73:, 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
195:
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. The war
161:
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."
204:
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.
84:
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
124:
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.
331:"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.
542:
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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.
537:
522:
213:
143:, a Communist Party auxiliary group. Burroughs traveled with her husband and her two youngest sons to the convention, with the boys remaining in the
532:
154:"Mary Adams" in the communist movement during the 1920s and 1930s, publishing an article for the party's daily newspaper under that name for
547:
208:
Her son
Charles Burroughs, the oldest of the boys who had been left in Moscow, retained his American citizenship and was inducted into the
20:
196:
intervened and
Burroughs and her sons remained in Moscow until 1945, when she finally managed to return to New York with the younger boy.
128:
517:
395:
Ross to
Dimitrov, September 14, 1942, RGASPI f. 495, op. 73, d. 152. Translated and published in full in Klehr, Haynes, and Firsov,
81:
65:. Her mother had formerly been a slave for 16 years, her father died when Williana was just four years old. Her widowed mother left
170:
276:
Philip
Sterling, "Williana J. Burroughs: Ousted from New York Public School System, Now Communist Candidate for Comptroller,"
552:
140:
502:
105:
89:, where she achieved credentials to become a teacher. In 1910 she obtained her first teaching position, in charge of a
507:
512:
132:
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Burroughs was regarded as one of the CP's most effective witnesses during the public hearings over the
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early in 1945. After his military service he returned to the United States and in 1961 co-founded the
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492:
450:
166:
62:
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77:. Her mother was able to retrieve her three children from the orphanage only when Williana was 11.
37:
477:
Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism.
438:
97:
177:
101:
121:
61:
Williana Jones, known to family and friends as "Liane," was born on January 2, 1882, in
19:
446:
243:
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After loss of her teaching position, Burroughs was the Communist Party's candidate for
86:
45:
457:; Timothy Holmes; Manning Johnson; Richard B. Moore; William Taylor; Louise Thompson;
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Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union.
486:
462:
454:
442:
187:, where she worked as an announcer and editor for the English-language broadcasts of
70:
104:, where she taught first and second grade children. She was soon recruited into the
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to attend school thereafter. Burroughs would not be reunited with them until 1937.
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44:. She is best remembered as one of the first women to run for elective office in
458:
228:
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Her granddaughter Carola Burroughs was interviewed by Yelena Demikovsky for the
221:
184:
90:
108:, in which she was active as part of the Communist-led "Rank and File caucus."
23:
Drawing of Williana Burroughs from the 1933 election campaign, as published in
41:
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She returned to the Soviet Union in the spring of 1937, the year of the
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in September 1926. She became active in the campaign for defense of the
217:
155:
136:
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in 1934. She also ran the Harlem Worker's School from 1933 to 1934.
18:
427:(as "Mary Adams"): "Record of Revolts in Negro Workers' Past,"
353:
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov,
33:(January 2, 1882 – December 24, 1945) was an American teacher,
342:
The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-36.
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in the fall of 1933 and the Communist Party's candidate for
465:; Merrill Work. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939.
291:
Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918.
479:
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
234:, about African-Americans who moved to the Soviet Union.
344:
Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1998; p. 264.
220:, of which he remained curator until 1980. A Chicago
357:
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995; p. 199.
319:New York: Columbia University Press, 2011; p. 59.
293:New York: Columbia University Press, 2009; p. 90.
139:in the summer of 1928 as a representative of the
543:20th-century African-American women politicians
8:
435:The Road to Liberation for the Negro People.
407:
405:
365:
363:
280:vol. 10, no. 232 (September 27, 1933), p. 5.
528:Activists for African-American civil rights
16:American teacher and politician (1882–1945)
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214:DuSable Museum of African American History
127:The Communist Party sent Burroughs to the
538:American expatriates in the Soviet Union
327:
325:
413:The Secret World of American Communism,
397:The Secret World of American Communism,
355:The Secret World of American Communism.
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7:
232:Black Russians - The Red Experience
523:Members of the Communist Party USA
14:
31:Williana "Liana" Jones Burroughs
533:American civil rights activists
171:Lieutenant Governor of New York
116:Williana Burroughs joined the
1:
437:Contributor with A.W. Berry;
141:American Negro Labor Congress
106:New York City Teachers Union
96:In 1926, Burroughs moved to
548:African-American communists
411:Klehr, Haynes, and Firsov,
569:
150:Burroughs made use of the
518:African-American Marxists
118:Workers (Communist) Party
445:; Benjamin Carreathers;
133:Communist International
27:
553:Hunter College alumni
22:
451:William L. Patterson
224:is named after him.
191:, the international
167:New York Comptroller
63:Petersburg, Virginia
503:American communists
371:The Cry was Unity,
289:Jeffrey B. Perry,
129:6th World Congress
80:Williana attended
38:political activist
28:
508:American Marxists
439:Benjamin J. Davis
429:The Daily Worker,
315:Clarence Taylor,
278:The Daily Worker,
25:The Daily Worker.
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416:
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393:
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384:Hubert Harrison,
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304:Hubert Harrison,
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200:Death and legacy
178:1935 Harlem riot
112:Political career
102:Queens, New York
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483:
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475:Erik McDuffie,
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470:Further reading
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386:p. 437, fn. 45.
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122:Scottsboro boys
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513:Women Marxists
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447:Angelo Herndon
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415:p. 200, fn. 4.
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340:Mark Solomon,
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244:Eric Burroughs
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87:Hunter College
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463:Henry Winston
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455:Harry Haywood
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443:James W. Ford
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82:public school
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71:New York City
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431:May 1, 1928.
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189:Radio Moscow
185:Great Terror
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145:Soviet Union
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79:
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30:
29:
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498:1945 deaths
493:1882 births
459:Maude White
229:documentary
222:high school
93:classroom.
91:first grade
57:Early years
487:Categories
42:politician
369:Solomon,
250:Footnotes
210:U.S. Army
193:shortwave
152:pseudonym
52:Biography
35:communist
399:pg. 201.
238:See also
67:Virginia
46:New York
382:Perry,
373:p. 265.
306:pg. 91.
302:Perry,
218:Chicago
156:May Day
131:of the
98:P.S. 48
137:Moscow
75:Harlem
40:, and
422:Works
69:for
216:in
135:in
100:in
489::
461:;
453:;
449:;
441:;
404:^
362:^
324:^
257:^
180:.
48:.
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