 1985) was an American political activist who was a leading figure in both the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). His goal was to connec ...

; Timothy Holmes; Manning Johnson; Richard B. Moore; William Taylor; Louise Thompson; Maude White;

Henry Winston Henry M. Winston (April 2, 1911December 13, 1986) was an African-American political leader and Marxist civil rights activist. Winston, committed to equal rights and communism, was an advocate of civil rights for African Americans decades before ...

; Merrill Work. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939.