By Nnedinma Chinwike-Iwuamadi, 2025-2026 Research Collaborator at Power in Place
The struggle for voting rights in the United States is often framed as a story of landmark legislation and heroic moments, but its true power lies in the people who insisted on full political inclusion when doing so came at a great personal cost. One of those figures is Nannie Helen Burroughs, an African-American woman whose unwavering belief in complete political rights continues to echo through modern voting rights campaigns today. Burroughs was unequivocal in her stance that political freedom without the vote was not freedom at all. At a time when Black women were marginalized both by white suffrage organizations and by Black male leadership that often prioritized racial justice over gender equality, Burroughs refused to accept partial citizenship. She believed that women deserved the full rights of democracy without compromise, delay, or qualification. Today, her influence can be seen in contemporary voting rights movements that center Black women as organizers, strategists, and defenders of democracy. Modern campaigns that fight voter suppression, challenging restrictive voter ID laws, combating polling place closures, and mobilizing strong turnouts, reflect on Burroughs's belief that political participation is a form of community protection. Organizations led by Black women continued to echo her insistence that access to the ballot is inseparable from access to education, economic opportunity, and justice. Burroughs's impact is also deeply rooted at the community level through her educational work and civic activism. She cultivated political consciousness long before many people could safely exercise their right to vote and that legacy lives on today in voter education drives, church-based registration efforts, and youth-led civic engagement programs that treat voting not as a one-day event, but as an ongoing responsibility.
As a young, African-American woman studying political science, Burroughs's story moves me in a deep, personal way. Reading about her life reminds me that my presence in academic and political spaces is not accidental, but inherited. She studied, taught, organized, and spoke with the understanding that knowledge was a toll of liberation and that political silence was a luxury Black women could not afford. In moments when coursework feels heavy or the political climate feels discouraging, Burroughs's example grounds me and reminds me that she did this work without the protections and opportunities that I now have, and she did it anyway. Burroughs teaches me that political science is not just about theory or institutions, but it's about people who dared to imagine themselves as full citizens when the law said otherwise. Her legacy challenges me to be bold in my convictions, to resist settling for partial progress, and to remember that voting rights were not simply granted to Black people, they were defended, generation after generation. In carrying her story forward, I see my own path more clearly. Nannie Helen Burroughs did not wait for permission to claim democracy and because of women like her, I study politics not as an outsider looking in, but as someone who belongs at the center of the conversation.
References
Easter, Opal. Nannie Helen Burroughs. New York, New York: Garland Publishing, 1995. Boyd, Herb. “Nannie Helen Burroughs, Renowned Activist and Artist.” Black Life in America, May 1, 2025. Person. “Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time.” OCAAHS, March 18, 2022. Jackson, Errin. “Nannie Helen Burroughs (1883-1961) .” Black Past , March 27, 2007. “Burroughs, Nannie Helen,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, n.d.
Nnedinma Chinwike-Iwuamadi is a senior at Old Dominion University studying Political Science. She was born in Lagos, Nigeria but raised in Virginia Beach, VA. After receiving her bachelor’s, she plans to attend law school and pursue her dreams of becoming an international attorney.