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.

Alexander Lucius Twilight (July 15, 1795- June 19, 1857) was born Corinth, Vermont the son of a free black family. He is widely recognized as the first African American to have graduated from an American university, Middlebury College in 1823.

Twilight was became a minister in the Presbyterian Church and later served in several Congregational churches. Not only did Twilight use his education for the ministry, he became principal of the Orleans County Brownington Grammar School in Brownington, Vermont. As principal in 1836, he engineered the building of a four-story granite building, Athenian Hall that eventually became Brownington Academy. That building is now listed as a part of the Old Stone House entry on the National Register of Historic Districts.

Also in 1836, Twilight became the first African American to be an elected public official in the Vermont State House of Representatives. From 1847 until 1853, Twilight taught in Canada but then returned to Brownington where he was headmaster. In 1855, he suffered a stroke that led to his death.

References:

http://www.gradportal.org/graduate-resources/alexander_lucious_twilight.html (accessed February 8, 2008).

http://www.twilightandreason.com/wst_page2.html (accessed February 8, 2008).

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/372/Alexander_L_Twilight_a_collegiate_pioneer (accessed February 8, 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
Harper Councill Trenholm
Mary Church Terrell