Mount Peace Cemetery & Huston-Tillotson University Presents Dr. Mary E. Branch

HER-STORY: Meet Dr. Mary Elizabeth Branch

Researching the many people buried at Mount Peace Cemetery is an ongoing part of our preservation efforts. Uncovering the "hidden history" of these individuals is exciting and enlightening! Join us as we present a lecture on Dr. Mary E. Branch, prominent educator of the early 20th century who was one of the first Black female Presidents of a college. Dr. Branch comes from an amazing family legacy. Born in Farmville, VA in 1881, both her mother and father were enslaved yet literate and self-taught their children the importance of what an education could do. Please join us for this captivating lecture with special guest Bree'ya Brown, University Archivist at Huston-Tillotson University, the school that Dr. Branch transformed during her tenure as President during uncertain times of the Great Depression and World War II.

The talents of Mary Branch were widely recognized. In 1935 Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the National Youth Administration’s Negro Advisory Board for Texas. She was also the President of the Austin chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and in 1944 she helped to establish the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Mary Branch died in Camden, New Jersey and is buried in Mount Peace Cemetery in Lawnside, NJ that same year.