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SPEAKER_01: Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Encyclopedia Wamanica. Today's politician was an American teacher, writer, and social and political activist. As a candidate for the Communist Party, she was one of the first black women to run for office in New York. Please welcome Willeana Burrows. Willeana Jones, often known as Leanne, was born on January 2nd, 1882 in Petersburg, Virginia. Leanne's mother had been enslaved until she was 16, and little is known about Leanne's father, who died when Leanne was just four years old. Leanne had two siblings, Nellie and Gordon. After Leanne's father's death, Leanne's mother moved the family to New York City with the hope of finding greater opportunity. She got a job as a live-in cook soon after their arrival, but the position didn't allow children. As a result, Leanne and her siblings were placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Harlem. Leanne spent seven years at the asylum until her mother was able to reclaim her children. After that, the family lived on the west side of Manhattan. Leanne attended New York City Public School, where she excelled as a student. After graduation, she enrolled at New York City Normal College, now known as Hunter College, with hopes of becoming a teacher. Students and professors alike took notice of Leanne's strong academic performance, and particularly the strength with which she stuck to her convictions, a trait that would serve her well later in life. Leanne's grades put her at the top of her class of 50, in which she was the only black student. She graduated in 1903 with full teaching qualifications. After graduation, Leanne spent six years teaching first and second grade at a public elementary school on Manhattan's Lower East Side. She was the only black teacher at a school that predominantly served new immigrant communities who settled in the neighborhood. During this period, most of her students were children of recent Jewish immigrants, many of whom did not speak English. As a result, Leanne became a specialist in teaching English as a second language. In 1909, Leanne married her longtime boyfriend, Charles Burroughs, and gave birth to her first daughter, Allison. Burroughs was a protege of W.E.B. Du Bois, who made a living working for the U.S. Postal Service. He was also a well-known Shakespearean actor in the city. After the wedding, Leanne left her teaching job to stay home and take care of her young daughter. Between 1909 and 1925, Leanne had three more children. By 1925, however, she was ready to get back to teaching. After first working as a substitute teacher in Flushing, Leanne took a job at a public school in Jamaica, Queens, where she worked with children who were learning English. That same year, Leanne became increasingly involved in the New York City Teachers Union. She was particularly active in the rank-and-file caucus, which was led by Communist members. In September 1926, Leanne joined the Communist Party, then known as the Workers' Party, or the Workers' Communist Party. She joined under the pseudonym Mary Adams because of concerns that public Communist support would lead to losing her job. Leanne continued to use the pseudonym throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Leanne began writing articles for Communist and Black newspapers, including The Harlem Liberator and The Daily Worker. She wrote under her own name and under her pseudonym and published dozens of articles between 1928 and 1934. In July of 1928, Leanne embarked on a trip to the Soviet Union with her two youngest sons, Charlie and Neil. Leanne had been invited to the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow to serve as a representative of the American Negro Labor Congress, an auxiliary component of the American Communist Party. While she and her sons were there, they also toured schools and summer camps, which greatly impressed Leanne. She was so impressed that she decided to enroll both of her sons in a Soviet boarding school. In 1930, Leanne took a year-long sabbatical from teaching. She told friends and colleagues that she would be spending the year in Germany, but instead, Leanne went to the Soviet Union, where she worked for the Communist International, an organization that advocated for world communism. Upon her return to New York City in 1931, Leanne began teaching again and also became increasingly involved in social and political activism. She was especially active in the campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teenagers who were accused of raping two white women in Alabama. She was also chairwoman of an organization that advocated for Isidore Blumberg, a New York City teacher who lost his job in the public school system because of his political leanings. As Leanne became increasingly vocal in her advocacy, the public school system took notice. After speaking out at a New York City Board of Education meeting in 1933, Leanne was fired for conduct unbecoming to a teacher and prejudicial to law and order. After losing her job, Leanne was no longer afraid of repercussions due to her political affiliations. She agreed to run as the Communist Party's candidate for New York comptroller in the 1933 election and as the candidate for New York lieutenant governor in the 1934 election. She lost both times. In 1935, Leanne decided to head back to the Soviet Union, where she took a job as a copywriter at an English-language newspaper called Moscow News. She worked there until 1937, when she took a job at Radio Moscow, the radio news service of the Soviet government, as an announcer and producer for English-language broadcasts. The plan was for Leanne and her two sons to eventually move back to the United States. In 1940, Leanne began suffering from health issues and requested leave from the Soviet government to return to the United States for medical treatment. This request was denied due to the scarcity of native English speakers available for the Soviet war effort. Leanne made the same request in 1942 and was again denied. Finally, in 1945, as World War II came to a close, Leanne was allowed to leave with her youngest son. Well aware of Leanne's bids for office as a communist and her later work for the Soviet government, the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, was ready to intercept Leanne upon her return. FBI agents waited for her at New York Harbor on the day of her expected arrival. Luckily for Leanne, she and her son were actually scheduled to arrive in Baltimore. They managed to completely avoid the FBI welcoming party. Two months after her return to New York City, on December 24th, 1945, Leanne died at the home of a friend in Manhattan. All month, we're talking about politicians. For more on why we're doing what we're doing, check out our newsletter, Womanica Weekly. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Encyclopedia Womanica and follow me directly on Twitter at Jenny M. Kaplan. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow. This week's episodes of Encyclopedia Womanica are brought to you by Bonfire, the easiest way to design, sell, and order premium shirts, all virtually and risk-free with no out-of-pocket costs. On bonfire.com, you can upload a design or use their templates, and they'll take care of printing and shipping to your buyers. The platform allows you to fundraise to your community by encouraging supporters to wear your message loud and proud. They're trusted by the Women's March, Rock the Boat, and now, Wonder Media Network, too. Check out the Encyclopedia Womanica T-shirt we designed to support the show and sign up for Bonfire to kick off your own activist campaign at wondermedianetwork.com slash bonfire. 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