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.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (W. E. B. Du Bois) (February 23, 1868-August 27, 1963) was labeled a radical but Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, "History cannot ignore W.E.B. Du Bois because history has to reflect truth and Dr. Du Bois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded disclosed the great dimensions of the man." (Aptheker, 1973)

Born in Massachusetts in a relatively small community, Du Bois moved to the south for college at Fisk in Nashville. While there, teaching in a small rural school in the summers, he experienced poverty, ignorance, and prejudice. And he determined to help his people.

As a Fisk graduate, Mr. Du Bois entered Harvard University earning a bachelor’s degree in 1890 and his master’s in 1891. Du Bois studied for a time working toward his doctorate at the University of Berlin and was near graduation when funding was pulled. He returned to Harvard, completed his doctorate, with his thesis The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America that became the first book in Harvard’s Historical Series.

Dr. Du Bois began his teaching career at Wilberforce in Ohio, did research in the slums of Philadelphia, and moved on to teach at Atlanta University in sociology. There, he studied, taught and researched Negroes in social settings in an effort to move social reform. It was also during this period that a debate between Dr. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington arose over the methodology of managing power of blacks. Washington urged industrial education while Du Bois pushed higher education. This disagreement and ensuing events led to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Du Bois was the Director of Publications and Research for the organization directing Crisis magazine for 25 years with often fiery editorials.

After trips to Africa and Russia and disillusionment with the NCAAP, as organized, Du Bois again taught at Atlanta University where he worked even harder for liberation of Africans around the world, the outlawing of atomic weapons, and refusing to register as demanded by the U. S. Department of Justice as an agent of a foreign principal of the Soviet Union, Dr. Du Bois became an expatriate of the U. S. and moved permanently to Ghana. He accepted the offer to direct Encyclopedia Africana, became a Ghanaian citizen and died there in Accra. He was truly an individual whose work was not always appreciated in his time.

References:

Aptheker, H. (ed.) (1973). http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html accessed February 6, 2008.

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A.C. McClurg.; [Cambridge]: University Press John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1903; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/114/. [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