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74 


NEGRO HISTORY BULLETIN 
JANUARY, 1951 
Volume XIV Number 4 


Founded by Carter G. Woodson 
October, 1937 








Published by 
The Association for the Study of 
Negro Life and History 
1538 Ninth St., N. W., 
Washington, D. C. 








PURPOSE: To inculcate an appre- 
ciation of the past of the Negro. 





“ EDITORIAL BOARD 


Albert N. D. Brooks 
Esther Popel Shaw 
Annie E. Duncan 
Wilhelmina M. Crosson 
Rayrorp W. LoGANn 
Managing Editor 
ADELAIDE F, JAMES 
Editorial Assistant 


The subseription fee of this paper is 
$2.00 a year, or 25 cents a copy; bulk 
subscriptions at special rates have been 
discontinued. Bound volumes, 12 of 
which are now available, sell for $3.15 
each. 


Published monthly except July, August 
and September, at 1538 Ninth St., N. W., 
Washington, D. C. 


Entered as second class matter October 
31, 1937, at the Post Office at Washing- 
ton, D. C., under the Act of March 3, 
1879. 





CONTENTS 
COVER 
Myrtilla Miner — Founder 
Teachers College 


MINER TEACHERS COLLEGE CENTENNIAL 


StTaATE-SUPPORTED COLLEGES FOR NEGROES 
By Ellis 0. Knox 


TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 


PRESIDENCY oF H. CouUNCILL TREN- 
HOLM 


CHURCH-RELATED COLLEGES FOR NEGROES 
IN Missouri To 1945 
By R. 1. Brigham 


CHILDREN’S PAGE 
By Geneva C. Turner and Jessie H. 
Roy 
‘¢Dr. CoRNING’s BLACKLIST’’ 


By Rayford W. Logan 


of Miner 


THE Necro History BULLETIN 


MINER TEACHERS COLLEGE 
CENTENNIAL 


HEN the Miner Teachers College of the District of 

Columbia commemorates this year the one hundredth an- 

niversary of its founding, it will pay tribute not simply to 
the continuing existence of an important institute of learning but as 
much to its valiant founder, Myrtilla Miner. It is a cherished part 
of the Miner tradition that an institution designed to train young 
people in a profession of service should have had its origin in a life 
of devoted self-sacrifice. For the life story of Myrtilla Miner must 
place her among the Americans of true heroic stature. 


Born in Brookfield, Madison County, New York, on March 4, 
1815, into'a poor farming family, she was obliged to work in the 
hop fields despite the fact that she suffered then and throughout her 
life with a spinal ailment. She could obtain only a common school 
education in this rural district. Her father, like most Americans 
of that time, opposed “higher education” for women. Despite all 
these obstacles, she left home at the age of twenty-three to seek an 
education in Rochester. There the principal of the Clover Street 
Seminary accepted her promissory notes, which she was able later 
to redeem by teaching in Mississippi. 

There is little doubt that her shocked disappointment at being 
refused permission to teach slaves as well as the daughters of Mis- 
sissippi planters crystallized her determination to open the doors of 
learning to free Negro girls, if not to slaves. With no money of her 
own to start a school for teachers, she came to Washington. It was 
primarily through the financial assistance of members of the Quaker 
sect that it was possible for her to hold her first class in one room of 
a dwelling house near the corner of Eleventh Street and New York 
Avenue on December 6, 1851. It was the first school for teachers in 
the District of Columbia and the fourth in the nation. In the years 
that followed she and her charges were castigated by an influential 
local daily, the National Intelligencer, and the mayor of the city; 
and they were hounded from one house to another by the threats, in- 
sults and attacks of hostile neighbors. Through it all this frail, 
sickly woman defied the hoodlums of Washington to destroy her 
school even though they might destroy the building that housed it. 

The accomplishments of Myrtilla Miner assume the aspect of a 
near-miracle. She was able to keep her school alive although she was 
often the sole instructor and nevertheless was forced to seek treat- 
ment for her failing health and find new friends and contributors 
for her school. When Myrtilla Miner died in 1866, the school was 
continued under the auspices of its benefactors. The milestones that 


mark its upward climb are its incorporation, the assumption of its 
(Continued on page 87) 








JANUARY, 1951 


DR. KNOX 


The history of the development 
of institutions of higher education 
for Negroes is one of the most re- 
eent chapters in the history of 
American education. The most 
comprehensive source available for 
the study of the evolution of edu- 
cation for Negroes prior to 1861, 
published by the late Dr. Carter G. 
Woodson,? reveals that organized 
college programs in institutions for 
Negroes did not exist until after 
the Civil War. Although three of 
the contemporary colleges for Ne- 
groes, Cheyney Training School 
for Teachers, now Cheyney Teach- 
ers College (1847), Ashmun Insti- 
tute, now Lincoln University 
(1854), and Wilberforce Univer- 
sity (1856), had pre-Civil War 
origins, none presented a recog- 
nized curriculum of higher edu- 
cation until the post Civil War 
Period. 


THE Post Civm War Era, 
1865-1890 


During the period 1865-1890, 
America witnessed the birth of a 
new social order. The proponents 
of the supremacy of ‘‘states 
rights’? had been defeated on the 

‘Carter G. Woodson, The Education of 


the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York, 
1915), passim. 


STATE-SUPPORTED COLLEGES 


FOR NEGROES 


By Euuis O. Knox 


battlefield, and a period of unprece- 


dented internal changes ensued.. 


The federal government was com: 
pelled to assume new responsibili- 
ties and to bring a semblance of 
order out of the myriad energies 
released as an aftermath of the 
Civil War. 

An industrial economy in the 
North prospered while the agricul- 
tural economy of the South de- 
clined. It was, however, in that 
prostrated South that the large 
majority of recently emancipated 
freeémen were forced to establish 
a degree of subsistence. The Freed- 
men’s Bureau, therefore, had its 
work eut out even before its estab- 
lishment by Congressional legisla- 
tion in 1865. Pursuant to the mili- 
tary occupancy of the South, it 
undertook the task of health and 
literacy habilitation of the emanci- 
pated. Under the leadership of the 
stalwart General Oliver Otis How- 
ard the Bureau, between 1865- 
1871, exploited the mental potency 
of the former slaves, and awakened 
the American public to the mental 
and cultural virtues of the Negro. 
Humanitarianism arose to new 
heights, and by 1890, sixty-one in- 
stitutions of higher learning for 
Negroes were established by either 
public, religious or philanthropic 
agencies.” 


*Thomas Jesse Jones, Negro Educa- 
tion, a Study of the Privaté and Higher 
Schools for Colored People in the United 
States. U. 8. Bureau of Education Bul- 
letin, 1916 (Washington, 1917). 


All. of the earlier higher in- 
stitutions for freedmen of neces- 
sity included preparatory  sub- 
jects. They provided, however, 
highly creditable fundamentals of 
education, disciplined by mission- 
ary zeal, and sustained mostly by 
religious denominational support. 
In reality public support of educa- 
tional opportunities fm the socially 
segregated Southern atmosphere 
could not be properly financed for 
white youth, and largely because 
of the demands imposed by Con- 
gress for re-admission of the se- 
ceded states to the Union, only a 
feeble gesture was made in the 
direction of publicly-supported 
educational programs for Negro 
youth. 

In spite, however, of the finan- 
cial impotence and social reticence 
in educational matters of the for- 
mer slave-holding states, even 
state-supported college programs 
for Negroes were inaugurated. A 
study of the records reveals that 
at least fourteen of the present-day 
publicly-supported institutions of 
higher learning for Negroes were 
originally established prior to 1890, 
although not all under state aus- 
pices. A list of these colleges with 
the dates of their founding in- 
eludes Alabama State A. & M. 
(1875), Alabama State Teachers 
College (formerly the Marion 
Normal) (1874), Aleorn A. & M. 


(1871), Arkansas A. M. & N. 


*Ibid. 





(1875), Florida A. & M. (1887), 
Kentucky State College (1887), 
Lincoln University, Missouri 
(1866), Morgan State College 
(1876), Prairie View A. & M. 
(1886), Princess Anne College 
(1886), Southern University 
(1880), State Teachers College at 
Elizabeth City, North Carolina 
(1889), State Teachers College 
at Fayetteville, North Carolina 
(1877), and Virginia State College 
(1883). 

Even though the names of many 
of the above colleges have been 
changed since their establishment, 
it is readily apparent from a pe- 
rusal of the list that the chief de- 
sign of state support for Negro 
colleges has been to provide higher 
educational training in the areas 
of agriculture, the mechanical 
trades and teaching. That design 
has persisted from the beginning 
of state-supported college programs 
for Negroes. 


Prior to 1890 all such programs 
were of a sub-college standard. The 
state authorities were determined 
to re-establish the previously exist- 
ing status quo of society, and were 
little concerned with the evidences 
of high mental potentialities on the 
part of Negro youth. The $3,521,- 
936 spent by the Freedmen’s Bu- 
reau to provide 654 elementary 
school buildings, 74 high and nor- 
mal schools, and 61 industrial 
schools did not convince the legis- 
lators of the several Southern 
states of the wisdom of an equality 
of educational opportunities for 
the two races. Rather, it more fre- 
quently created a strong determi- 
nation that equality of educational 
provisions should be prohibited. 

The Southern legislators, how- 
ever, were more fully awakened to 
a consciousness of the mental and 
cultural potentialities of the Negro 
by other agencies and the threats 
of further federal legislation. The 
agencies were chiefly denomina- 
tional and philanthropic in nature, 
and had closely coordinated their 
efforts with the Freedmen’s Bu- 
reau. The denominational agen- 
cies included the most prominent 
religious and missionary bodies in 


America. The Methodists, Congre- 
gationalists, Baptists and Presby- 
terians were especially ° -active.* 
During the period from 1861 to 
1890, therefore, the denominations 
were responsible for the establish- 
ment of at least 49 colleges for Ne- 
groes in the states where segre- 
gated schools had been established 
by reconstruction constitutional 
provisions. Other schools, proper- 
ly named institutes or seminaries, 
which restricted their educational 
offerings to grades lower than the 
college level were also established 
by denominational agencies 
throughout the same geographical 
area. 

Philanthropic aid, both by or- 
ganized foundations and public- 
spirited individual whites and Ne- 
groes, also supported educational 
programs for Negro youth during 
that early period. The first of the 
organized foundations was the Pea- 
body Education Fund, established 
in 1867, by an original grant of 
$1,000,000 from George Peabody. 
The purpose of the fund was stated 
by the donor as follows: 

For the promotion and encouragement 
of intellectual, moral, or industrial 
education among the young of the 
more destitute portions of the South- 
ern and Southwestern states of our 
Union. . . . The benefits intended shall 


be distributed among the entire popu- 
lation.5 


The colleges for Negroes ‘which 
had been established received no 
direct donations from the Peabody 
Fund, but the moral influence was 


most significant from 1867 on; 
moreover, after 1914 when the 
fund was dissolved, $350,000 was 
given to the John F. Slater Fund, 
which financed education of the 
Negro on all levels, including the 
college. 


