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.

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) was born into a large family (15th of 17 children) soon after slaves were set free. She was born in a small cabin built on 5 acres of land her parents purchased from the family that had owned them. From an early age, Mary recognized the educational and economic deprivation in which African Americans were trapped. When she was 9, she was given the opportunity to attend a missionary school five miles from home. Each Sunday, she shared her lessons with others who were unable to attend school; she taught them what she had learned that week.

Mary earned a scholarship to Scotia Seminary, arranged by her teacher Emma Jane Wilson. After she finished there, she attended Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago. Mary then moved to Augusta, Georgia and taught at Haines Normal and Industrial Institute under the tutelage of Lucy Craft Laney. In 1904, she opened the Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona, Florida, which later became Bethune-Cookman University. Mary served as its president for ten years.

Mary was active in efforts that went beyond the classroom as well. She served as president of the National Association of Colored Women and the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. She founded the National Council of Negro Women in New York City, pursuaded the National Youth Administration to create a Directorship of Negro Affairs to which she was appointed, and formed the Federal Council on Negro Affairs (a.k.a. Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet). Mary worked with Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt.

Mary was awarded many honors during her lifetime and posthumously. One such honor was a sculpture of her likeness in Washington DC’s Lincoln Park. Engraved on its side are the following words from her last will and testament:

I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you a thirst for education. I leave you a respect for the use of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity. I leave you a desire to live harmoniously with your fellow men. I leave you, finally, a responsibility to our young people.

References:

Mary McLeod Bethune article accessed on February 5, 2008 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune.

Interview with Mary McLeod Bethune accessed on February 5, 2008 at http://www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/MaryBethune/interview.cfm.

Archives: Teachers featured earlier this month
John Robert Edward Lee
Sarah Mapps Douglass
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson
Mary Smith Peake
Peter Humphries Clark