Fannie Barrier Williams
Frances Barrier Williams (February 12, 1855 – March 4, 1944) was an American educator, civil rights, and women's rights activist, and the first black woman to gain membership to the Chicago Woman's Club. She became well known for her efforts to have black people officially represented on the Board of Control of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. She was also a musician, a portraitist and studied foreign languages.
Fannie Barrier Williams
March 4, 1944 (aged 89)
American
Early life[edit]
Frances (Fannie) Barrier was born on February 12, 1855, the youngest of three children born to Anthony and Harriet Barrier.[1] Her father, born in Pennsylvania, came to Brockport, New York, as a child. He claimed to be partially of French descent. He worked as a barber and later became a coal dealer.[2] Her mother was born in Sherburne, a small community in Chenango County, New York,[3] and was a housewife who dedicated her life to raising her children, and participating in church activities.[3] The couple married in Brockport, where they were one of just a few black families in town.[4] Her family was part of a privileged class since her father had built a solid real estate portfolio, and owned a profitable business. Barrier had intimate contact with the white elite, without suffering any kind of direct discrimination that was prominent elsewhere in the country.[3] The Barrier family attended the First Baptist Church in Brockport, where Barrier's father was a well-respected lay leader, her mother taught the Bible, and she played piano.[4] They were the only black family in the congregation.[3]
In a 1904 autobiographical article in the Independent, Barrier recalled of her Brockport youth that "...there could not have been a relationship more cordial, respectful and intimate than that of our family and the white people of this community."[5][6]
Barrier and her siblings, Ella and George, attended the "primary department" or campus school of the old Brockport Collegiate Institute. After that, Fannie Barrier continued on in the school's new incarnation as the Brockport State Normal School (now SUNY-College at Brockport), and was the first African American to graduate in 1870.[4]
Education and early career[edit]
After graduation, Barrier went south to teach at a school for blacks in Hannibal, Missouri, where she encountered a level of racism she never experienced in Brockport. For the first time, she witnessed segregation, intimidation, physical assault, and other degradations suffered by many blacks. She reported that she was "shattered" by the discrimination she encountered and this new awareness of racism targeted toward women of color ultimately led her to pursue a lifetime of activism.[3]
Disheartened by the racism she was experiencing, Barrier left the south to study piano at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. However, the conservatory had a widespread reach and influence, drawing students from both the North and the South. Southern white students objected to Barrier's presence, and she was pressured to leave.[4]
After leaving the conservatory in Boston, Barrier went to the Washington, D.C., area to teach, joining the emerging education movement, which focused on freedmen and freedwomen.[3] The education movement and community allowed her to socialize and make connections with other educated blacks. However, she also experienced significant difficulties due to her race when she enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Washington to study portrait painting.[3]
While teaching in Washington, D.C., she met her future husband Samuel Laing Williams of Georgia and Chicago. He worked in the United States Pension Office while studying law at Columbian University (later George Washington University Law School). They were married in Brockport in August 1887, returned to Washington, and eventually settled in Chicago, Illinois, where Williams was admitted to the Illinois Bar, and began a successful law practice. The couple joined All Souls (Unitarian) Church in Chicago.[7]
Later life[edit]
From 1900 she became an outspoken supporter of Booker T. Washington's program of accommodation and self-improvement. After the death of her husband in 1921, Barrier Williams remained in Chicago until 1926. In 1924, the widowed Williams became the first woman and the first black American to be named to the Chicago Library Board.[1]
She returned to Brockport in 1926 to live with her sister Ella D. Barrier, where she enjoyed a much simpler and quiet life. The Brockport Republic wrote in 1932 that she was "very ill with the grip."[15] She seemingly recovered but due to her declining health, she wrote her will and last testament five years later. She named people she generally cared for and the organizations where people had embraced her activism as the beneficiaries of her estate and possessions.
Death and legacy[edit]
On March 4, 1944, she died after a long illness.[1][8] She was buried at the Brockport Cemetery on March 14, 1944, at 2pm. She was survived by her sister, Ella D. Barrier, who died a year later.[16]
In 2014, SUNY-College at Brockport named the Fannie Barrier Williams Women of Courage Scholarship after her. It is awarded to students with a 3.0 or higher GPA, and the requirements include an essay of their commitment to social justice. In 2022, the school renamed their Liberal Arts Building in honor of her, it now being named the Fannie Barrier Williams Liberal Arts Building. The village of Brockport has also designated October 6, 2022, as Fannie Barrier Williams Day.[17][18]