Dorothy Burlage Collection

Scope and Contents

The Dorothy Burlage Collection, which dates from 1966-1971 and measure .42 linear feet, documents the activism and activities of Southeast Neighborhood House in the Anacostia area of Washington, DC. Burlage worked for the organization during the 1960s. The collection includes newspaper clippings, newsletters, correspondence and writings focusing on community organizing, public housing, and social change. Also present are issues of Southeast News, a Southeast Neighborhood House publication.

Biographical

Dorothy Dawson Burlage was born on September 13, 1937, in San Antonio, TX, to Joseph Dawson and Virginia Hendrix Dawson. Burlage attended Mary Baldwin University for one year before transferring to the University of Texas at Austin, where she became involved in campus political movements, such as National Student Association (NSA) and the YWCA Christian Faith and Life Community. Burlage graduated in 1959 and moved to Illinois to become the program director of the YMCA at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. During her time with the YMCA, she collaborated with members of NSA and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to organize various demonstrations, rallies, and protests focused on racial equality. Burlage also became an official member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and began working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). While working for the YMCA, Burlage met several prominent Civil Rights activists and workers, including Tom (1939-2016) and Casey Hayden (1937-2023), Alan Haber (1936- ), and Ella Baker (1903-1986).

Burlage attended the Harvard Divinity School for a year and a half, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia in the winter of 1961-1962 to pursue work with the NSA's Southern Students Human Relations Project. Burlage was tasked with developing educational plans for White and Black students on integrated campuses and planning voter registration programs. During this time, Burlage met more prominent figures in the Civil Rights movement, such as Joan Browning (1943- ), Anne Braden (1924-2006), Constance "Connie" Curry (1933-2020) and Bob Zellner (1939- ). Soon after, Burlage moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to take a director position with the Raleigh Citizens Associations (RCA). Burlage worked closely with students from local Black colleges to develop voter registration strategy.

In August of 1962, Burlage moved back to Atlanta for one year before moving to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1963 with her husband, Robb Burlage (1937- ). For the next two years, the couple worked with SDS and Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC) to help bridge gaps between the organizations' missions and goals. By mid-1965, Burlage and her husband moved to Washington D.C. where she became a community organizer in the Anacostia neighborhood, working primarily with the Southeast Neighborhood House. She joined fellow community activists, such as Etta Horn (1928-2001), Zora Martin-Felton (1930-2022), Walter Washington (1915-2003), and John Kinard (1936-1989), to organize a strong, community-based grassroots movement in Anacostia. The group Burlage was involved in was known as the "Target Team" and they worked with other local groups, including "Rebels with a Cause" and "Band of Angels." In 1966, Burlage and other community members helped Marion Barry (1936-2014) organize a citywide bus boycott to protest fare increases. The Target Team disbanded in 1968, feeling they had succeeded in their mission to support the movement in Anacostia. By 1970, after her divorce and the death of her friend, Ralph Featherstone (1939-1970), Burlage left community activism to pursue graduate studies.

Burlage received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Harvard University, where her political involvement shifted to focus on women and family policies. In 2023, Burlage is a child psychologist in private practice focusing on children and adolescents.