Clara Burrill Bruce

Clara Burrill Bruce
Clara Burrill Bruce, from a 1929 publication
Born	Clara Washington Burrill June 25, 1879 Washington, D.C., U.S.
Died	January 22, 1947 (age 67) New York, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Lawyer, editor, educator, writer, housing expert
Spouse	Roscoe Conkling Bruce
Relatives	Mary P. Burrill (sister) Blanche Bruce (father-in-law) Josephine Beall Willson Bruce (mother-in-law)

Clara Washington Burrill Bruce (June 25, 1879 – January 22, 1947) was an American lawyer, writer, clubwoman, and editor. She was the first Black woman elected to edit a law review, at Boston University School of Law in 1924. In the 1930s she helped found the Harlem Congressional League and the National Council of Negro Women.

Early life and education

Burrill was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of John Henry Burrill and Clara Eliza Washington Burrill. Both of her parents were born in Virginia before the American Civil War. She graduated from M Street High School in 1897, and from Miner Normal School. She attended Cook County Normal School,[1] Cornell University Summer School,[1] Howard University for one year and Radcliffe College for two years.[2] She graduated from Boston University School of Law (BU) in 1926, at the age of 46. At BU, she was the first Black woman elected editor of an American law review; she was the Boston University Law Review's editor-in-chief in 1925.[3][4] She was a speaker at commencement.[5] She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.[6]

Her sister Mary Powell Burrill was a playwright and educator, and longtime partner of educator Lucy Diggs Slowe. Mary P. Burrill and Slowe were also founding members of the National Council of Negro Women.[7]

Career

Bruce was hired as a teacher in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1899,[1] and occasionally taught her husband's courses at Tuskegee Institute between 1904 and 1906, while he was traveling with Booker T. Washington. In 1926, Bruce became the third Black woman admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.[8] She and her husband managed Dunbar Apartments, a large cooperative housing complex in Harlem, from 1927 to 1936.[9][10] She was described as "one of the few women housing experts in the United States", when she spoke at the Annual Women's Dinner at Howard University in 1934.[11] She was associate editor of the Dunbar News from 1929 to 1934, and associate editor at a Black publishing company.[12]

Bruce was involved in New York politics, and active in the National Urban League,[13] the League of Women Voters and the NAACP.[3][9] She was the founding vice-president of the Harlem Congressional League in 1934, working with the league's president Julia Coleman-Robinson and others to elect a Black congressman from Harlem.[14] In 1936, she was a founding vice president of the National Council of Negro Women.[7]

Publications

• "We Who Are Dark" (1918, poem)[15]

Personal life and legacy

Burrill married educator Roscoe Conkling Bruce in 1903,[2] at a wedding performed by Francis James Grimké.[12] They had three children, Clara, Roscoe Jr., and Burrill.[9] She died in 1947, at the age of 67, in New York City.[16][17] The Bruces' papers are in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. There is a Clara Burrill Bruce scholarship fund at Boston University School of Law, endowed to support first-generation college students and students from other underrepresented groups.[3]

References

1. "Engaged Colored Teacher; East Orange Board of Education Will Secure Miss Burrill". The News. 1899-06-16. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-01-30 – via Newspapers.com.
2. Newkirk, Pamela (2011-01-11). Letters from Black America: Intimate Portraits of the African American Experience. Beacon Press. pp. 67–70. ISBN 978-0-8070-0115-8.
3. Steinbrenner, Corinne (November 27, 2020). "Barriers that Bend but Don't Break". The Record: News & Stories from BU Law. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
4. Bell, June D. (April 26, 2024). "Breaking Law Review Barriers". The Record: News & Stories from BU Law. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
5. "Across the Color Line" The Crisis 36(1)(January 1929): 14. via Internet Archive.
6. "Bruce, Clara Burrill". AKA's Pioneering Sorors Open Doors. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
7. "Women's Council Adopts Laws, Elects Officers". The Afro-American. 1936-05-09. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-01-30 – via Newspapers.com.
8. Smith (Jr.), John Clay (1999). Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-8122-1685-1.
9. Gatewood, Willard B. (2000-05-01). Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920. University of Arkansas Press. pp. 337–343. ISBN 978-1-55728-593-5.
10. "N. Y. Herald-Tribune Critic Calls Tuskegee Choir 'Singing Darkies'". The New York Age. 1933-01-07. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-01-29 – via Newspapers.com.
11. "Clara Burrill Bruce Addresses Women at Howard Univ. Dinner". The New York Age. 1934-11-17. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-01-30 – via Newspapers.com.
12. Gates (Jr.), Henry Louis; Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks (2009). Harlem Renaissance Lives from the African American National Biography. Oxford University Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-19-538795-7.
13. Trotter, Joe William Jr. (2020-11-02). Pittsburgh and the Urban League Movement: A Century of Social Service and Activism. University Press of Kentucky. pp. ii. ISBN 978-0-8131-7994-0.
14. "Congressman DePriest Inducts Officers of New Women's Club". The New York Age. 1934-01-06. p. 9. Retrieved 2025-01-30 – via Newspapers.com.
15. Bruce, Clara Burrill (December 1918). "We Who are Dark". The Crisis. 17 (2): 67.
16. "Mrs. Clara B. Bruce to be Buried Today; Former School Official". Evening star. 1947-01-27. p. 10. Retrieved 2025-01-30 – via Newspapers.com.
17. "Final Rites Held in Washington for Wife of Roscoe C. Bruce". The Afro-American. 1947-02-08. p. 11. Retrieved 2025-01-30 – via Newspapers.com.

External links

• Memorandum in re Mrs. Clara Burrill Bruce, W. E. B. Du Bois papers, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries