{"id":2478,"date":"2021-11-23T13:34:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T17:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2022-03-14T10:48:31","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:48:31","slug":"mary-fair-burks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/mary-fair-burks\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Fair Burks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An old-school professor who shaped the civil rights movement<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mary
Mary Fair Burks<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

English professor Mary Fair Burks was an imposing, willful presence on the University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus for more than a quarter century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No shrinking violet was she, the late Rosa Parks and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as legions of students all could attest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Burks came to Princess Anne after being pressured to resign from Alabama State College, her alma mater in Montgomery, where she had been a prominent activist on the front lines of the nascent civil rights movement that emerged in the 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade earlier, she co-founded and led the Women\u2019s Political Council, a group that historians credit as a driving force behind a municipal bus boycott in 1955 that focused national attention on the day-to-day indignities of segregation in the Jim Crow south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The face of the Montgomery bus boycott was Parks, who Congress eventually would acknowledge as the \u201cmother of the freedom movement.\u201d And one of the boycott\u2019s biggest advocates was the young, charismatic minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Burks was a parishioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Coretta Scott King\u2019s book, \u201cMy Life with Martin Luther King,\u201d upon meeting her husband, Burks reportedly said: “You mean that little boy is my pastor? He looks like he ought to be home with his mamma.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burks \u201cthought he could not possibly have anything to say that would interest her,\u201d Mrs. King wrote, \u201cbut when she heard him, she was deeply impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kings and Burks forged a bond that became a catalyst for change, but not without sacrifices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burks\u2019 role in the bus boycott and her support for sit-ins and other protests that followed angered white civic leaders across Alabama, who pressed Alabama State President H. Councill Trenholm in 1960 to oust the college\u2019s \u201cdisloyal faculty members.\u201d(<\/sup>*)<\/sup>  <\/strong>Burks reached out to King in a letter that spring seeking help in finding other employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King wrote back from Atlanta a few days later, addressing Burks as \u201cDear Frankie,\u201d an apparent reference to her childhood middle name, Frances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University maintains an online archive where a copy of that letter reads, in part, \u201c\u2026 I will do all that I possibly can to assist you and your colleagues in getting work for the Fall. My contacts are not great,\u201d<\/em> he wrote, \u201cbut at least I do have some and I will be using the contacts I have to the highest degree.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Burks found her way to Maryland State College, as it was known in the fall of 1960, is unclear. But the previous spring, King had been the school\u2019s commencement speaker and was an acquaintance of Maryland State President John Taylor Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burks was Alabama State\u2019s English department chairwoman for more than a decade before being forced out.  She apparently considered going to Ghana to teach, but instead started anew at Maryland State, where she became a faculty fixture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"LeRoy<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was very fair \u2013 a caring, sharing person,\u201d said LeRoy Wainwright (1965). \u201cShe knew each of us as individuals. You could go to her at any point and talk with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pat Hopkins Alexander (1969) used three words to describe Burks: \u201ctough as nails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander then smiled and added, \u201cBut you knew she cared about you, and she had our respect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viola Hall Mason (1967) described Burks as a \u201cno nonsense person (who) believed strongly we need to have the skills to function beyond the campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To that end, Mason recalls Burks taking students to New York to see Broadway plays. Others said Burks was known for inviting women students to her home near campus on Sunday afternoons where etiquette lessons were the order of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mason\u2019s classmate Daniel Savoy said Burks \u201cruled the roost, but she wanted us to excel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Savoy\u2019s wife, Loretta Booth Savoy (1974), described Burks as a passionate educator who \u201ccame across as though there was no other subject more important than what she was teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou were on time,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you brought all of your books\u201d to class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maryland State\u2019s football team occasionally played opponents in nearby Salisbury. Wainwright said Burks would drive some students to the games so they could cheer on the Hawks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had the best of the best,\u201d Wainwright said. \u201cMary Fair Burks \u2013 what a lady.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Gregg (1968) remembers Burks with fondness and respect; \u201cShe was compassionate. Hard on students, but fair.  She exposed us to the most important education around, and for that I will be forever grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UMES alumni who had Burks as a teacher don\u2019t recall her sharing much in classroom settings about her previous life as a civil rights activist who traveled in the same circles as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1978, however, Burks was instrumental in bringing Mrs. King to Princess Anne to celebrate the 70th<\/sup> anniversary of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority\u2019s founding. Those in the Fitzgerald Center for the Performing Arts that memorable day fondly tell stories of Burks reminiscing about the shared path they forged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1980s, Burks was a guest newspaper columnist who wrote “From A Woman’s Perspective” and “Whimsically Yours” for The (Salisbury) Daily Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burks retired from UMES in 1986; she died July 21, 1991 just 10 days shy of her 77th birthday. The Times’ obituary reporting on Burks’ passing says the university awarded her professor emeritus status in recognition of her long, distinguished career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

(*) Montgomery Advertiser, March 27, 1960<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An old-school professor who shaped the civil rights movement English professor Mary Fair Burks was an imposing, willful presence on the University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus for more than a quarter century. No shrinking violet was she, the late Rosa Parks and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as legions of students all…Read more Mary Fair Burks<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/125\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}