The latter fund was established 
in 1882 as the result of a gift of 
$1,000,000 from John F. Slater. 
The donor set forth the following 
purpose of his gift: 


*D. O. W. Holmes, The Evolution of 
the Negro College (New York, 1934), 
p. 67. 

*Ullin W. Leavell, Philanthropy in Ne- 
gro Education (Nashville, 1930), pp. 59- 
60. 


Tue Necro History BULLETIN 


The upliftment of the lately emanci- 
pated population of the Southern 
States and their posterity by confer- 
ring on them the blessings of Christian 
education. . . . The disabilities former- 
ly suffered by these people, and their 
singular patience and fidelity in the 
great crisis of the nation, establish a 
just claim on the sympathy and good 
will of humane and patriotic men... . 
It is not only for their own sake, but 
for the safety of our common country, 
in which they have been invested with 
equal political rights, that I am de- 
sirous to aid in providing them with 
the means of such education as shall 
tend to make them good men and good 
citizens.® 


The implications of the intent of 
such donors, and the prominent 
men with whom they invested the 
execution of their trust, challenged 
Southern political leaders. Many 
were also aroused by the intent of 
the federal government in its dis- 
bursements of the funds of the first 
Morrill Act of 1862. It was obvious 
to enlightened thinkers that the 
Act providing for agricultural and 
mechanical colleges in all the states 
could not be construed so as to 
provide for white youth only, fol- 
lowing the emancipation of the Ne- 
gro. The administration of land- 
grant funds, therefore, became 
increasingly awkward in the states 
with segregated schools. Anticipat- 
ing further federal action, the leg- 
islature of Mississippi in 1871 
established a land-grant college for 
Negroes at Alcorn; similar action 
in South Carolina in 1872 resulted 
in the use of Claflin University at 
Orangeburg as the land-grant col- 
lege for Negroes; during the same 
year Virginia voted to use Hamp- 
ton Institute as its land-grant col- 
lege for Negroes; and, in 1879 
Kentucky granted a small portion 
of its land-grant funds to the Ken- 
tucky State Industrial School at 
Frankfort. The same plan as that 
employed. by Kentucky was insti- 
tuted later in Alabama, Arkansas, 
Florida, Louisiana and Missouri, 
and with some modification in 
Maryland where Princess Anne 
Academy, and in Tennessee where 
Knoxville College were allotted 


*John F. Slater Fund, A Letter of 
Fifty Years Ago. Pamphlet (Washing- 
ton, 1932). 





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JANUARY, 1951 


small shares of the 
funds.? 


land-grant 


THE EARLY LAND-GRANT COLLEGES, 
1890-1930 


The second Morrill Act of Au- 
gust 30, 1890, specifically affected 
the states with segregated school 
systems, and required them to di- 
vide their land-grant funds. As a 
result seventeen higher institutions 
for Negroes have operated as full 
land-grant colleges since their sev- 
eral state legislatures accepted the 
terms of the Act. 

The institutions, and the years 
of their establishments as land- 
grant colleges for Negroes are as 
follows: Alabama State Agricul- 
tural and Mechanical Institute 
(1891), Arkansas Agricultural, 
Mechanical and Normal College 
(1891), Delaware State College 
(1891), Florida Agricultural and 
Mechanical College for Negroes 
(1891), Georgia State College 
(1890), Kentucky State College 
(1893), Southern University and 
Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
lege (1893), Princess Anne Col- 
lege (1892), Aleorn Agricultural 
and Mechanical College (1890), 
Lincoln University, Missouri 
(1891), Agricultural and Techni- 
cal College of North Carolina 
(1891), Langston University 
(1899), State Colored Normal, In- 
dustrial, Agricultural and Mechan- 
ical College of South Carolina 
(1896), Tennessee Agricultural 
and Industrial State College 
(1891), Prairie View Agricultural 
and Mechanical College (1891), 
Virginia State College (1891), 
West Virginia State College 
(1891). Four of the above institu- 
tions, Kentucky State, Alcorn, 
South Carolina State, and Virginia 
State, also receive funds under the 
provisions of the First Morrill Act 
of 1862 by sanctions of their re- 
spective state governments. 

Prior to the passage of the sec- 
ond Morrill Act, ten of the above 


"Felton G. Clark, The Control of State- 
Supported Teacher-Training Programs 
for Negroes. Unpublished Doctor’s Dis- 


sertation (Teachers College, Columbia 


University, 1934), p. 11. 


colleges were privately supported 
institutions. Under that Act each 
state which legally maintained a 
racially dual system of schools, and 
in which there was a college for 
whites established in pursuance of 
the Morrill Act of 1862, was com- 
pelled to establish by law a land- 
grant college for Negroes. Three 
states (Delaware, Georgia and 
South Carolina) established col- 
leges the same year that their leg- 
islatures accepted the terms of the 
Second Morrill Act. 


A United States Office of Educa- 
tion study published in 1928 re- 
vealed that even after the passage 
of the second Morrill Act in 1890, 
none of the land-grant colleges for 
Negroes provided curricula of ¢ol- 
legiate grade prior to 1916, nor 
even courses of a standard com- 
parable to those afforded by col- 
leges for Negroes which were sup- 
ported by private funds.® The sec- 
ond Morrill Act, furthermore, was 
unfortunate evidence of the fed- 
eral government’s sanction of 
state-supported separate schools. 
Instead of an insistence that the 
same objectives and programs car- 
ried out in the land-grant institu- 
tions for white youth be afforded 
colored youth, the states were per- 
mitted to extend their patterns of 
dual educational programs. The 
incompatibility of ‘‘separate but 
equal’’ was readily manifested. 


In 1916, furthermore, the total 
enrollment in: land-grant colleges 
for Negroes was 4,875; and of these 
2,595 were of elementary, 2,268 of 
secondary, and only 12 of colle- 
giate grade. Not only was there an 
insufficiency of funds for the main- 
tenance of standard collegiate pro- 
grams in the land-grant institu- 


tions for Negroes, but the Negroes 


themselves did not take kindly to 
the newly established colleges. 
This situation existed during the 
entire first twenty-five years of the 


‘John W. Davis, ‘‘The Negro Land 
Grant College,’’ Journal of Negro Edu- 
cation, II (July, 1933), 317. 


"United States Office of Education, 
Survey of Negro Colleges and Universi- 
ties. Bulletin No. 8, 1928 (Washington, 
1928). 


existence of the new state-support- 
ed colleges. 


It was due, in the first place, to 
the fact that the older private 
and denominational colleges had 
‘*sold’’ the concept of classical and 
cultural college curricula. to the 
previously labor-laden freedmen. 
Secondly, the meagre and woefully 
inadequate elementary and _ sec- 
ondary schools could not produce 
sufficiently prepared collegiate ma- 
triculants to warrant highly ad- 
vanced training in the course areas 
of agriculture, home economies, 
mechanies or teaching. Thirdly, 
the labor, civic and general social 
limitations imposed on the Negro, 
who was for the most part disfran- 
chised, provided few incentives for 
advaneed practical training. 

During the period from 1890 to 
1930, three comprehensive surveys 
were made of the higher educa- 
tional institutions for Negroes in 
the United States. The surveys were 
published by the United States Of- 
fice of Education in 1917, 1928 and 
1930. The latter was a general 
survey of land-grant colleges and 
universities and included Part 10, 
which dealt specifically with the 
Negro land-grant colleges.’ 


The surveys furnished abundant 
evidence of the inequity of state- 
supported collegiate educational 
provisions for whites and Negroes 
in the South. As recently as 1928, 
the total amount of state appro- 
priations for the seventeen Negro 
land-grant colleges was $1,379,484. 
During the same year one South- 
ern state (West Virginia), spent 
more than that amount for white 
college students, and three others 
(Tennessee, Kentucky and Flor- 
ida) each spent nearly as much for 
white students. 


The 1928 survey revealed that, 
from the time of the establishment 
of the seventeen land-grant col- 
leges for Negroes until 1928, the 
land-grant appropriations repre- 
sented the chief publicly-support- 


"United States Office of Education, 
Survey of Land-Grant Colleges and Uni- 
versities. Part X, Negro Land-Grant 
Colleges. Bulletin No. 9, 1930 (Wash- 
ington, 1930). 





78 


ed college provisions offered Negro 
youth in the several states with 
segregated schools. In addition, 
however, there were seven state- 
supported colleges for Negroes 
which in most states engaged prin- 
cipally in teacher training. The 
additional colleges during that pe- 
riod were (1) Georgia Agricultural 
and Mechanical College for Ne- 
groes, Forsyth; (2) Georgia Nor- 
mal and Agricultural College, Al- 
bany; (3) North Carolina College 
for Negroes, Durham; (4) North 
Carolina State Colored Normal 
School, Elizabeth City; (5) State 
Normal School for the Negro Race, 
Fayetteville (North Carolina) ; 
(6) Winston-Salem Teachers Col- 
lege, Winston-Salem (North Caro- 
lina); and (7) Cheyney Training 
School for Teachers, Cheyney 
(Pennsylvania). 


The type of state control of 
twenty-two of the colleges has been 
studied in detail, and it was found 
that fourteen were governed by 
separately organized boards of 
trustees, and represented the lead- 
ing land-grant and teacher-train- 
ing institutions for Negroes. In 
general, such institutions received 
relatively larger state appropria- 
tions for both capital outlay and 
maintenance. Two of the institu- 
tions were administered directly 
by state boards of public educa- 
tion, which permitted them readily 
to gain state appropriations from 
their legislatures. Two were under 
the supervision of their state 
boards of control, and four were 
either branches of state universities 
of their respective states or were 
under some other form of divided 
authority which presented a dual 
or ‘‘multi-headed’’ authority. The 
latter form of control, without ex- 
ception, operated to the disadvan- 
tage of the institution affected." 


The twenty-two colleges studied 
received 59.6 per cent of their total 
revenues from state appropria- 
tions, and 8.1 per cent from the 
federal government, through the 
provisions of the Morrill Land 
Grant Acts. These publicly-sup- 


"Clarke, op. cit., pp. 32-70. 


ported institutions received in ad- 
dition 0.1 per cent of their income 
from church appropriations, 0.4 
per cent from interest on endow- 
ments, 3.7 per cent from gifts for 
current expenses, 13.7 per cent 
from student fees, 9.6 per cent from 
sales and services, and 4.7 per cent 
from miscellaneous sources. 

The limited appropriations from 
the federal government to the col- 
leges for Negroes were due to in- 
defensible state practices. Addi- 
tional funds were available for the 
students in the land-grant colleges 
for white students by a series of 
congressional acts passed just prior 
to and during the early years of 
the twentieth century. The Hatch 
Act in 1887 provided for programs 
of scientific investigation and ex- 
perimentation in land-grant col- 
leges, even though none was estab- 
lished for Negroes by a state with a 
land-grant college for Negroes. 

The Smith-Lever Act of 1914, 
the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, and 
the Smith-Bankhead Act of 1920, 
all provided additional bases for 
receiving federal government ap- 
propriations. The first named made 
possible instruction and practical 
demonstrations in agriculture and 
home economies to those who could 
not attend in residence the courses 
in the land-grant colleges. Since 
nearly 60 per cent of the Negro 
population in the South was in ru- 
ral areas during this period, denial 
of the benefits of extension services 
was a direct dereliction on the part 
of the state governments. More- 
over, such programs were assidu- 
ously developed in the land-grant 
colleges for the white youth. 

