Vinie Burrows

Vinie Veronica Burrows (November 15, 1924 – December 25, 2023) was an American stage actress on Broadway and creator and star of one-woman shows like Walk Together Children and Sister! Sister!

Life and career Burrows was born on November 15, 1924 in Harlem, New York City. She started her career as a child actress on radio. Burrows graduated from Wadleigh High School and earned a B.A. from New York University. During the 1950s she appeared in more performances, including Green Pastures (1951), Mrs. Patterson (1954), The Skin of Our Teeth (1955), The Ponder Heart (1956) and The World of Shakespeare (1953).

Burrows later chose to create her own plays and one-woman shows because she felt that the roles available for Black women were limited to those of a “Mammie” or “lady of the evening.” Many of her productions were seen on Broadway, and her work was shown in over 6,000 venues across four continents. She appeared in a reprise of the show titled Sister! Sister! at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center in March 2001. In 2003, she played the role of Barbara Scarlatti in Bel Canto on stage in Atlanta, Georgia. At the University of Iowa in March 2007 she appeared in a show titled Black on the Great White Way: The Story of Rose McClendon.

Burrows was to be a panelist in the 2000–2001 African Diaspora lecture series at the Center for Ideas and Society in Riverside, California. The Black Theater Guild at Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted Burrows for lunch in February 2003. Burrows continued to act in shows into her 90s. She died on December 25, 2023, at the age of 99 in New York City.

Activism Burows was active at the United Nations Economic and Social Council on the issues of the status of women and Southern Africa. In 1980, she became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). She participated in the Women's International Democratic Federation and Granny Peace Brigade for many years.

In 2020, at age 95, she received an Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement.