Mary Henrietta Graham was born in 1858 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was the first African American woman admitted to the University of Michigan and the first woman of color to graduate. In 1880 she received a Bachelor’s of Philosophy in literature. In 1882 she married Ferdinand Lee Barnett, an attorney and civil rights activist. The couple moved to Chicago and worked on Barnett’s paper the Chicago Conservator, which was the first Black Newspaper in the city. Graham later died in 1890. Her husband stayed in Chicago and eventually married Ida B. Wells, the famous anti-lynching activist.

Bachelor of Philosophy and Literature
Michigan Historical Society