Fannie Barrier Williams

Fannie Barrier Williams

African American women began making inroads to higher education after the Civil War. Frances “Fannie” Barrier Williams was the first African American to graduate from Brockport Normal School (now the College at Brockport), earning her teaching degree in 1870. She moved to Chicago shortly thereafter, where she helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). She is buried in Brockport’s High Street Cemetery.

RASCA 199

William Henry Richards Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division