In Mary E. Britton’s time, a black girl in Lexington, Kentucky, wasn’t supposed
to grow up to be a teacher. Much less a journalist, a civil rights
activist, a social reformer or a medical doctor.
Britton became all of those. “She has an amazing story,” said Gerald
Smith, a University of Kentucky history professor who is editing the
forthcoming Kentucky African American Encyclopedia.
Britton was born in 1855 to Henry and Laura Britton, a free black
couple who lived on Mill Street in what is now Gratz Park, just a few
doors down from the future Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan.
From 1871-74, Britton attended Berea College, the first institution
of higher learning in Kentucky to admit blacks. About the only
profession open to educated women of any race at that time was teaching,
and Britton taught in segregated public schools in Lexington and
Fayette County, according to a biographical material in The Kentucky Encyclopedia and on the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights’ Web site.
As Southern states enacted “Jim Crow” laws in the late 1800s to
repeal civil rights afforded to blacks after slavery and to enforce
segregation, Britton wrote commentaries opposing those laws for several
“She came out of that Berea tradition of a teacher who becomes a social activist,” Smith said.
In a lengthy commentary in the April 19, 1892, edition of The
Kentucky Leader, Britton didn’t pull any punches in telling the
newspaper’s largely white readership why the General Assembly should not
approve a law requiring blacks and whites to ride in separate railway
“We are aware that the Assembly has the power to inflict such a law,
but is it right?” she wrote. “While we have no longer to chill the blood
of our friends by talking of branding irons, chains, whips, blood
hounds and to the many physical wrongs and abominations of slavery, this
foe of American prejudice renders our lives insecure, our homes
unhappy, and crushes out the very sinew of existence — freedom and
The Separate Coach Law passed anyway, and Britton turned her
attention to another problem afflicting her race: the lack of adequate
health care. Britton enrolled in the American Missionary College in
Chicago and graduated with a medical degree.
In 1902, she became the first black woman in Lexington to be a licensed physician.
Britton treated patients in her small home at 545 North Limestone.
Her specialties included hydrotherapy and electrotherapy — the use of
water and electricity to treat illnesses and disease.
It is hard to imagine now just what a pioneer Britton was for her
time. Thomas Tolliver lives in a house on East Third Street that once
belonged to T.T. Wendell, another early black physician. Tolliver found
an old photograph in the attic from a 1910 meeting of the Medical
Society of Negro Physicians. The photograph shows Britton on the front
row, surrounded by men.
Despite a busy medical practice, Britton remained active in civil
rights and the growing women’s rights movement. “You talk about a civil
rights advocate,” Smith said. “Here was a woman in the late 19th century
who was really going at it.”
Britton was one of 15 black women in Lexington who founded the
Colored Orphan Industrial Home on Georgetown Street. The century-old
building now houses the Robert H. Williams Cultural Center and the Isaac
Scott Hathaway Museum. Britton died in 1925 at age 70 and is buried in
Cove Haven Cemetery.
Two of her siblings also achieved fame in their time. Brother Tom
Britton (1870-1901) was a successful jockey who won the 1891 Kentucky
Oaks aboard Miss Hawkins and came within six inches of winning the 1892
Kentucky Derby on Huron. His health and fortunes declined after a bad
racing accident, and he eventually killed himself.
Sister Julia Britton Hooks (1852-1942) also attended Berea and became
the college’s first black faculty member, teaching instrumental music.
She moved to Memphis, married Charles Hooks and opened a music school.
Among her students was the blues legend W.C. Handy.
Like her sister, Hooks was politically active, becoming a charter
member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
in 1909. Her grandson’s name might be familiar: Benjamin Hooks was
executive director of the NAACP from 1977 to 1992.
-Tom Eblen (http://tomeblen.bloginky.com/2012/02/14/mary-britton-was-a-woman-ahead-of-her-time/)