Marion Wilkinson
*Marion Wilkinson was born on this date in 1870. She was a Black suffragist and community activist.
Marion B. Wilkinson was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest daughter of Richard Birnie and Anna Frost Birnie. Her family's status and relative wealth allowed her to study at the Avery Normal Institute, which ingrained an ethic of community service that would inspire her life calling. She graduated in 1888 with high honors.
In 1890, Wilkinson became president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union Charleston branch and the women's auxiliary of St. Mark's Church in Charleston at the Annual Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People, delivering a speech about women's work. In 1909, Wilkinson, along with Sara B. Henderson, Lizella A. Jenkins Moorer, and Cecelia Dial Saxon, founded the South Carolina chapter of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs; she became their first president and worked towards improving Black educational attainment and living conditions. In 1911, Wilkinson and her husband moved to Orangeburg, South Carolina, where she started many community advocacy initiatives.
Wilkinson and her husband founded St. Paul's Episcopal Mission, a Black Episcopal church. Wilkinson also founded the Sunshine Club, a local service organization. She also began the Fairwold Home for Delinquent Girls, later renamed the Marion Wilkinson Home for Girls. Wilkinson was heavily involved in campus life at South Carolina State University. She served as chief of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), which resulted in the construction of the only YWCA building on an HBCU.
Wilkinson also ran the dining hall, worked with the Domestic Science Department, accommodated guests, and mentored students. She was known as "Mother Wilkinson" and oversaw the women's dormitory. She was married to educator Dr. Robert Shaw Wilkinson. They had four children together. Wilkinson's service was part of a group of Black women that organized recreation centers for service members in World War One.
In the 1930s, she served as an advisor about child welfare programs for the Hoover administration. She also loved flowers and played a substantial role in beautifying SCSC's campus. Marion Wilkinson died on September 19, 1956.
