Today Dr. John Torrey, assistant professor of Philosophy and a contributing professor in the Africana Studies unit at suny.buffalostate.edu. joined Emily Lampa and Mercedes Wilson to talk about a Mary Talbert in honor of Black History Month.
Dr. Torrey says “While being famous for being a suffragette, for being a human rights activist, for being a civil rights activist, something we don’t think often about is how her work here in Buffalo helped to spur a whole lot of national work to help uplift and protect black people and it was a rather tumultuous time in the 1900’s and going into the mid 1950’s. “
Dr. Torrey says Mary Talbert was born in 1866 in Ohio, went to Oberlin College and in 1887 became an assistant principal at Little Rock Union High School which was the highest position held by a woman in the state of Arkansas at that time.
What brought her to Buffalo was marriage. She married William Talbert in 1891. She was very vital in trying to develop work done inside the church space that began with educational work development. Dr. Torrey says the Michigan Street Baptist Church was her home church. It is one of the historical churches here in Buffalo. Not only was she doing her religious work there, but she was also doing her activist work outside the church space. Dr. Torrey says that church had a protest because of the Pan American Exposition. They weren’t going to have any black exhibits, exhibits that showcased the successes that black people have had since the emancipation so she held a protest from the Michigan Street Church to argue to have a more representative exhibit in the Pan American Exposition.
