John Houston Burrus (February 22, 1849 - March 27, 1917) was an educator in Nashville, Tennessee and Lorman, Mississippi. He was a member of the first class of students at Fisk University in Nashville and when that class graduated became among the first group of African-Americans to graduate from a liberal arts college south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He was a professor of mathematics at Fisk and in 1883 became the second president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, a position he held until 1893.