UB researcher leads effort for historic marker honoring Talbert

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation will honor the life and achievements of Mary Burnett Talbert during a ceremony Sept. 17 placing a historic marker on the site of her former home at 116-118 Northland Ave. in Buffalo where the educator, activist and human rights reformer spent the last years of her life.

The recognition, part of the Pomeroy Foundation’s historic marker program to commemorate the history of women’s suffrage in the United States, arrives as the final step in a process that began with a nomination from Lillian S. Williams, associate professor of Africana and American studies, College of Arts and Sciences.

Williams will be among the speakers at the ceremony beginning at 2:30 p.m., delivering a brief biography of Talbert. Representatives from some of the organizations where Talbert built her legacy will join Williams for the program, which will include proclamations from the city of Buffalo and Erie County declaring Sept. 17, Talbert’s birthday, as “Mary Burnett Talbert Day.”

The year 2020 marked the centennial of women’s suffrage in the U.S. with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. To mark the anniversary, the Pomeroy Foundation partnered with the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (NCWHS) on the historic marker program. That, in turn, became part of the National Votes for Women Trail, which documents the seven-decade campaign for women’s suffrage, an effort conducted in churches, town halls, parks and private homes, including Talbert’s.

Williams serves on the boards of NCWHS and the National Votes for Women Trail. It’s as a committee member for the latter that she submitted Talbert’s nomination to the foundation.

Talbert lived in two homes in Buffalo. Her first home, owned with her husband, William Talbert, was at 521 Michigan Ave., two doors from the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church and a site of much of her political activism.

“The Talberts later bought a home in Cold Springs, to be paid for with cash,” explains Williams, an expert on women’s history in general and Talbert’s life in particular. “But pressure from neighbors convinced the home’s seller to ignore a signed contract with the Talberts because they didn’t want a ‘colored’ family living with them on the same block.”

The Talberts persisted and eventually moved into their Northland Avenue home. It was in both places that they hosted prominent figures in the nascent civil rights movement, including W. E. B. DuBois, Mary Church Terrell and Booker T. Washington.

From her home, Talbert led anti-lynching campaigns and founded NAACP chapters across the country, one of them as far away from her Buffalo home as San Diego. As president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Talbert helped organize the purchase (1916) and eventual renovation (1922) of Frederick Douglass’ former home. Named “Cedar Hill” by Douglass, the American social reformer, abolitionist and writer, the home is today a national historic site in Washington, D.C. Because of those efforts, Talbert received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest honor, in 1922.

Talbert’s was a remarkable life, lived in a manner meant to continue the momentum of positive change she inspired and initiated, according to Williams.

“I think Mary Talbert said it best: ‘It’s important to know the struggles that have taken place and especially for our young people to know of those struggles so they, too, can affect change and encourage others to fight for democratic principles,'” notes Williams.

“The marker honoring the changes Talbert helped make will be a reminder to everyone who sees it. “It’s well deserved.”