Both the Smith-Hughes and the 
Smith-Bankhead Acts made pos- 
sible federal allotments for the sal- 
aries of teachers and supervisors 
of agricultural subjects, and teach- 
ers of trade and industrial and 
home economies subjects. No state 
afforded its land-grant colleges for 
Negro youth anything approximat- 
ing the full benefits of these Acts, 
although all the faults were not en- 
tirely those of the state govern- 
ments, for only too frequently the 
college administrators of the insti- 


Tue Necro History BULLETIN 


tutions for Negroes were woefully 
lethargic. There are numerous 
studies and facts available to sub- 
stantiate that charge. 

Without doubt, the most signifi- 
eant elements of progress affecting 
the growth of higher education for 
Negroes from 1890-1930 were fur- 


‘nished by the increase of philan- 


thropy. The General Education 
Board, established by John D. 
Rockefeller in 1903, directly aided 
many state-controlled colleges for 
Negroes especially by gifts for 
financing a portion of their build- 
ing construction and other perma- 
nent improvements. The Phelps- 
Stokes Fund, established in 1910 
through the bequest of Mrs. Caro- 
line Phelps-Stokes, made a unique 
contribution to the development of 
eolleges for Negroes by grants 
which rendered it possible to sur- 
vey and study scientifically the col- 
leges at different periods in their 
evolution. 

The Julius Rosenwald Fund was 
established by Julius Rosenwald in 
1928. Annual grants of the Fund 
have been made to all levels of 
schools for Negroes to provide 
building construction and other 
educational funds. In 1931, for ex- 
ample, $100,000 was appropriated 
directly for disbursement to state 
colleges in addition to approxi- 
mately $136,692 for fellowships. 
Much of the latter has been used as 
grants to members of the faculties 
of colleges for Negroes in order to 
stimulate advanced study. The 
Rosenwald Fund also has proved 
a vigorous and most timely boon 
for strengthening the pitifully in- 
adequate library facilities in state- 
supported as well as privately-con- 
trolled colleges for Negroes. 


PRESENT TRENDS IN STATE- 
SUPPORTED COLLEGES FOR 
NEGROES, 1930-PRESENT 


The United States Office of Ed- 
ucation reports reveal that in 1948 
there were 118 institutions for Ne- 
groes which offered one or more 
years of college work. Thirty-one 
of the institutions were state-con- 
trolled four-year colleges, and six 
were municipally-controlled teach- 





Ed- 
1948 
Ne- 
nore 
-one 
con- 
| Six 
ach- 


JANUARY, 1951 


ers or junior colleges.1* The four- 
year colleges which were publicly 
controlled ineluded the seventeen 
land-grant colleges. A complete 
list of all currently state-controlled 
colleges for Negroes is presented 
in Table I. 


The reports reveal further that 
in 1948, there were sixteen institu- 


‘Federal Security Agency, Office . of 
Education, Education Directory. Part 3, 
1948-49 (Washington, 1948). 


tions for Negroes which conferred 
graduate degrees. Ten of these 
were state - supported colleges. 
Seven of the colleges were state 
land-grant institutions for Negroes 
and included Florida Agricultural 
and Mechanical College; Lincoln 
University, Missouri; North Caro- 
lina Agricultural and Technical 
College; Prairie View Agricul- 
tural and Mechanical College; 
South Carolina State Agricultural 
and Mechanical College ; Tennessee 


TABLE I* 


79 


Agricultural and Industrial State 
College; and Virginia State Col- 
lege. Two of the colleges, North 
Carolina State College and Texas 
State University for Negroes, were 
primarily liberal arts colleges, and 
one, Alabama State Teachers Col- 
lege, was for teacher training.” 
(Continued on page 88) 


*%Office of Education, Statistics of 
Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, 
Year Ending June 30, 1949. Bulletin 
No. 11, 1950 (Washington, 1950). 


NAME, LOCATION AND ACCREDITATION Status oF STaTE-SupporTED 4-YEAR COLLEGES FOR NEGROES IN 1948 





Name 


City 


State Accreditation*** 





Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College** 


State Teachers College 


3. Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College** 


. Delaware State College** 


Normal 
Montgomery 
Pine Bluff 
Dover 


5. Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for 


Negroes** 
Fort Valley State College 
. Georgia State College** 
. Albany State College** 
Kentucky State College** 
Grambling College 


Tallahassee 
Fort Valley 


Industrial College 


Albany 
Frankfort 
Grambling 


Southern University and Agricultural and 


Mechanical College** 
2. Morgan State College 
Maryland State College** 


Maryland State Teachers College 
Aleorn Agricultural and Mechanical College** 


3. Jackson College 
Lincoln University** 


Baton Rouge 
Baltimore 
Prineess Anne 
Bowie 

Aleorn 
Jackson 
Jefferson City 


Agricultural and Technical College of North 


Carolina** 


Greensboro 


North Carolina College at Durham 
Fayetteville State Teachers College 
State Teachers College 


2. Winston-Salem Teachers College 
3. Langston University** 


Cheyney State Teachers College 

State Colored Normal Industrial, Agricultural 
and Mechanical College of South Carolina** 
Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State 
College** 

Prairie View A. & M. College** 


. Texas State University for Negroes 
. Virginia State College** 

. West Virginia State College** 

. Bluefield State College 


Durham 
Fayetteville 
Elizabeth City 
Winston-Salem 
Langston 
Cheyney 


Orangeburg 
Nashville 


. Prairie View 


Houston 
Petersburg 
Institute 
Bluefield 


Alabama 
Alabama 
Arkansas 
Delaware 


= 


Florida 
Georgia 
Georgia 
Georgia 
Kentucky 
Louisiana 


cn RR A wh 


Louisiana 
Maryland 
Maryland 
Maryland 
Mississippi 
Mississippi 
Missouri 


= 2 
b> > 


North Carolina 
North Carolina ° 
North Carolina 
North Carolina 
North Carolina 
Oklahoma 
Pennsylvania 


ZLnDp>R ZnS 
P>b>bb> obbp 


QQ: 


- South Carolina 


Tennessee 
Texas — 

Texas 
Virginia 

West Virginia 
West Virginia 


nP mM rz 


Zn 





*Compiled from: U. 8. Office of Education, Educational Directory, Part ITI, 1948-49, with adaptations. 


**TLand-grant college for Negroes. 
***Legend: 
A.A.=Association of American Universities. 


M.A.=Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 


§.A.=Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Se 


héAal 





T.=American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. 
N.C.=North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 





Much of the progress of many of 

our institutions of higher learning 
has stemmed from the long terms 
of able administrators. In some 
instances sons have succeeded fa- 
thers and thereby prolonged this 
continuity of administration. 

In 1920 George Washington 
‘Trenholm became president of 
Alabama State Normal School 
at Montgomery, Alabama. Pres- 


TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
PRESIDENCY OF H. COUNCILL TRENHOLM 









Tue Nearo History BULLETIN 








ident Trenholm, a graduate of 
the Alabama Agricultural and Me- 
¢hanical Institute at Normal, had 
founded Tuscumbia High School 
in 1896 and served as principal 
there for twenty years. He was 
secretary of 
Teachers Association from 1900 to 
1905 and president from 1910 to 
1912. Professor Trenholm. was 
also one of the group that organ- 


MR. PATTERSON, SON OF THE FOUNDER, PRESENTING A SILVER VASE OF 
ROSEBUDS TO DR. TRENHOLM 





the Alabama State - 





ized in 1903 the National Asso- 
ciation of Teachers in Colored 
Schools, now the American Teach- 
ers Association. In 1911 he and 
other interested workers began the 
organization of teachers institutes. 
Four years later the state legisla- 
ture of Alabama provided funds 
for the employment of a full-time 
conductor of these institutes un- 
der the direction of Professor 
Trenholm. He was later appointed 
State Supervisor of Teacher Train- 
ing for Negroes. It was only nat- 
ural, then, that he should be called 
to head the State Normal School. 
Among the distinguished educators 
appointed to the school during his 
administration were Joseph F. 
Drake, now president of the State 
A. and M. College at Normal, 
Charles H. Thompson, now dean 
of the Graduate School at Howard 
University, and H. Councill Tren- 
holm. The incumbent president was 
thus the heir of a father who 
had greatly improved educational 
standards and facilities for Ne- 
groes in Alabama.! 

Harper Councill Trenholm was 
born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on 
July 16, 1900. He received the de- 
gree of A.B. from Morehouse Col- 
lege in 1920 and the degree of 
Ph.B. from the University of Chi- 
cago in 1921. In the latter year he 
began an association with what 
was then Alabama State Normal 
School that has been uninterrupt- 
ed except for further study. Even 
during his advanced studies he re- 
mained in close touch with the 
school, virtually commuting at 
times between Montgomery and 
Chicago. 

Appointed as instructor at the 
State Normal School in 1921, he 
became director of extension from 
1922 to 1925. In the latter year he 
received the degree of M.A. from 

(Continued on page 91) 
‘See ‘‘George Washington Trenholm’’ 


by J. Reuben Sheeler, Negro History 
Bulletin, IX (October 1945), 17-20. 







LEFT: PR. B. R. BRAZEAL, DEAN OF 

MOREHOUSE COLLEGE, BRINGS 

GREETINGS FROM DR. TRENHOLM’S 
ALMA MATER. 








ABOVE: STANDING IN FRONT OF 
AUTOMOBILE PRESENTED TO PRESI- 
DENT TRENHOLM ARE HARPER C. 
TRENHOLM, II, DR. TRENHOLM, MRS. 
TRENHOLM, EDWYNA TRENHOLM 
AND PORTIA TRENHOLM. 


RIGHT: FACULTY VETERANS WHO 

HAVE SERVED THE TWENTY-FIVE 

YEARS WITH DR. TRENHOLM SHARE 
HONORS. 








82 


For reasons not beyond imagin- 
ing, the philanthropic agencies 
which inaugurated institutions of 
higher learning for Negroes in the 
South after the Civil War did not 
subsidize the beginnings of church- 
related colleges for Negroes in 
Missouri. More than likely such 
church agencies, as well as the Sla- 
ter Fund and other private agen- 
cies, considered the Negro minority 
in Missouri of less importance in 
their scheme of philanthropic sub- 
sidization. A population only six 
per cent Negro presented nowhere 
near the field for their efforts that 
a population fifty per cent Negro 
did. The philanthropy went where 
the need was the greatest, where 
the money could do the most good 
for the most people. 

It is not strange, then, that one 
of the two attempts at colleges for 
Negroes in Missouri, as well as the 
state university at Jefferson City, 
was started through the efforts of 
the Negro citizenry itself. The 
Western College, at Independence, 
Macon, and then Kansas City, owes 
its existence to Negro diligence, if 
not ifs continued existence to Ne- 
gro philanthropy. Only the George 
R. Smith College, formerly at Se- 
dalia, was indebted to white phi- 
lanthropy, and this came primarily 
and initially from within the state 
of Missouri. 

