Person

Fannie Barrier Williams

Boston African American National Historic Site

Fannie Barrier Williams, a Black woman wearing a lacy blouse with a decorative necktie tied in bows.
Fannie Barrier Williams served as a leader in the national clubwomen's movement.

New York Public Library

Quick Facts
Significance:
Writer, Orator, Clubwoman
Place of Birth:
Brockport, New York
Date of Birth:
February 12, 1855
Place of Death:
Brockport, New York
Date of Death:
March 4, 1944

As a member of the National League of Colored Women, Illinois Woman’s Alliance, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and other women-led organizations, Fannie Barrier Williams laid the groundwork for women’s civic participation in the late 1800s.[1] She used her talents of speaking and writing to pursue activism for the Black women’s rights movement of her time. Fannie Barrier Williams’ activism in several social movements demonstrates post-Civil War Black female civic engagement. 

Early Life and Education 

Born in Brockport, New York, in 1855, Frances "Fannie" Barrier grew up as the third child of African American businessman Anthony J. Barrier and Harriet Prince Barrier. The Barriers became an affluent family in Brockport’s small Black social scene.[2] Historian Wanda Hendricks attributes the Barriers to "a privileged class" of the Black community in New York.[3] The Barriers also attended Brockport’s First Baptist Church as its only Black members. Here, Fannie sang and played the piano from a young age.

The Barrier children—Ella, George, and Fannie—attended integrated public schools in Brockport. Following this education, Fannie enrolled in Brockport State Normal School, where she received a teaching certificate in 1870.  

Early Career

After leaving home, Fannie Barrier pursued a career in teaching before dabbling in social movements. In 1875, she began teaching in Hannibal, Missouri. Just a year earlier, Missouri defeated a Civil Rights Bill that would have integrated the public school system. In Hannibal, Barrier witnessed racism and experienced discrimination for the first time, including earning significantly less in comparison to White colleagues.[4] These instances caused her to reflect on her relatively sheltered upbringing.

Barrier went on to teach in the nation’s capital. Here, she spent time with Black activists and organizers, including her family friend, Frederick Douglass. Barrier’s time in Washington D.C. exposed her to social and civic groups and prompted her interest in activism for Black equality rights. 

Aside from teaching, Barrier pursued her passion for the arts. Not only did she go on to study piano, but she later became known for her charcoal drawings. Taking a break from teaching, Barrier attended the New England Conservatory in 1884.[5] However, her time at the Conservatory was short-lived. Due to its reliance on accepting members of the Southern elite to retain its financial strength and social standing, the school enforced discriminatory practices. These practices forced Barrier and other Black students out of the school. Barrier returned to Washington D.C., where she attended the Fine Arts School to continue her interests. 

While in Washington D.C., Fannie Barrier met her future husband, Samuel (S.) Laing Williams. They became involved in the Black literary movement, attending literature groups held at the Union Bethel A.M.E. and the Monday Night Literary Society. Fannie Barrier and S. Laing married in 1887, with Fannie retiring from teaching shortly afterwards. The Barrier-Williams union was a notable Black marriage among their social groups.[6]  

Clubwoman

Moving to Chicago, the Williams couple thrived in their new community. Now known as Fannie Barrier Williams, she dedicated her time in Chicago to activism, writing, and oration. In Chicago, Barrier Williams participated in numerous activist clubs such as the Illinois Woman’s Alliance (IWA), Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Although her husband had established himself as a lawyer, Fannie Barrier Williams had become a known name in their community and beyond due to her active club work. 

