Famous African American Teachers
Introduction: Dr. Charles K. Ross, Director, African-American StudiesThe 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.
Charlotte was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the granddaughter of former slaves. Her family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts when she was young. Charlotte attended Cambridge English High School and Salem State Normal School with the financial assistance of Alice Freeman Palmer (the second woman president of Wellesley College). While still a student there, she accepted a teaching position in North Carolina offered by the American Missionary Association. At age 18, she returned to North Carolina and taught African American children at the Bethany Congregational Church in Sedalia. When the school closed due to lack of funding, Charlotte decided to open her own school.
Charlotte went back to New England to raise money and returned with $100 in 1902. She used the money to open the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, named after her benefactor. At the Palmer Institute, students were able to learn French, Latin, and other academic subjects in addition to vocational trades. It became recognized nationally as an excellent college preparatory school for African Americans. She served as president of the fully accredited Palmer Institute for 50 years.
Charlotte was a religious leader and an activist and lecturer for women’s and African-American’s rights. She was president of the North Carolina Association of Colored Women's Clubs, a member of National Council of Negro Women, and served on the national board of the Young Women's Christian Association, the first black woman to do so. She worked to organize voter registration drives for black women, in part by appealing to white women. She deeply believed in the American principles of freedom and justice for all and showed the world "what a young black woman could do."
The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Memorial State Historic Site was established as North Carolina's first historic site honoring an African American and the State's first historic site honoring a woman.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Hawkins_Brown accessed on February 24 2008.
http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/bio/afro/brown.htm accessed on February 24 2008.
Wormser, R. (2002). Charlotte Hawkins Brown in the series The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Accessed at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_brown.html on February 24, 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
Alexander Twilight
John Hope
Euphemia Lofton-Haynes
Booker T. Washington
Margaret Murray Washington
Robert Russa Moton
Fanny Jackson Coppin
Ellis O. Knox
Anna Julia Cooper
Matthew Gaines
Maria L. Baldwin
Carter Woodson