The quest for the materials which 
go to make up this article illus- 
trates the scarcity of records in 
connection with these schools. The 
George R. Smith College in Se- 
dalia, founded in 1894, burned to 
the ground in 1924, with a result- 
ant destruction of. whatever ree- 
ords might have been kept. Private 
individuals, alumni, former teach- 
ers, citizens of Sedalia who were 
friends of ‘the school had to be re- 
lied upon for information concern- 
ing the school. A Prospectus! of 


Sedalia Printing Company, Sedalia, 
Missouri, 1893. : 


Tue Necro History BULLETIN 


CHURCH-RELATED COLLEGES FOR NEGROES 
IN 


MISSOURI TO 1945 


By R. I. BrieHam 


the college and a catalogue num- 
ber of the Bulletin, for the school 
year 1894-5,? both in the possession 
of the Missouri Historical Society, 
were the only printed materials 
available to cast light upon the 
brief history of this school. 


Though Western College and In- 
dustrial Institute was founded in 
1890 and has survived to this date 
as Western Baptist. Seminary, 
there are few records surviving 
with it which can be pieced to- 
gether to enable reconstruction of 
the whole of its more than fifty 
years of history. A twenty-page 
pamphlet, undated and without 
printer’s mark, entitled History of 
Western College, tells of the first 
ten years of the college’s existence. 
President Clement Richardson, in 
office since 1937, has supplied re- 
cent information. But no file of 
Bulletins exists. The American 
Baptist Home Mission Society, in 
answer to a request for informa- 
tion concerning the college said: 
‘*All of the information that we 
have found relative to the college 
at Macon, Missouri, is contained in 
the two attached pages. I wish that 
we could give you more informa- 
tion than we have.’’* The Missouri 
Baptist Union, in reply to a re- 
quest for information, referred 
the inquiry to President Richard- 
son, ‘‘who will be able to tell you 
more about the Negro educational 
situation in Missouri than anybody 
I know.’”*. C. Lopez McAllister, 
one-time member of the Board of 
Trustees at Lincoln, one-time pres- 
ident of Western College, and later 
prominent in religious and inter- 
racial affairs in Des Moines, Iowa, 
also referred inquiries concerning 
Western to the present administra- 


*Undated, without printer’s mark. 

*John T. Caston is ‘listed as the author. 

‘Correspondence, R. Dean Goodwin to 
the writer. 

°T, W. Medearis, General Superinten- 
dent, to the writer. 


tive head, Clement Richardson.*® 
Interviews with teachers and stu- 
dents, as well as with the presi- 
dent, led to much of the material 
here presented regarding the pres- 
ent status of that school. 


Gerorce R. SmitH COLLEGE 


The George R. Smith College in 
Sedalia was founded under the 
auspices of the Freedmen’s Aid 
and the Southern Educational So- 
ciety of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, with general offices in Cin- 
cinnati.’ The stimulus to the in- 
ception of such a school had been 
the gift to Corresponding Secre- 
tary J. C. Hartzell, of the Southern 
Educational Society, of a tract of 
land, nearly 28 acres, a bequest of 
S. E. Smith and M. E. Cotton, 
daughters of Union General George 
R. Smith. The gift had been 
presented with the following ‘stipu- 
lation : ‘‘The condition of the bond 
filed in the court called for a col- 
lege building to be erected, to cost 
not less than twenty-five thousand 
dollars, including the furnishings, 
and to be completed by January, 
1892.’”6 

The time set for the completion 
of the building was advanced to 
January, 1894, when the financial 
crisis of 1893 left citizens without 
money to meet their pledges, but 
by December, *1893, a sizable col- 
lege building, built, but not fin- 
ished, stood on the donated acres. 
The building was 128 feet by 107 
feet, four stories above the base- 
ment, and it contained sixty rooms. 
Without furnishings the building 
cost $35,000.00, fulfilling the terms 
of the gift.® 

The building committee, appar- 
ently responsible for the erection 
of this building, consisted of three 
Sedalia business men: George C. 


*Correspondence to the writer. 
"Prospectus, p. 7. 

*Tbid., p. 8. 

*Tbid., p. 10. 





JANUARY, 1951 


McLaughlin, furniture dealer and 
funeral director; F: A. Samson, 
president of Miner Institute, whose 
cure for drug addicts and alcohol- 
ies was advertised on page 26 of 
the Prospectus; and W. lL. Porter, 
president of the People’s Bank of 
Sedalia.?° 

The Prospectus acknowledged 
recent gifts from various people: 
Rev. T. H. Haggerty, St. Louis, 
library; Mrs. R. D. Bowman, St. 
Louis, piano; Mr. A. Busch, St. 
Louis, large bell and four-dial 
clock for the tower; Mrs. Kate M. 
Rhodes, St. Louis, library; F. H. 
Haley, Jackson, Tennessee, an 
office desk. But pleas were included 
for donations of or toward the 
other necessaries: a steam heating 
plant, a plant to furnish light, 
more furniture for rooms, appa- 
ratus for class rooms: maps, charts, 
musical instruments, a_ general 
work and carpenter shop with out- 
fit for industrial training of all 
kinds. 

The school planned to open on 
January 18, 1894, with a faculty 
of seven. P. A. Cool, D.D., profes- 
sor of mental and moral sciences, 
was to be president. James W. 
Cool, B.S., was to teach science and 
literature ; and Mrs. Lucy A. .Cool, 
matron, was to manage industrial 
training for girls. Miss Anna J. 
Parker, A.M., preceptress, was 
listed as teacher of ancient lan- 
guages and director of the normal 
division; Henry L. Billups, B.S., 
commercial subjects and English. 
Carpentry and care of the campus 
was the province of Charles W. 
Brundage.'* Professor L. Webber, 
A.M., was announced as a probable 
eighth teacher, and the first Bul- 
letin finds him installed as teacher 
of modern languages and music.'* 

With this faculty the George R. 
Smith College proposed to give an 
education to Negroes from the age 
of five through the college years. 
The first six grades, 
English Course, included the cus- 
tomary reading, writing, and arith- 


Loc. cit. 

“Tbid., pp. 23, 24. 

"Sedalia Morning § Weekly Gazette 
(September 1, 1894), p. 5. 

“Bulletin, 1894-1895, p. 9. 


ealled the 


metic. A three-year College Pre- 
paratory Course was topped by the 
College Course.’ A special Normal 
Course was offered for prospective 
teachers.14 


The College Course revealed the 
classical ideals with which the fac- 
ulty intended to indoctrinate the 
students. Subjects listed included 
the following: French, German, 
Latin, Greek, English, Algebra, 
Geometry, Calculus, Chemistry, 
Geology, Biology, Physics, Botany, 
Psychology, International Law, 
Philosophy, Art, Ethics, Political 
Economy. Such pretensions should 
have frightened any Missouri stu- 
dent in 1894! 

Interesting restrictions appear 
in the set of rules to be obeyed by 
the students. Chapel was to be 
held daily at nine. Rooms were to 
be open for inspection at all times. 
The use of snuff, liquor, tobacco, 
or ecards was forbidden and use 
would result in immediate suspen- 
sion if one were apprehended. Stu- 
dents were not allowed to leave the 
campus, to visit the music room or 
the kitchen without the president’s 
permission! Sunday School and 
Church were compulsory on the 
Sabbath, nor could one visit rooms 
or receive visits on that day. Par- 
ents and friends were also admon- 
ished to address all letters to stu- 
dents in care of the president !’® 

As for expenses, board was esti- 
mated at $7.00 per four weeks and 
room at $2.00. Incidental fees and 
tuition were listed as $1.50 per 
month. Students were advised to 
bring their own blanket, quilt, 
soap, towels, and Bible.*® 

With such offerings the enroll- 


ment in the first year, was 58, as 
follows :17 


College Evoparatory: - 
English 6th - : 


Special Sees a ci 
Stenographic 
Musie 


As yet, no Missouri Negroes were 


prepared to attempt the college 


“Prospectus, pp. 12-17. 
“Tbid., pp. 22-23. 
*Tbid., p. 23. 

“Tbid., p. 11. 


83 


curriculum which George R. Smith 
College advocated. As a matter of 
fact, Thomas Jesse Jones, in his 
survey of the Negro schools, noted 
in 1916 that no students were en- 
rolled in the so-called ‘‘college’’ 
classes. He said: ‘‘The so-called 
college classes continue the sec- 
ondary work. The small teaching 
force and the preparation of the 
pupils do not warrant the effort to 
maintain college classes.’"* And 
this was at a time less than seven 
years before the school was to 
cease operating. 

Repeated interviews with the 
Reverend C. C. Anderson of the 
Negro Methodist Church in Colum- 
bia, Missouri, for four years a stu- 
dent at the college, general custo- 
dian, and friend of ‘the president, 
have given the writer a glimpse of 
what life at George R.. Smith was 
really like. 

Reverend Anderson came to 
Missouri with Reverend Sherrill 


.in 1911, when the latter, the pastor 


of Anderson’s home town church 
in Bluford, Virginia, came west to 
take over the presidency of the 
college. For the four years during 
which he went to college in Sedalia 
Anderson was janitor, keeper of 
the grounds, superintendent in 
charge of heating, and general 
hired hand. He raised vegetables 
for the school and kept the school’s 
hogs fat. During the summer a 
couple of boys stayed with him to 
help him with the farm. 

The school, as he remembered it, 
was strict and religious. Daily 
chapel was still held, though the 
hour had been changed to three in 
the afternoon. There was strict 
chaperoning of any students who 
went in to town. Anderson him- 
self, however, used to break the 
no-smoking rule in his own room. 
When the president caught him in 
the act, the student explained that 
he was merely trying to chase away 
mosquitoes. He was asked to come 
to the president’s office every eve- 
ning after dinner to smoke his pipe 
where the president, too, might be 


*Thomas Jesse Jones, Negro Educa- 
tion, Bulletin, 1916, No. 39, Bureau of 
Education (Washington, 1917), pp. 385- 
386. 








84 


the recipient of its benefits. 

From 1911 to 1914 the school 
had classes from the fifth grade 
through college. The one big build- 
ing served all purposes, housing 
faculty as well as students, serv- 
ing as a recreation center, library, 
classroom, and laundry. All out- 
of-town students had to live in the 
building, on the second, third, and 
fourth floors, girls on one side, 
boys on the other. In the base- 
ment were the laundry, dining 
room, and kitchen. The first floor 
housed -the president’s apartments 
and office, the study hall, with the 
small library behind it, and two 
classrooms. On each of the upper 
floors, with the living quarters, 
were classrooms, The chapel, seat- 
ing approximately 300, was on the 
second floor. 

The faculty during this period 
numbered 12: 7 women, 5 men. 
Though the pay was low there were 
few faculty changes. Anderson 
remembers only four during his 
stay. 

The curriculum was still classi- 
eal in large part. Though nearly 
100 students attended the school, 
with all grades represented, only a 
handful took ‘‘eollege’’ work, 
these all taking the same courses 
since they were so few in numbers. 
This college work was strongly in- 
clined toward preparation for the 
ministry. Methodist students were 
able to get substantial loans from 
the Educational Boards, and such 
loans were canceled if the students 
who received them went into 
church or missionary work. 

Expenses. were as low as the 
Prospectus had indicated they 
would be. Tuition, board, and 
room totaled $12.00 per month if 
one did not work at all. By work- 
ing at the school, a student could 
bring this down to $6.00. If, in ad- 
dition, he worked at a job in Se- 
dalia, he could support himself 
easily. ; 

Though he enjoyed his stay at 
George R. Smith and believed that 
the school was doing a good job, 
Reverend Anderson was of the 
opinion that the school would more 


than likely have been discontin- 


ued, even if the building had not’ 


burned down in 1924. Philander 
Smith College in Arkansas inter- 
fered with its development, got 
many of the students and much of 
the support that might otherwise 
have been given to George R. 
Smith. While the white people in 
Sedalia were ready to support the 
Negro school, the Negroes never 
supported it fully. Reverend An- 
derson thought that when there 
was a white president, the Negroes 
wanted a Negro in the office; when 
there was a Negro president, they 
thought he was ‘‘ ‘uppity.’ ’’ More 
than likely the highly classical em- 
phasis of the school was a strong 
factor in prejudicing the Negroes 
of Sedalia against it even to the 
point where they would hang the 
president, I. L. Lyle, in effigy. C. 
C. Hubbard, who was asked to be 
president of the college as of Sep- 
tember, 1924, has stated that 
George R. Smith College had the 
reputation of being ‘‘ ‘snooty’ ’’ as 
far as the townspeople of Sedalia 
were concerned. He also rein- 
forced Reverend Anderson’s state- 
ment about the Methodist disin- 
clination to continue the school 
when he revealed that the school 
was insured for $45,000.00 with 
which a new beginning might have 
been made had there been any sen- 
timent for such action. 


By the time its work was cut 
short by fire some 2,000 students 
had benefited by its existence. 
(This, of course, included all 
grades from the fifth on.) These 
students were largely from Mis- 
souri, with Arkansas and Okla- 
homa sending the next greatest 
numbers. Many of the graduates 
were employed in Sedalia as office 
workers, salad chefs, yard boys, 
waitresses, and porters.’® 

Certainly, though this was an in- 
teresting experiment in coopera- 
tive living, it could hardly be 
termed a vital contribution to 
higher education for the Negro in 
Missouri, even though it does rep- 


“Jay §. Stowell,” Methodist Adven- 
tures in Negro Education (New York 
and Cincinnati, 1922), pp. 140-142. 


THe Necro History BULLETIN 


resent one of very few attempts 
that have been made. 


WESTERN Baptist SEMINARY 


In 1890, four years before 
George R. Smith College was first 
opened to students, another at- 
tempt at higher education for Ne- 
groes was undertaken. Sixteen 
Negro Baptist ministers met at In- 
dependence, Missouri, and estab- 
lished the Missouri Baptist Theo- 
logical University, later to become 
Western Baptist College, Western 
College, then Western Baptist 
Seminary. The Second Baptist 
Chureh of Independence housed 
the incipient school. Reverend 
Wilton R. Boone, B.D., of Spring- 
field, Ohio, was elected its first 
president and on January 13, 1890, 
the opening exercises were held. 
‘‘Appropriate program was ren- 
dered. The morning was devoted 
to prayer and praise and th : after- 
noon to addresses... . Th  Insti- 
tution thus organized, commenced 
its work with a faculty consisting 
of president and an assistant stu- 
dent teacher, term (4) four 
months, enrollment (14) fourteen, 
seven of whom were young men 
engaged in the ministry.’’”° 

With such a school Reverend 
Boone was not happy and after the 
first two terms he resigned. At a 
meeting held in Chillicothe in July, 
1891, Macon City, Missouri, was 
accepted as the most favorable of- 
fer of a site for a new and larger 
school. Here seventeen acres, val- 
ued at $100.00 per acre, and 
$300.00 in cash were offered to the 
school as an inducement to move. 
In January, 1892, the school 
opened for another short term with 
two new faculty members compris- 
ing the staff: W. F. Smith, A. M., . 
and Mrs. C. R. MeDowell.”! 


During the summer of 1892 the 
services of Reverend E. L. Seruggs, 
A.M., B.D., a Lincoln graduate; 
were secured as president. -Under 
his. direction, and with the aid of 
Reverend J. T. Caston, author of 


*Rev. John T. Caston, M.D., History 
of Western College (St. Louis, n.d., n.p.), 
pp. 4, 5, 8. 

™Tbid., p. 9. 





JANUARY, 1951 


the college’s brief History, the col- 
lece received in 1893 a new two- 
story frame building, costing 
$3,000 to construct. The next year 
an addition was made to this build- 
ing. The first floor housed the 
chapel, the recitation rooms and, 
in the addition, the dining room. 
The second floor was devoted to 
dormitories.?? 

Financially as well as in terms 
of student population the new 
school was unstable. [t had been 
founded on a shoestring. Its first 
money was $42.00 collected in 
Boonville in 1889. By the time the 
school moved to Macon it was in 
need of $1,400.00 to pay for the 
new building before January 1, 
1891. This was collected, in the 
main, from ‘Negroes in the state. 
The Baptist Home Mission Society 
of New York, however, came to the 
aid of the school to help it erect 


“Ibid., pp. 10-11. 


the new building, paying $1,200.00 
of the $3,000.00 which it cost.?* 

Though Caston’s estimate can- 
not be trusted too fully, since he 
was writing his pamphlet in an at- 
tempt to raise money for the school, 
he claimed the value of Western 
College property in 1926 to be 
$300,000.00, with liabilities listed 
at $95,000.00.24 He further stated : 

“When a child its annual expense 
was about $5,000.00, but that amount 
was soon increased, each year from the 
beginning until today, there is scarcely 
any comparison, the expense of up- 
keep ‘today is more than $20,000.00 
per year.” 

Jonsidering the increase in cost of 
living from 1890 to 1928, this in- 
crease in expenses does net denote 
great expansion of the school. Yet 
Caston gave the following statistics 
for attendance at Western: 


*Tbid., pp. 12-14. 

“Thomas Jesse Jones, op. cit., p. 383, 
declared the value at $20,000.00 and 
quoted the attendance as 66. 


85 


1890 ee ae 
I ee ag 
+e © 
| | 
nt el ils IR 
 * SS” 
1895-6 102 
1896-7 ___. 115 
fic ipitnids che _. 134 
1898-9 141 


Since the removal to the new loca- 
tion in Kansas City, continued 
Caston, attendance had been over 
150.75 

Whether or not we can take this 
statement of Reverend Caston at 
its full value is dubious. Accord- 
ing to the only available catalogue 
containing enrollment figures, the 
Seminary enrolled 107 students in 
the school year 1944-5. Of these, 
13 entered after a good part of the 
school year had passed. And of 
this enrollment only 29 might be 

(Continued on page 89) 


=Caston, op. cit., pp. 15-16. 


MINER TEACHERS COLLEGE, SCENE OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 








CHILDREN’S PAGE 


Private Colleges for Negroes 
By JESSIE H. Roy 


Donna Pinkett looked out of her 
dormitory window and frowned 
although what she saw was a beau- 
tiful section of the campus with an 
imposing building which had not 
long beén built. 

‘*T’m tired,’’ she complained to 
her roommate, Jean Iverson. ‘‘It 
seems unfair to have to study so 
hard and then go out and sing to 
help support the school.’’ 

‘““Why, Donna!’’ exclaimed 
Jean. ‘‘I never heard you talk 
like that before. You certainly 
must be tired.’’ 

Jean crossed the room to where 
Donna sat at the open window and 
put an arm around her friend’s 
shoulders. : 

‘“‘Just look at that wonderful 
new building, Donna. How do you 
suppose we should ever have got- 
ten it if someone hadn’t helped to 
raise the money for it? 

‘Ours is a private college, you 
know, and must get its money from 
gifts, tuition, and the efforts of the 
students and faculty. I should 
think you would be proud to be a 
part of such a great undertaking.”’ 

‘*T’m still tired,’’ replied Donna 
stubbornly. 

**Come,’’ urged Jean. ‘‘You’ll 
feel better when you begin to sing. 
We'll have to hurry, too. It is al- 
most time to get dressed.’’ 

Soon the girls were busy getting 
ready for the biggest choir recital 
of the year, the purpose of which 
was to furnish some needed equip- 
ment for the new building. 

‘You know, Jean,’’ Donna re- 
marked after a few minutes. ‘‘I 
have been thinking about our 
school and about all the other pri- 
vately owned schools in the coun- 
try. They have always done a good 
job of teaching our people—as fine 
a job as they could do with what 
they had. 

‘‘The first private schools were 
paid for almost entirely by North- 
ern white Christians or by church 


groups who realized the great need 
for education among Negroes. 


‘*Three of these schools were es- 
tablished before the Civil War. 
They were Lincoln, in Pennsyl- 
vania; Berea, in Kentucky; and 
Wilberforce, in Ohio. 
it may seem, Berea was founded by 
the son of a former slaveowner, 
John G. Fee. He became a staunch 
Abolitionist while he was studying 
for the ministry at a Northern 
school. And, although his desire to 
help Negroes caused a permanent 
break with his family, he carried 
out his plans to establish Berea 
College which further angered 
many Southern whites because it 
was founded on a non-segregated 
basis. 

‘“‘During and after the Civil 
War, many other private schools 
for Negroes were opened. All of 
them tried to raise the social and 
economic condition of the former 


slaves; and the great majority of — 


them had strict rules of morality 
and conduct planned to help Negro 


Strange as’ 


Tue Necro History BULLETIN 


youth to become desirable as well 
as useful American citizens. 

‘*In the beginning, nearly all of 
the private schools for Negroes 
were below standard as compared 
to New England schools. This was 
because the students had had little 
or no formal education before en- 
tering these schools. It was not 
due to a lack of ability on the part 
of the teachers, most of whom were 
white New Englanders who had 
been trained in the best schools in 
the country; nor was it due to the 
lack of ability of the Negro stu- 
dent to learn. 

‘Only in very recent years have 
some of these schools become class 
‘*A’’ eolleges or universities ac- 
cording to the standards of the rat- 
ing organizations. 

‘Our own beloved university al- 
so suffered from lack of funds at 
first. But today its graduates have 
made and are making their mark in 
many walks of life.’’ 

‘“My goodness!’’ interrupted 
Jean laughing, ‘‘for one who 
didn’t want to help another lick a 
few minutes ago, you surely know 
a lot about our private schools.’’ 

‘*Well,’’ smiled Donna, ‘‘I am 
really ashamed of myself for what 
I said. I didn’t honestly mean it, 
of course. But I’m still tired.’’ 


State-Supported Colleges 


By Greneva C. TURNER 


Mother and the whole family sat 
listening for just one name as they 
watched the pupils march proudly, 
one by one, across the stage to re- 
ceive their high school diplomas. 

‘*William Henry Carter.’’ 

