During a tumultous period of my life including illness and exhaustion, I escaped to my home away from home, Medissage at Noah’s Ark which is where I began to work with the energy of a beautiful African-American queen, Nannie Helen Burroughs. Nannie lived during the last century and although not widely covered in our his (her)story books, she left a legacy which is impressive. Here in Washington, DC her school which she founded in 1907 still exists and we have a street named for her.
Who was Nannie? An educator, editor, religious leader, suffragist, oratorical speaker and so much more. To me, Nannie was “her sister’s keeper” – a woman who loved the Lord and above all loved the young woman of our race. She devoted her life to the upliftment of these women by creating the first boarding schools for Negro women – young women who came from the States and the Carribean to learn how to “be extraordinary at the ordinary”. During Nannie’s day, Negro women were not respected and many never received a good education. She saw to it that they had a school where they could come and learn the three B’s – “the Bible, the bath, and the broom”, the three C’s – “character, culture and Christian education” along with the three R’s.
Nannie was very concerned with the moral quality of our youth. . Nannie must be returned to her relevance!