"Fannie Barrier Williams"(February12 1855-March 1944)

Fannie was a prominent and respected leader in the battle for equal rights for African Americans at the turn of the century.She dedicated her life's work to advancing opportunities for African American women.Born in Brockport,New York,a small town near Rochester, New York.She was one of three children,one brother one sister.All three Barrier children attended Brockport public schools.After graduation,She went on to the Brockport Normal School,a teachers college (now SUNY Brockport),and was the first African-American to graduate in 1870.After graduating,she went to the Washington D.C. to teach joining the emerging education movement which focused on freedmen and freedwomen.Fannie reported that she "was shattered" by the discrimination she encountered in the more southern city.Fannie also experienced significant difficulties due to her race when she enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Washington to study portrait painting,and had a similar experience when she attempted to study at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston,Massachusetts.While teaching in Washington,D.C.,she met her  husband S. Laing Williams of Georgia,an 1881 graduate of the University of Michigan,a former schoolteacher,and a promising law school student.upon completion of his law degree in 1887,he and Fannie married and immediately moved to Chicago.LaingNAACP.Most intriguing for Fannie,remained the crusade for women's suffrage.After the death of Laing Williams in 1921,Fannie activism waned.In 1924 she became not only the first African American but also the first woman to serve on the Library Board of Chicago,a position she held until 1926.At end of her term,she returned to her family home in Brockport  to live with her sister.In 1944 she died of arteriosclerosis and was buried in the Barrier family plot at the High Street Cemetery in Brockport.