Viewing page 15 of 62

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Here is a bio on the internet that has extensive information on Burroughs.

She is definitely one of Black America's top cultural figures.

Burroughs, Margaret Taylor Goss (b. 1917), poet, visual artist, educator, and arts organizer.  Margaret Burroughs was born in St. Rose, Louisiana, near New Orleans, but was brought at the age of five by her parents, Alexander and Octavia Pierre Taylor, to Chicago where she grew up, was educated, and where her distinctive career has unfolded.  She attended the public schools of Chicago, including the Chicago Teacher's College.  In 1946, she received a BA in education and in 1948, an MA in education from the Art Institute of Chicago.  From 1940 to 1968 she was a teacher in the Chicago public schools and subsequently a professor of humanities at Kennedy-King College in Chicago (1969-1979).

*(Burroughs has a national reputation as a visual artist and as an arts organizer. Her long exhibition record as a painter and printmaker began in 1949 and has included exhibitions) throughout the United States and abroad.  A retrospective of her work was held in Chicago in 1984. As an organizer she has been associated with the founding and conduct of a number of arts organizations.  It was her founding in 1961 of the DuSable Museum of African-American History, however, that placed her among the outstanding institution builders of her generation.  She served as a director of the museum until her appointment as a Commissioner of the Chicago Park District in 1985.

Burroughs has also had a commitment to progressive politics, as exemplified by her contributions to such publications as Freedomways, founded by, among others, W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, both of whom were special heroes to her.  She has felt a special affinity to the Mexican muralists and both studied and collaborated with artists in Mexico.

Burroughs began her writing career by doing articles and reviews for the Associated Negro Press, founded and directed by Claude Barnett.  Her work as an educator led her into writing for children.  Her works in this category include Jasper, the Drummin' Boy (1947) and the anthology Did You Feed My Cow? (1956), both of which underwent subsequent editions.

Burroughs has made a distinctive contribution as a poet and as an editor of poets. The bulk of her poems are published in the volumes What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black? (1968) and Africa, My Africa (1970).  Her most notable work as an editor was her collaboration with Dudley Randall in the production of the commemorative volume For Malcolm (1967). The forty-three poets represented include established poets such as