There it was at last. Mother’s 
eyes glistened with tears when she 
saw William, tall, brown, hand- 
some and immaculate in his blue 
serge, take his diploma, bow low 
and walk proudly off the stage to 
join the ranks below. 

‘*Another milestone 
whispered Father. 

‘‘Graduations are so lovely!’’ 
said Mother after all was over. 

That evening in the living room 
after dinner, the family was dis- 


9? 
passed, 


cussing the graduation in detail— 
the speeches, the flowers and deco- 
rations, and the honors won by 
various members of the class. 

‘*To what college am I going?”’ 
asked William. ‘‘That’s the big 
question now.’’ 

**You have many from which to 
choose,’’ said Mother. 

‘‘To which one did you go, 
Mother?’’ he inquired. 

‘*Since my home was in Virginia, 
I went to Virginia State College, 
which is supported by the state 
government.’’ 

‘*T went to the same one,’’ added 


. Father. 


‘Where did you go, Grandad?” 
‘*Well, young ‘man, colleges 





JANU 


were! 
Gran 
War 
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eolor 
struc 
1877, 
shoul 
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and 1 
eatio. 
kind- 
and » 
How: 
in th 
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all of 
and, 
many 
to su 
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dial. 
“the 
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high 
in ¢ 
trade 
were 
color 
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not e 
But t 
by fi 
ple ¢ 
ampl 
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help 
States 
to be 
and ¢ 


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tucky 
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ards 

that 


JaNuARY, 1951 

weren’t much in my day,’’ said 
Granddad. ‘‘It was after the Civil 
War before there were college 
courses in any of the schools for 
colored people. During the Recon- 
struction Period, from 1865 to 
1877, the government felt that it 
should-do something for the people 
who were just freed from slavery, 
and who needed some kind of edu- 
eation t« make a living. Then, too, 
kind-hearted people from the North 
and men like General Oliver Otis 
Howara began to take an interest 
in the colored people and to build 
schools for them: You see, almost 
all of the slaves were in the South 
and, therefore, it was there that 
many of the Southern states began 
to support schools for the freed- 
men. 


‘“‘At first,’’ Grandad went on, 
‘‘the courses offered in the so-called 
colleges were just about on the 
high school level, and were usually 
in agriculture, the mechanical 
trades, and in teaching.- There 
were separate schools for white and 
colored and, in the South, the sup- 
port given the colored schools was 
not equal to that given the white. 
But these schools were often helped 
by funds established by kind peo- 
ple called philanthropists—for ex- 
ample the Phelps-Stokes Fund and 
the John F. Slater Fund. Later, 
the federal government began to 
help by giving grants of land to the 
states for schools. These grants had 
to be divided between the white 
and colored schools. . 


“Shortly after 1890, seventeen 
land grant colleges were estab- 
lished. You have heard of some of 
them: Alabama State Agricultural 
and Mechanical Institute, Ken- 
tucky State College, Georgia State 
College, Virginia State College, 
Agricultural and Technical Col- 
lege of North Carolina, and South 
Carolina State. Some of these sev- 
enteen colleges had been privately 
owned. Strange to say, none of 
these schools had courses on the 
college level before 1916, or courses 
as good as those in privately owned 
schools. After this date the stand- 
ards were raised but none reached 
that of the white schools. 


‘* As time passed, however, efforts 
were made to bring about an im- 
provement. By various acts of 
Congress and by gifts given an- 
nually from the above mentioned 
funds, the General Education 
Board and the Rosenwald Fund, 
progress was made in_ build- 
ings and educational programs; 
and fellowships were given to 
teachers for advanced study. These 


colleges have continued to grow: 


since 1930, and in 1948 there were 
one hundred eighteen collegiate in- 
stitutions for Negroes, thirty-one 
of which were state-supported col- 
leges with four-year terms. After 
1935, ten of the state-supported 
colleges offered graduate degrees. 

‘‘Just as you are rated by your 
teachers on your reports and pa- 
pers, just so the colleges in our 
country are rated by various asso- 
ciations. Before 1930, not one col- 
lege for Negroes had been recog- 
nized by the Southern Association 
of Colleges. In 1930, one college 
was given an ‘‘A”’ rating. In 1948, 
however, of the thirty-one state- 
supported colleges, only four were 
not accredited and four were given 
a ‘‘B”’ rating, which means that 
they were not up to approved 
standards. These state-supported 
colleges have also shown a great 
increase in enrollment and now pos- 
sess better trained faculties and ad- 
ministrators, a much larger per- 
centage of whom have the masters’ 
and doctors’ degrees. There is a 
brighter future for our state-sup- 
ported colleges, although they do 
receive less money from the state 
than the white colleges do. 

‘*So, William,’’ concluded 
Grandad, ‘‘I didn’t have the op- 
portunity for -a college education 
in my youth that you have: today.’’ 

“*T see,’’ observed William, who 
had listened attentively to his 
grandfather’s story of the state- 
supported college. ‘‘I shall certain- 
ly select one with a high rating and 
one not too far from home.’’ 

‘‘That’ll be fine,’’ said Mother, 
‘‘then you can come home more 
often.’’ 

‘*But’ which one shall it be?’’ 
asked William, still puzzled. 


87 


‘*T wouldn’t worry about that,’’ 
said Mother. ‘‘Get a good night’s 
rest and we will talk it all over 
within the next few days and then 
you will be able to decide easily.’’ 

‘‘That’s the only sensible thing 
to do,’’ commented Father. 

‘Yes, it’s the only sensible 
thing,’’ agreed William, still won- 
dering to himself which one it 
would be. 





Fill in the blank spaces: 


. Public colleges get their sup- 
port from the 


The early colleges were no bet- 
ter than good 
Some philanthropists who 
helped early Negro colleges 





, many state-sup- 

ported eolleges have been ap- 
proved by the Southern Asso- 
ciation of Colleges. 
There are state-sup- 
ported Negro colleges. 
Private colleges get 
money from 


their 


There are 
leges than 
ones. 

Some private colleges that 
were established before the 


_... private col- 
state - supported 





Miner Teachers 
Centennial 


(Continued from page 74) 
administration by the school sys- 
tem of the District of Columbia, 
the enlargement and extension of 
the curriculum and the removal to 
the present site. In this expansion 
the name of Miss Lucy Moten is 
cherished by later generations al- 
most as much as that of Miss Miner 
in the early history. 

Today Miner occupies an undis- 
puted position of respect among 
the teachers colleges of the coun- 
try. Wherever the story of Myr- 
tilla Miner is known, just men will 
pay homage to that courageous 
educator and philanthropist. 





State Colleges 


(Continued from page 79) 


All of the state-supported col- 
leges offering graduate courses 
have added their graduate pro- 
grams since 1935, and have oper- 
ated in response to federal and 
state court decrees. In 1948 the 
ten colleges had a total enrollment 
of 1,050 graduate students and 203 
graduates. 

During the two decades since 
1930 the state-supported colleges 
for Négroes have overcome many 
of their earlier handicaps, and 
many have attained most creditable 
heights of instructional efficiency 
and social service. Their achieve- 
ments have frequently been in 
spite of their individual state’s 
governmental policy, rather than 
because of it. In a few states, how- 
ever, following the example of pri- 
vate philanthropy, as discussed 
above, and with an improvement 
in the state revenues, a greater de- 
gree of liberalism and tolerance 
has been evidenced. Nevertheless, 
the fact remains that, until the 
present time, no state with a sepa- 
rate state-supported college for 
Negroes appropriates funds even 
approximating equity for the col- 
legiate training of its white and 
colored youth. 

Prior to 1930 there was not a 
single college for Negroes which 
had received accreditation by the 
Southern Association of Colleges 
and Secondary Schools. In 1930 
one college for Negroes was rated 
‘*Class A’’ by that body, and six 
were rated ‘‘Class B.’’ Profession- 
ally the ‘‘Class. B’’ rating is ac- 
tually injurious and derogatory, 
for it imposes no validity in terms 
of approved professional stand- 
ards. There is no ‘‘Class B’’ rat- 
ing other than for Negro colleges, 
nor is there any such rating out- 
side the province of the Southern 
Association. 


The present status of accredita- 
tion of the thirty-one institutions 
for Negroes in 1948 follows: four- 
teen were accredited by the South- 
ern . Association; three by the 


North Central Association; three 
by the Middle States Association ; 
two by the American Association 
of Teachers Colleges; one by the 
Association of American Universi- 
ties; four were designated as 
‘*Class B’’ colleges by the South- 
ern Association; and four colleges 
were not accredited. 


It was during the recent period, 
however, that the state appropria- 


‘tions for the individual colleges for 


Negroes, and their general finan- 
cial status, placed them in a posi- 
tion to excel individually the status 
for the privately-supported col- 
leges for Negroes. Although there 
were approximately twice as many 
private colleges for Negroes as 
public colleges, in 1940, the pri- 
vate institutions had a total in- 
come of only nine million dollars, 
and the fewer public institutions 
had a total income of more than 
seven million dollars. 

The state-supported colleges for 
Negroes have witnessed a most sig- 
nificant increase in enrollment 
during the era since 1930. Reliable 
statistics are not available for the 
increase in all the public colleges, 
but for the seventeen land-grant 
institutions the total enrollment in 
1936-37 was 10,265 and in 1948-49 
it had increased to 23,983. 


There are many reasons for the 
increase. The termination of the 
depression was augmented by the 
more favorable economic condi- 
tions attendant upon World War 
II. Following the war the G.I. en- 
rollments were heavy in many col- 
leges, and a corollary of the eco- 
nomic prosperity and G.I. enroll- 
ment was the general awakening 
and realization of the need, on the 
part of Negro youth, for securing 
a college education. Also, there 
were many more enlightened and 
better prepared high school stu- 
dents who furnished momentum 
to the expanding college situation. 

The colleges themselves gained 
more competent administrators and 
faculties, offered more liberal 
scholarship aid, and instituted 
highly improved public relations 


“Federal Security Ageney, op. cit. 


* THe Necro History BULLETIN 


programs. On the whole, the pub. 
licly-supported colleges for Negroes 
have made a great deal more sig. 
nificant advancement in the profes. 
sionalization of their collegiate 
programs than the privately-sup. 
ported colleges during the past two 
decades. : 


There are numerous other trends 
similiar to those discussed above, 
which evidence that at the present 
time the state-supported colleges 
for Negroes are slowly growing 
into collegiate institutions of full 
stature. In spite of the continued 
operation of social antipathies, dis- 
criminations and even illegal limi- 
tations, the past encouraging prog- 
ress of these colleges harbingers a 
brighter and more wholesome out- 
look for the complete realm of edu- 
cational opportunities for Negroes. 
Certainly, in the states with dual 
educational patterns, the state- 
supported college is apt frequently 
to receive a mere gesture of what 
it professionally merits and legally 
warrants. 

A new generation of educated 
citizens is being developed, how- 
ever, who will not long tolerate the 
continued existence of a public 
school or college designated for 
their race in violation of the prin- 
ciples of a democratic social or- 
der. The colleges are graduating 
stronger products, and the stronger 
products are returning to their 
colleges and communities to chal- 
lenge the myth of racial superior- 
ity, while at the same time they 
labor to graduate ever stronger 
products. 

