Famous African American Teachers

Introduction: Dr. Charles K. Ross, Director, African-American Studies
The University of Mississippi

Africans, delivered to America during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, brought with them a commitment to education. This desire for learning caused them to be placed in the difficult position of forcibly learning English but not legally being taught how to read and write. Although caught in this paradox, African Americans such as Jupiter Hammon, Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Mary Jane Patterson, and Booker T. Washington all had significant educational accomplishments.

Several African Americans received degrees from white institutions of higher learning during the 19th century and historically black colleges were formed beginning in 1837 with the establishment of Cheyney State Training School in Pennsylvania.

With the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, African Americans in the South found themselves retrenched to land as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, legally stripped of the right to vote, and socially segregated. Against this backdrop, education became the leading tool in the fight for equal rights politically, economically and socially. The individuals featured during Black History Month by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning represent and epitomize some of the many accomplishments, contributions, and achievements by African American teachers.

Harper Councill Trenholm (ca. July 16, 1900-February 1963), an Alabama native succeeded his father as president of Alabama State College in Montgomery where he served from 1925-1962. With his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in 1920 and his master’s degree, from the University of Chicago in 1925, Trenholm began as a very young college president. However, youth was a likely asset in promoting growth and change in the college.

As president, Trenholm saw the college grow from a junior college to a four-year institution in 1928 and to award baccalaureate degrees in teacher education in 1931. The school became the leading school for black teachers in Alabama under President Trenholm’s guidance. In 1940 Trenholm started a graduate degree program in 1940, and awarded its first master's degree in 1943.

Trenholm became executive secretary of the American Teachers Association in 1938 and served until 1959. Additionally, he was president of the organization in 1932. He was one of the forces behind the eventual merger of the ATA and the National Education Association (NEA).

Importantly for all black colleges in the south, Trenholm challenged the segregated accrediting system of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) leading to the 1963 change to full membership rights in SACS for black schools and colleges. NEA now provides two yearly awards to educations in his memory.

References:

http://www.nea.org/aboutnea/hctrenholm.html accessed on February 7, 2008.

Archives: Teachers featured earlier this month
John Robert Edward Lee
Sarah Mapps Douglass
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson
Mary Smith Peake
Peter Humphries Clark
Mary McLeod Bethune
William Leo Hansberry
Inez Beverly Prosser
W.E.B. DuBois
Hallie Quinn Brown
Father Patrick Francis Healy
Charlotte Forten Grimke