Drusilla Dunjee Houston
A woman of multiple talents, Drusilla Dunjee Houston was born and raised in Jefferson County, with a special connection to Harpers Ferry. Though she spent the majority of her life in Oklahoma, clearly her creative energy was nurtured by her childhood in West Virginia, leading to a successful career as a journalist, writer, and historian.
Born on January 20, 1876 in Harpers Ferry, Houston’s parents were Rev. John Dunjee and Lydia Ann Dunjee nee Taylor. An alumnus of Storer College, Rev. Dunjee made his living as a minister and teacher for the Baptist Missionary Association. One of ten siblings, Drusilla and her brothers Roscoe and Irving, and sisters Blanche and Ella were the only ones to live to adulthood.
Houston received an education in Jefferson County and was then sent to finishing school and studied classical piano in Minnesota at the Northwestern Conservatory of Music.
Her father was reassigned by the Baptist Missionary Association in 1892, and the family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which was not yet a state. For six years, Drusilla taught elementary school.
In 1899 she eloped with Price Houston to McAlester, Oklahoma. Shortly thereafter, he founded the McAlester Seminary for Girls and served as administrator for 12 years. Houston followed her husband into educational administration shortly thereafter.
The Baptist church hired her, in 1917, to serve as principal of the Oklahoma Baptist College for Girls for six years. She then founded and led the Oklahoma Vocational Institute of Fine Arts and Crafts. Next, she was hired as the religious director of the Oklahoma Home for Delinquent Boys.
After her father’s death in 1903, her mother and siblings began to experience financial difficulties. Her brother, Roscoe, expanded the family farm and diversified their crops and sales process. Her other brother, Irving, went first to Chicago and then New York City, working as a journalist. He became the managing editor of the Chicago Enterprise and later worked as editor of The Negro Champion in New York City.
Houston began to write for a paper founded by her brother Roscoe, The Oklahoma Black Dispatch, in 1915. The paper was the first black newspaper in the state. She served as a columnist and contributing editor.
Also in 1915, she wrote a script which served as a response to The Birth of a Nation. Titled Spirit of the South: The Maddened Mob, it was never produced, as Houston feared for her life if it was attributed to her.
In 1926, she published a series of books titled Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. This project was the culmination of work she began in 1901. Although out of date now, it played an important role in the early 20th-century practice by African Americans to document the advanced and complex civilizations that thrived in Africa.
Drusilla Houston was also extremely active in civic organizations throughout Oklahoma. She co-founded chapters of the YWCA, the Red Cross, and NAACP. Further, she was a leader within the Oklahoma Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs and helped found the Dogan Reading Room.
Unfortunately, Houston left Oklahoma in the late 1930s due to a tuberculosis diagnosis. At the time those suffering with the disease were encouraged to live in a dry climate and she moved to Phoenix, Arizona. She died on February 8, 1941.
In her honor, the Black Classic Press, located in Baltimore, established the Drusilla Dunjee Houston Memorial Scholarship Award, which is given to “an emerging female scholar of African descent to foster scholarly research in Africana Women’s history.”