Fannie Barrier Williams was probably the first African-American graduate of our school, graduating as she did in 1870. She went to an active and distinguished career as an activist, speaker and writer for civil and gender rights. She grew up here in Brockport, where her father Anthony had a barbershop and a coal business. Her mother Harriet was a homemaker, and Fannie had a sister, Ella, and a brother, George. The home they lived in still stands today at 57 Erie Street, as shown in a recent photo here. Much later in life Fannie and Ella returned to Brockport in their old age and lived in a different house at the end of Erie Street. Fannie, Ella, and their parents are buried in the High Street cemetery. (The graves are over in the south west corner section of the cemetery.)
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