A most encouraging condition is 
resulting from the consistent and 
substantial increase in state-sup- 
ported college teaching personnel. 
In. 1928 there was a total of 381 
faculty members teaching classes 
of college grade in all of the land- 
grant colleges for Negroes. In 
1948, there was a total of 2,195 
faculty members in the same insti- 
tutions, many qualified by masters’ 
and doctors’ degrees for their po- 
sitions. 

As the liberated Negro becomes 
more intelligent, the intelligent 


JANU 


white 
Both 
more 
Cons 
our 


calle 
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lows 


Colle; 


High 


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Exte! 
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it is 
of e 
A 
the 
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whic 
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January. 1951 


whites will become more liberal. 
Both races are beginning to know 
more meaningfully the value of our 


Constitution, and the potency of 


our courts. 


Church-Related 
Colleges 


(Continued from page 85) 


called ‘‘eollege’’ students. The en- 
rollment distribution was as fol- 
lows :76 


sophomore 
freshmen 
special 
senior 
junior 
sophomore 
freshmen 
Night School 

Extension 

Elementary 


College: 


High Sehool: 


With such a spread of enrollment 
it is questionable just what quality 
of courses could be offered. 

As a matter of fact, to continue 
the history of Western College 
from 1900 to 1945 is a difficult 
problem. Reverend Caston, writing 
in 1928, jumped from 1899 to the 
time of his writing. All catalogues 
which are available include the cus- 
tomary history of the institution, 
but all sueh sketches, though elab- 
orate concerning the origins, do 
not mention the history of the 
school after the turn of the cen- 
tury.*? The single exception to this 
might be ‘the last catalogue, with 
announcements for 1945-6, which 
states: ‘‘During the depression, 
because of financial strain, and a 
grave misunderstanding among the 
Baptists, the school was closed in 
all departments save that of theol- 
ogy. In August, 1937, as Western 
Seminary, it reopened.’’** 

Former President C. Lopez Me- 
Allister would say. nothing about 
the history of the school, referring 
all queries to President Richard- 
son. The latter, in turn, would 


*Catalogue, (sic), 
really 29. 

“Ibid., pp. 7-9; and the mimeographed 
Bulletin, 1931-1932, pp. 16-17, are exam- 
ples. 


“Catalogue, 1945-1946, p. 8. 


1944-1945, p. 92 


talk only of the institution as it 
existed at that time. He had little 
to say as to the history of the in- 
stitution from 1900 on. 

Inasmuch as the enrollment was 
such a complete mixture of every 
level from the first grade through 
the second year of college, and 
since neither the staff nor the 
finances of the institution were 
ever strong, one can be sure that 
little of what is termed ‘‘higher’’ 
education went on within the walls 
of the institution. This conclusion 
is substantiated by catalogues in 
the twenties, the thirties, and in 
the last decade. 


The twenties saw four presidents 
at Western :”® 


P. Bs Thompaoa 
Clement Richardson _... 

C. Lopez MeAllister......_.... 1926-29 
G. T. Bryant ae 1929-30 


A ten-page Western College An- 
nouncement: 1927 - 1928°° 
trates some of the problems the 
small school was facing. Page two 
shows a picture of the present site, 
titled ‘‘Prospective Future Home 
of Western College.’’ Page three, 
in this desk copy from the office of 
the president, was formerly taken 
up by a full-page picture of 
“Clement Richardson, President.”’ 
It is now oceupied by a typewritten 
copy on Western College stationery 
on which the heading, ‘‘Clement 
Richardson, President,’’ is crossed 
out and ‘‘C. Lopez MedAllister’’ 
typed in above it. The page is cap- 
tioned ‘‘ Announcement Extraordi- 
nary’’ and goes on to say: 


.. 1918-21 
1921-26 


“Western College opens September 
12, 1927, at nine o’clock in the morn- 
ing under very favorable conditions. A 
full Faculty in all departments will 
greet old and new pupils. Students en- 
tering professional courses as well as 
those in other groups should be present 
at the opening. Speak a good word for 
Western in your neighborhood. Bring 
as many new students as possible.” 


As for admission requirements, 
the announcement continues: 


“Applicants must present character 
certificates from responsible parties. 
They must also furnish the Faculty 


“Tbid., p. 9. 
“Tn the possession of the writer. 


illus- - 


89 


satisfactory evidence of their ability to 

enter departments of their choice. Stu- 

dents by certificates, written or oral 
examinations may be admitted to ad- 
vanee classes.” 

The final word on the page is 
this: 

“Articles: Each student should 
bring; Three sheets, two pillow cases, 
blankets and towels, tooth brush, comb 
and brush and small mirror.” 

To complete a picture of West- 
ern in 1926-7 page six is convine- 
ing. Here, under the caption, ‘‘The 
following Courses are Offered’’ we 
find the following: 

1. Grades Fourth to Ninth. 

2. Full Four Year High School. 

3. Regular Junior College Course. 

4. Course in Teacher Training. 

GRADUATES FROM THE SIXTY-HOUR 
COURSE RECBIVE A THREE!YEAR STATE 
CERTIFICATE. 

GRADUATES FROM THE NINETY-HOUR 
COURSE RECEIVE A FIVE-YEAR STATE 
CERTIFICATE, 

For A BACHELOR OF SCIENCE DEGREE— 
LIFE CERTIFICATE TO TEACH IN GRADES 
IN HIGH SCHOOL. 

PURSUIT OF ANY ONE OF THESE COURSES 
REQUIRES AT LEAST FIFTEEN HIGH 
ScHoo. Units. 

The page is signed by Clement 
Richardson, again crossed out in 
favor of C. Lopez McAllister. 

There is no mention made of 
staff or of specific courses to be 
offered. S 

The Western College Bulletin* 
containing the announcements for 
the academic year 1931-2, multi- 
graphed at the school, furnishes us, 
however, with a clue to the nature 
of the faculty at that time. Twelve 
faculty members were listed. Elev- 
en of these possessed the bachelor’s 
degree; one, the president, a mas- 
ter’s; and one, the teacher of do- 
mestic sciences and arts, no degree. 
Most of the faculty members were 
also. listed as administrators; 
among them was the athletic di- 
rector. 

The emphasis in offerings was 
definitely on the preparation of 
teachers. A two-year course for 
the preparation for Elementary 
Teacher’s Certificate was offered. 
Compliance with the requirements 
of the State Board of Education 
was stressed throughout the pres- 


“In the possession of the writer. 





90 


entation of the specific course of- 
ferings on the high school and the 
college level. There was strong 
reason to believe, especially in 
light of correspondence in the 
private possession of President 
Richardson, that the State Depart- 
ment of Education was using 
Western as a makeshift arrange- 
ment for the preparation of some 
sort of teachers for the Negro 
schools of the western part of the 
state. There was no thought, at 
that time, of a teachers college in 
Kansas City comparable to the 
Stowe .Teachers College in St. 
Louis. And, as yet, Kansas City 
had not projected its Junior Col- 
lege for Negroes. 

Mention is first made in this 
eatalogue of the !stest in the many 
moves made by the school. In 1920 
the school had moved to Kansas 
City from Macon, settling at 2101 
Woodland Avenue. During 1928 


the Woodland Avenue property 
was sold and a new site, the pres- 
ent one, at 22nd and Tracy, was 
purchased. 


On the present site are two 


buildings: Gillis Home and Ar- 
mour Home. The former, a four- 
story brick building, contains 
boys’ dormitories, general offices, 
chapel, classrooms, gymnasium, 
library, and laboratories. The lat- 
ter contains the girls’ dormitories, 
housing for instructors, dining 
hall, laundry, and home economics 
laboratory. 


The situation in 1945 was hardly 
an improvement over that of 1931- 
32. Lincoln University had grown 
much stronger and could furnish 
a higher grade of teachers for all 
parts of the ‘state. The year 1936 
had seen the inception of Lincoln 
Junior College, another  tax- 
financed competitor for Western, 
another school which could pre- 
pare prospective teachers, espe- 
cially in the two-year course which 
Western had emphasized. If West- 
ern had ever had reason to be 
ealled a ‘‘college,’’ she seemed to 
have lost it by that time. 

The enrollment of the school in 
1945 has already been examined 
and analyzed. It was seen to extend 


‘like 


over fourteen years of schooling, 
from first to twelfth grade plus two 
years of college, and to have in ad- 
dition, night school and extension 
offerings, though the total enroll- 
ment was a mere 100. Such a scat- 
tering of student population was 
bound to create troubles in teach- 
ing and administration, especially 
since the faculty of fourteen in- 
cluded a teacher of knitting, a 
chorus director, and the presi- 
dent’s wife. Of the fourteen mem- 
bers on the Western faculty only 
two had master’s degrees, the presi- 
dent and a white woman who 
taught religious education, psy- 
chology, and Greek! Six members 
possessed bachelor’s degrees; six 
had no degrees at all. 

Western did have the dubious 
reputation of being the only school 
in the state which could openly 
boast of a co-racial faculty. Grad- 
uates of William Jewell College, 
Miss Armentrout, already 
mentioned, and Lawrence Scott, 
teacher of New. Testament Inter- 
pretation and Biology, used the 
school as a field for getting initial 
experience in missionary work. No 
other school for Negroes regularly 
employed white teachers in 1945. 
Exceptions have occurred, notably 
when professors from the School of 
Journalism at the University of 
Missouri have conducted courses at 
Lincoln University’s School of 
Journalism at Jefferson City be- 


THE Necro History BULLETIN 


cause of the failure of the State 
Legislature to appropriate enough 
money for the maintenance of the 
Negro staff there. 


One other aspect of the Western 
faculty deserves mention. Of the 
fourteen people listed on the faculty 
eight had been appointed initially 
within the preceding year. Three 
others had been appointed in 1941, 
1942, and 1943 respectively. Only 
the President and his wife and one 
woman teacher, without degree, 
who had served on the faculty since 
1899, had been with the college as 
long as five years.5? With such a 
shifting faculty a certain lack of 
stability in programs and offerings 
was certainly inevitable. 

The offerings as listed in the 
catalogue are in line with the ex- 
pected curriculum in a standard 
junior college.** 


For the Theological Department 
some changes were made in the of- 
ferings for the first two years. 
‘“‘The Sermon’”’ took the place of 
Educational Psyéhology in the sec- 
ond semester of the first year. 
Teaching Techniques was omitted 
in the first semester of the second 
year; and the second half of ‘‘The 
Sermon’’ was used to replace 
‘‘Practice Teaching’’ in the sec- 
ond semester of the second year.* 


“Catalogue, 1944-1945, pp. 5-6. 
*“Tbid., p. 18. 
“Tbid., p. 19. 


FRESHMAN YEAR 


First Semester 
English 101 
English 103 
Science 100a 
Bible . 101 
French 101 
Psych. 


Comp. cto 
ee, Lait. n.22-.. , 


Second Semester 


English 102 Comp. 
English 104 Asm: Tat. 
Science 100b ; 
Bible 102 
French 102 — 
Educational 

Psych. 102 


SOPHOMORE YEAR 


Grammar Review 3 
Gh See 3 
Teaching Tech. _ ¢ 
Logic 


English 
English 
Edueation 
Phil. 

