Mary Fair Burks (July 31, 1914 – July 21, 1991) was an American educator, scholar, and activist during the Civil Rights Movement from Montgomery, Alabama. Burks founded the Women’s Political Council in 1946, which helped initiate the Montgomery Bus Boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955. Biography Burks was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on July 31, 1914, the daughter of Gustavus "Gus" Samuel and Ollie (née Williams) Fair. She attended Alabama State University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in English literature in 1933, and Michigan State University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in the same field in 1934. Burks then went back to Montgomery to teach English at Alabama State Laboratory High School. The school’s principal, Nathaniel W. Burks, was a former professor of hers, and the two eventually married and had a child together. Their son, also named Nathaniel W. Burks, became a physician. She was head of the English department at Alabama State College in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Burks continued her own schooling as well by earning her doctorate in education from Columbia University, and she completed further postgraduate studies at universities such as Harvard and Oxford. In 1960, Burks resigned from Alabama State College after several professors were fired for their involvement in civil rights issues. Among the other 16 faculty members fired from the college was Jo Ann Robinson, a fellow member of the Women's Political Council that Burks worked closely with leading up to and during the Civil Rights Movement. Following the end of the movement, Burks moved to Salisbury, Maryland. Burks was an active member of her community there, where she founded two African American historical societies, worked with the volunteer program of a local hospital, and became a member of the Maryland Arts Council. She was appointed to a National Endowment for the Humanities reviewing panel in 1979, and she also taught literature at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore until her retirement in 1986. Burks died on July 21, 1991. Published works Burks published numerous literary works, including a review of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk as well as articles on Toni Morrison and other Black authors. In 1976, her journal article “The First Black Literary Magazine in American Letters” was published. In 1991, Burks contributed to a book titled “Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers”. The