Williana Burroughs

Williana "Liane" Jones Burroughs (January 2, 1882 – December 24, 1945) was an American teacher, communist political activist, and politician. She is best remembered as one of the first women to run for elective office in New York.

Williana Jones, known to family and friends as "Liane," was born on January 2, 1882, in Petersburg, Virginia. Her mother had formerly been a slave for 16 years, her father died when Williana was just four years old. Her widowed mother left Virginia for New York City, bringing Williana together with a sister and a brother (Gordon Jones), where she worked as a cook. Her mother proved unable to care for her children adequately, however, so Williana spent the next seven years in the Colored Orphan Asylum, located at the time on the corner of 143rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem. Her mother was able to retrieve her three children from the orphanage only when Williana was 11.

Williana attended public school in New York, where she was an excellent student. In 1909, Williana Jones married Charles Burroughs, a postal worker and actor. After graduation, she attended New York City Normal College, known today as Hunter College, where she achieved credentials to become a teacher. In 1910 she obtained her first teaching position, in charge of a first grade classroom.

In 1926, Burroughs moved to P.S. 48 in Queens, New York, where she taught first and second grade children. She was soon recruited into the New York City Teachers Union, in which she was active as part of the Communist-led "Rank and File caucus."

Williana Burroughs joined the Workers (Communist) Party in September 1926. She became active in the campaign for defense of the Scottsboro boys and was chairman of the Blumberg Defense Council, an organization formed to defend Isidore Blumberg, a teacher removed from the New York public schools system due to his political views.

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