Her involvement in civic clubs strengthened her writing and oratory works. Some of her works, such as "Colored Girl," "Religious Duty to the Negro," and "Do We Need Another Name?" touched upon race and gender barriers, religion, economic impact of African Americans, among other social and political subjects. Barrier Williams spoke at Lincoln Hall (1888), World’s Parliament of Religions (1893), the National Colored Women’s Congress (1895), and in front of the 1907 National American Woman Suffrage Association convention to deliver Susan B. Anthony’s eulogy.[7]  

Despite her success, Barrier Williams still faced prejudices in clubs designed to fight social inequalities. In late 1894, the Chicago Woman’s Club (CWC) fought internally over her nomination as the first Black female member. Speaking with a reporter, Barrier-Williams acknowledged her lack of acceptance initially by stating,   

I am very sorry, indeed, to be the thorn in anybody’s flesh. I did not make the application for membership myself; in fact, had never entertained such an idea until several members asked the privilege of presenting my name. Consent was granted, with the hope I might advance my work as defender of my race from unjust prejudice…[8]

During the debate over Barrier Williams’s participation in the Chicago Woman’s Club, Barrier Williams contributed to the Woman’s Era newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts. As Black women’s civic engagement flourished throughout the late 1800s, Barrier Williams and other clubwomen strategized through various organizations across the United States. Clubs such as the Woman’s Era Club of Boston and The Woman’s League of Washington D.C. sought social and political change for Black men and women. These organizations and affiliated publications, such as the Woman’s Era, criticized the CWC for failing to accept Barrier Williams’ nomination to join the club. As a result, the conflict gained national attention, eventually leading to her acceptance into the club in 1896. 

Fannie Barrier Williams continued to play a role in the national Black women’s club movement. She encouraged the organizing of a national convening of Black clubwomen to define unified goals and causes. Although she could not attend the 1895 First National Conference of Colored Women, held in Boston, her sister, Ella Barrier, helped organize and attend the conference.[9] Still, Fannie Barrier Williams gave her support when writing on behalf of Chicago clubwomen:

We Chicago women feel more or less ashamed in not being represented in the Boston Conference. The coming together of our representative women for high purposes is important enough to make us deeply concerned in the outcome. The character of the women who have been able to respond to the call inspires the absent ones with confidence that the Conference will mean much to every cause of peculiar interest to colored women. With such women it is not too much hope that the Conference will set in force influences that will reach in their helpfulness the farthest confines of colored women’s needs.[10]

Despite missing the first conference, Barrier Williams attended the second meeting of Black clubwomen just a few months later at the National Colored Women’s Congress in Atlanta, Georgia.

Later Life

Fannie Barrier Williams helped start the National Association for the Advancement Colored People (NAACP) and the Frederick Douglass Centre, among other Black civic organizations. Her connections spanned the nation, including numerous activists in Boston, Washington D.C., and Chicago. The impact she made with her activism and oratory work gained her acceptance with both White and Black audiences. S. Laing Williams passed away before Fannie. After his death, she moved back to Brockport to aid her ill sister, Ella. Unfortunately, Ella passed away shortly before Fannie suffered from a stroke. Her medical complications impacted Fannie’s later life.[11]  

Fannie Barrier Williams passed away in 1944 in her hometown of Brockport, New York. 

Footnotes

  1. "Fannie Barrier Williams: 1855 – 1944," Key Figures, Shining a Light on Black women’s activism, Black Woman’s Suffrage DPLA, accessed November 27, 2024.
  2. Fannie Barrier Williams, The New Woman of Color: The Collected Writings of Fannie Barrier Williams, 1893-1918, ed. Mary Jo Deegan (DeKalb, Ill: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002).
  3. Wanda A. Hendricks, Fannie Barrier Williams: Crossing the Borders of Region and Race (Chicago, Ill: University of Illinois Press, 2014), 1.
  4. "A Northern Negro’s Autobiography," Independent 57, (14 July 1904): 91 – 96, in The New Woman of Color, edited by Mary Jo Deegan, 6.
  5. Hendricks, Fannie Barrier Williams, 45.
  6. Hendricks, 46.
  7. Williams, The New Woman of Color: The Collected Writings of Fannie Barrier Williams, 1893-1918.
  8. Hendricks, 87.
  9. "A Northern Negro's Autobiography," in Chapter 3: Club Movement Among Negro Women, in The New Woman of Color: The Collected Writings of Fannie Barrier Williams, 1893-1918, p. 35.
  10. Fannie Barrier Williams, "Illinois," The Woman’s Era vol. 2, no. 5 (August 1895).
  11. "Fannie Barrier Williams," Western New York Suffragists: Winning the Vote, accessed November 27, 2024.

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Last updated: February 21, 2025