He was an illegitimate child of Aaron Burr, the third U.S. vice president, and Mary Emmons, a Haitian governess who may have been born in Calcutta, India.

Eugénie Beauharnais, a servant or governess in the household of politician Aaron Burr and his first wife Theodosia Bartow Prevost.

[2][4] She may have been brought to Philadelphia by Theodosia's first husband, Jacques Marcus Prevost, a British military officer who was stationed in the West Indies in the early 1770s.

[7] Burr's activities ranged from promoting emigration by American blacks to Haiti after it founded its republic, to serving as an agent for the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison in Boston and distributed nationally.

He worked on civil rights, protesting disfranchisement of free blacks by the state legislature in 1838, and sheltering fugitive slaves.

[8] First known as a literary society, its members trained young black men in their early 20s to prepare for public speaking,[9] like a Toastmasters of its time.

They took turns preparing and giving speeches, discussed current political topics, and answered questions posed by fellow members.

They intended the institute to be a kind of preparatory school until members gained experience and skills in public speaking.

The Demosthenian Shield, its weekly paper, was first published on June 29, 1841,[9] with some guidance from staff of the Colored American, an established black newspaper of the time.

[12] According to the Philadelphia Preservation Alliance, the Burr house was at Fifth and Spruce Streets, in the Society Hill area of the city.

Together with his wife and some of their children, he was active in fraternal organizations that worked for education, charity and civil rights for the African-American community.

In 2019, a new headstone was unveiled in Eden Cemetery, identifying John Pierre Burr as a "Champion of justice and freedom, conductor on the Underground railroad".