Mary Burnett Talbert's Legacy
Talbert’s profound intellectual contributions can be found throughout the NAACP archive in publications and private letters written while she was alive, as well as in her obituary. In her obituary, the NAACP focused on the achievements that place her apart from her contemporaries, constructing for Talbert a legacy that celebrated her impact on the civil rights movement.
“MARY BURNETT TALBERT is dead”[1] reads the first sentence of the NAACP’s obituary published in The Crisis. In the next sentence, Talbert’s cause of death is attributed to “over-work, the unstinted giving of herself to the Negro cause”[2]. No individual author for the obituary is specified, an intentional decision that implies the obituary represents the thoughts of the NAACP as a whole. Therefore, according to the NAACP, Talbert was struck down “in her prime”[3] as a result of her intellectual contributions in the fight for civil and women’s rights. By describing her activism as the “giving of herself to the Negro cause,” the NAACP equated Talbert’s contributions with her personhood. This equation then also served to highlight how deep her commitment was, as she gave herself in her entirety to “the Negro cause” “unstinted”, or without restraint. Using the phrase “over-work” indicates that Talbert’s work was more than other members, or at the very least was more than what was expected from leaders and the norm. In this sentence the NAACP recognized how much Talbert contributed, but also revealed that her intellectual work made her exceptional.
The NAACP then chose to highlight what they deem was her “greatest piece of work,”[4] her anti-lynching activism. They wrote that “the Anti-Lynching Crusaders, the great advertisement known as “The Shame of America”, and the Anti-Lynching Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are monuments to this hard-working woman, more enduring than bronze.”[5] With this sentence the NAACP asserted that Talbert’s intellectual work are her monuments. She has no statues or physical monuments to be remembered by because her work is how she is remembered. By writing that this is what her legacy is, the obituary reveals what the NAACP believed her legacy ought to be and how she should be remembered. The claim that the products of her activism are monuments to her “more enduring than bronze” further indicates the NAACP’s belief that the focus of her legacy should be on the actual contributions she made rather than any physical object intended to represent the importance of the contributions she made.
The NAACP next wrote that Talbert “had her enemies, as every honest, determined, forward-pushing human being must have in this evil world. But she triumphed over them; she triumphed in the saving of the Frederick Douglass Home; in the building up of the National Association of Colored Women; in political activity in Buffalo and elsewhere and in the Anti-Lynching Crusade.”[6] From these sentences it is clear that the NAACP constructed Talbert’s legacy as a narrative of good versus evil. While she likely did have people who disagreed with her, and with whom she fought, using words like “enemy”, “evil” and “triumphed” are evocative of stories of superheroes defeating evil. The use of these words served to mold her lived experiences and intellectual contributions into the NAACP’s chosen narrative for her legacy. That the NAACP chose to write about her achievements in language that begs the comparison to a superhero again reveals how exceptional Talbert’s contributions were and is indicative of their importance.
The obituary described how she “unite[d] the colored American women to stop lynching” and raised “from the mites contributed by colored folk throughout the land the largest sum that this country has ever attempted to spend to stop our greatest national disgrace.”[7] Here, the NAACP chose to commemorate Talbert both for the content of her work to stop lynching but also for her ambition in undertaking this task. Again, the descriptive language used in this sentence builds up Talbert’s success in the campaign to seem almost inhuman. By describing the amount contributed as “mites,” the word for a tiny arachnid, the NAACP over-exaggerated how little each contribution was for the purpose of highlighting how impressive Talbert’s final sum is. The scale of Talbert’s goals with respect to her activism was entirely unprecedented, yet she was not deterred.
In secondary literature published in the twenty-first century, Talbert’s legacy is markedly different. In books written on the history of the NAACP and NACW, where Talbert should receive a healthy discussion for her years of activism, almost no mention is made. If not entirely excluded, her name will only be included in passing. In The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, Talbert’s name does not come up once, even though she hosted and was involved in the Niagara Movement, the precursor to the NAACP. The NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign is discussed, but without giving any credit to the Chairwoman and leader of the crusade. Similarly, this exclusion is also found in NAACP: Celebrating a Century, 100 Years in Pictures. Again, the authors wrote about the Dyer Anti-Lynching Movement without mentioning Talbert. They wrote that “the NAACP’s greatest single stroke in this fight was the placing of full and half-page advertisements entitled “The Shame of America” in nine major dailies and two weeklies across the nation to present the facts of this crime to the world.”[8] As is clear from Talbert’s NAACP obituary, she was responsible for the “greatest single stroke”, which is why “the greatest advertisement known as “The Shame of America” is a monument to her.[9] Yet as long as she remains the anonymous in the secondary literature discussing her intellectual accomplishments, those achievements cannot be monuments to her as the NAACP obituary hoped. The only mention of Talbert’s name is in Appendix E which lists the Spingarn Medalists. The Spingarn Medal is the highest honor bestowed in the NAACP, and thus only awarded to those whose activism or intellectual contributions were outstanding. Talbert was awarded the medal in 1922 for her anti-lynching work and was the first African American woman to receive this honor. It is somewhat ironic that the authors only mention her name when listing the medalists for an award she received because of her role in the anti-lynching movement, but do not discuss her when discussing what she won the medal for.
Yet again, in African-Americans and the Quest for Civil Rights, 1900-1990, the Dyer Anti-Lynching Campaign is written about in some detail, yet without naming the leader responsible. Without naming Talbert, the author Sean Cashman wrote about her intellectual legacy. He discussed how the publicity Talbert’s crusade earned still helped reduce the extent of the evil of lynching.[10] After her speech to the International Council of Women, which was published in several foreign newspapers, and through her efforts raising awareness for the Dyer Campaign, the South grew ashamed of lynching. Southern papers began asserting that southern courts could handle the lynching problem and punish aggressors without a federal law requiring them to do so.[11] Cashman noted that according to the Negro Year Book (1932), the total number of lynchings had fallen to sixteen in 1923 from eighty-three in 1919.[12] In these years and through Talbert’s efforts, the anti-lynching campaign attracted widespread support. In opposition to lynching, Talbert united liberals, both African American and white, thereby swelling support for civil rights. To discuss the Anti-Lynching campaign and her intellectual legacy without including any discussion of the woman who gave her life to the cause[13] is incredibly disrespectful and inappropriate.
While it is no doubt harder to see Talbert’s impact or trace her legacy because there is no extant body of her papers[14], that should not preclude her from her place in historical memory. Talbert had no time to write her way into history like Anna Julia Cooper or curate her own archive like Mary Church Terrell to ensure she was not forgotten. Her untimely death prevented her, and as time passed and her contemporaries passed away too, her legacy and impact has been forgotten. But it should not be the case that only those who knew her and worked alongside her make the effort to remember her important work, while contemporary historians only honor the memory of the black intellectuals who forced their way into history by leaving a synthesized collection behind for historians to pick up. Talbert’s legacy, while it may exist in fragments throughout the archives of other intellectuals or organizations, is in no way less important. The work she dedicated herself to, resisting white terror and fighting for freedom and equality, is still relevant today. In the twenty-first century African Americans are no longer lynched. Instead they are shot by white vigilantes and the police, violence that is justified by stereotypes of black criminality just as lynching was. Justice for these victims is still hard to come by, as racism protects the shooters from being held accountable. In recent years and under the new administration, white supremacy is reemerging as socially acceptable, as evidenced by the events in Charlottesville in 2017. Examining Talbert’s legacy and methods to combat white violence is now, more than ever, incredibly valuable. It is time for historians to look beyond convenience. As important as it is to examine the black intellectuals who spelled out the value of their legacy in a book or collection, historians also need to resurrect the voices of those black intellectuals whose legacy is of equal worth but remains fragmented.
[1] NAACP. “Mrs. Talbert [an Obituary].” The Crisis. Vol. 27, no. 2., December 1923, pp. 56-57
[2] Ibidem
[3] Ibidem
[4] Ibidem
[5] Ibidem
[6] Ibidem
[7] Ibidem
[8] Bond, Julian; Wilkins, Roger Wood; Roxborough, Mildred Bond; Artis, India. NAACP Celebrating a Century 100 Years in Pictures. Gibbs Smith. 2009. Pp. 59
[9] NAACP Obituary.
[10] Cashman, Sean Dennis. African-Americans and the Quest for Civil Rights, 1900-1990. New York University Press. 1991. Pp. 35.
[11] Ibidem.
[12] Ibidem.
[13] Talbert died of heart disease, worsened by the constant traveling and working she did in the years leading up to her death for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Campaign.
[14] Williams, Lillian Serece. Mary Morris Burnett Talbert: Educator, Club Woman, Human Rights Advocate, 1866-1923. Alexander Street Press, 2016