She challenged the status quo to provoke disruption of the racial systemic chain
Burks was born in 1914 to her parents, Gustavus Samuel, and Ollie Fair. She grew up in a family that placed a strong emphasis on social justice and equality. Even as a child growing up in Montgomery, she challenged the status quo by using white-only elevators, restrooms, and other facilities to provoke disruption of the systemic chain.
She attended the Alabama State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1933 and her master’s degree from the University of Michigan the next year, according to encyclopedia. After attaining the requisite qualifications, she returned to Montgomery to teach English at the Alabama State Laboratory High School.
Burks married her school’s principal, Nathaniel W. Burks, whom she had a son with, according to African American Registry. She rose through the ranks to become the head of the English department at Alabama State University in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Not resting on her oars, she went to Columbia University where she earned her doctorate degree in education and later her postgraduate studies at Harvard and Oxford University.