R. E. 

Soe. 


Intr. Sociology — 3 
Hist. 


American History 3 


English 204 
Ed. 202 
Ed. 204 
Phil. 202 
R. E. 202 
Soe. 202 
Hist. 202 


Public Speaking — 
Practice Tchng. — 
El. School Art. 
Ethies 

Rel. Ed. Tech. 
Harel Soe. 2 2 
American Hist. _.. 3 


JANU. 


Con 
junio} 
fered 
four-) 
offere 
ready 
that, 
the si 
on tl 
avail 
bette! 
ly w 
classe 
stude 
to sa 
Depa 
the 
teack 
prox 
thou: 
bility 


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no e! 
gran 
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cies 

wor 
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had 
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hov 
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® 





9 DO GW DO DO PO 


January, 1951 


Considering the fact that the 
junior and senior year were of- 
fered in Theology and that a full 
four-year high school course was 
offered,®® all with the faculty al- 
ready described, we may assume 
that, even if all students did take 
the same courses when they were 
on the same level, the fourteen 
available teachers, even were they 
better qualified than they opvious- 
ly were, could never teach the 
classes adequately. With the 100 
students spread over eight levels, 
to say nothing of the Elementary 
Department, the Night School, and 
the Extension Department, 14 
teachers would have to handle ap- 
proximately 170 elasses. And al- 
though this was possible, the proba- 
bility of its being done successfully 
was certainly slight. 

In the final analysis we can 
truthfully say that there has been 
no effective higher educational pro- 
eram for the Negro in Missouri 
earried on by the religious agen- 
cies that have done so effective a 
work farther South. Western Bap- 
tist Seminary, as it existed in 1945, 
had no vitality, no raison d’étre. 
It lived on, a hand to mouth exist- 
ence, because of the labors of a few 
workers like Reverend John Goins, 
the fund collector, and its presi- 
dent, Clement Richardson. It lived 
on, too, because of the charity, 
however meager, of the Baptists in 
Missouri. 


"Ibid., pp. 17, 19. 


Trenholm 
Anniversary 


(Continued from page 80) 


the University of Chicago and, fol- 
lowing the death of his father on 
August 3, became acting president 
of the Normal School. In 1926 he 
was appointed president of the 
school which came to be known suc- 
cessively as Alabama State Teach- 
ers College and more recently Ala- 
bama State College. 

Even after becoming president, 
H. Councill Trenholm continued 
his studies. He was a General Edu- 


eation Board Fellow at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, 1934-1935, and 
a Rosenwald Fellow, 1937-1938. 
Allen University conferred upon 
him the honorary degree, LL.D., 
in 1937 and Morehouse in 1942. 

President Trenholm assumed the 
presidency of the school on the eve 
of the well-nigh phenomenal devel- 
opment of Negro land-grant col- 
leges. In 1925 the school had an 
enrollment of slightly over 3,000. 
Twenty-five years later 8,400 stu- 
dents were enrolled. Graduate work 
was bégun in 1938 with thirty-two 
students. The number had in- 
ereased in 1949-1950 to 485. The 
expansion of the physical plant 
and improvement in the caliber of 
the faculty have kept pace with this 
tremendous increase in the enroll- 
ment. 


In recognition of President 
Trenholm’s twenty-five years of 
administration appropriate cere- 
monies. were held on August 2, 
1950. Tributes were paid to him 
by state officials, other college 
presidents, faculty, alumni, stu- 
dents and friends from all parts of 
the country. The principal speak- 
ers were President Felton Clark of 
Southern. University, President 
Frederick D. Patterson of Tuske- 
gee Institute, President W. A. 
Bell, Miles College, and President 
Joseph F. Drake of Alabama Agri- 
cultural and Mechanical College. 
An editorial in the Montgomery Ad- 
vertiser pointed out that the ‘‘Grad- 
uate Students are to be the teach- 
ers and administrators of our 
Negro school system and their ad- 
vanced work means a tremendous 
boost in the quality and character 
of Alabama’s Negro school sys- 
tem.’’ The editorial underscored 
the theme of many of the speakers, 
namely, that ‘‘Dr. Trenholm is a 
credit to this state and nation.”’ 


In the family tradition President 


‘Trenholm has been an energetic 


and far-seeing leader in state and 
national educational, professional 
and fraternal organizations. He 
has been a president and treasurer 
of the Alabama State Teachers As- 
sociation; president of the Ameri- 
ean Teachers Association and for 


91 


many years its executive secretary, 
a member of the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Association of Col- 
leges and Secondary Schools for 
Negroes. A life member of the Na- 
tional Education Association, he 
has served on a number of its im- 
portant committees and given val- 
uable advice to members of other 
committees. There is hardly an 
area of public education to which 
he has not brought his wide expe- 
rience, cajm judgment and pa- 
tience to follow an issue to its con- 
clusion. Although the expression 
has been abused and maligned, he 
is indeed an educational statesman 
in the best sense of the term. 


Despite these many responsibili- 
ties President Trenholm has ex- 
panded his interests and participa-_ 
tion to include broader areas of 
the community. From 1941 to 1949 
he was Director of Educational 
Activities of the Alpha Phi Alpha 
Fraternity and supervised its cam- 
paigns of Education for Citizen- 
ship and the awarding of several 
thousands of dollars in fellowships, 
scholarships and grants-in-aid of 
publication. He is a regional di- 
rector of education of the IBPOE, 
a deputy grand master of the Ma- 
sons, a trustee of Selma University 
and a member of Sigma Pi Phi. 
As a member of the Executive 
Council of the Association for the 
Study of Negro Life and: History 
he has assisted in raising funds 
and he has contributed his valu- 
able experience as an administra- 
tor especially in the field of budget 
and financial organization. 

President Trenholm’s successful 
career would not have been possi- 
ble without the devoted assistance 
of his wife, the former Portia Lee 
Evans, whom he married in 1929. 
An accomplished musician and the 
chairman of the integrated arts di- 
vision of the junior college, she 
presides over his home with charm 
and grace and guides the develop- 
ment of their three children, Ed- 
wyna Ellen, a student at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago School of Social 
Service, Portia Yvonne, a senior at 
Alabama State College, and Har- 
per Councill, Jr. 





Tue Necro History BULLETIN 


“DR. CORNING’S BLACKLIST” 


(Continued from page 96) 


“Let us thank God that ours is a country where there is 
yet time. We can still speak, if not in one place then in an- 
other. We ean still communicate with each other. We 
need not fear secret police—not yet. We can still trust 
family and friends. We do not walk solitary and in 
terror. We have courts of law which are still just, still 
ready to protect the individual and his rights. We have 
people brave enough to say what they think. We can still 
criticize our Government and each other—we ean still make 
a little fun of each other’s failings, and thank God for that, 
too. We still have freedom to laugh.” 


The message was not used at the commencement ex- 
ercises, however, .for fear that ‘‘ ‘embarrassment 
might result.’’’ But the Assistant Principal, Miss 
Jennie Mustapha, and some of the teachers at Car- 
dozo courageously issued a statement (Washington 
Post, February 3, 1951, p. B-1) protesting the banning 
of Miss Buek. 


PALL ON MINER CENTENNIAL 


The latest shock resulted from the revelation that 
four persons who had been invited to speak at the 
Centennial of Miner Teachers College had been barred 
by the superintendent. Realizing that ‘‘the truth 


Harris and Ewing 


PEARL BUCK 


MARQUIS CHILDS 


never quite catches up with the lie,’’ the Washington 
Post did not publish their names. In other words, 
however flimsy or groundless might be the ‘‘evidence”’ 
on which Dr. Corning had banned the speakers, all too 
many hysterical citizens would denounce the four as 
*‘Communists.’’ One .of the four, however, had the 
courage to reveal his identity. Mr. Marquis Childs in 
an article ‘‘Poison of Distrust’’ (Washington Post, 
February 1, 1951, p. 13) wrote: 


The way in which the poison of distrust is corroding nor- 
mal relationships in America was brought home to me the 
other day with singular force. It is a ecorrosion—in part 
the result of the Communist conspiracy, in part deliberately 
exploited for political ends—which threatens to eat deeply 
into the core of American faith in a free society. 

I received a letter recently saying that I was to be in- 
vited to speak at the centennial celebration of Miner Teach- 
ers College in the District of Columbia. Miner is one of the 
oldest Negro normal schools in the country. A little later 
came a note saying that since plans for the observance had 
been changed, no invitation would be forthcoming. 

The incident was forgotten until some facts were 
brought to light by The Washington Post. My name along 
with those of three other prospective speakers, was sub- 
mitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee by 
Superintendent Hobart M. Corning of the Washington 
school system for “clearance.” Corning received a report 
that all four names were “listed” in the committee’s files and 





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JANUARY, 1951 


consequently he ruled that they could not speak at she 
college. 

If this were not in all its implications so outrageous, it 
would be downright farcical in its revelation of the fantas- 
tie length to which timidity and cowardice and a kind of 
political blackmail can go. But it is not funny. It is a 
symptom of sickness and it has made me both angry and 
disgusted. 

When I called on the House Un-American Activities Com- 
mittee, I was told there were two “listings” of my name. 
One was for the sponsorship in 1937 of something called 
the “American Writers Congress.” To the best of my recol- 
lection I never heard of the American Writers Congress nor 
of the League of American Writers, which is supposed to 
have organized it. 

The second “listing” was in connection with membership 
in the Washington Friends of Spanish Democracy in 1938. 
In 1944 it was put on the Attorney General’s subversive list. 

In 1937 as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch I 
was sent to Spain to write a series of articles about the 
struggle of the Spanish government to put down the Fascist 
rebellion started by Franco. It was a grim and terrible 
struggle and I came back to America with a feeling of deep 
compassion for the Spanish people. .. . 


After discussing briefly the course of the Spanish 
Civil War and its relation to the impending struggle 
between democracy and fascism, Mr. Childs reverted 
to the barring of the four speakers at the Miner Cen- 
tennial: He expressed his grave concern as follows: 


If our own doubts and fears have gone as far as this 
small ineident illustrates, then we have good reason to won- 
der about the future of democracy here in the United States. 
Superintendent Corning is said to have been cracked down 
on by super-American groups in other school posts he has 
held. So perhaps his caution is understandable even though 
it must also seem pitiable. 

What is outrageous is that a committee of Congress—or 
rather its agents—should set itself up to judge what is and 
what is not American. I have some ideas on that score my- 
self. My forbears came to this country nearly 300 years 
ago and they came in search of freedom. It is the faith of 
free men that has made America great. 

If we go on as we are going, if we copy what is: worst 
in the Communist*conspiracy out of fear of that conspiracy, 
then we shall lose our greatness. We shall descend to the 
dumb and stricken submissiveness of the totalitarianism that 


George Orwell described so devastatingly in his book, 1984. ° 


The Reverend. A. Powell Davies of All Souls’ Uni- 
tarian Church, one of the most influential and re- 
spected ministers in Washington, then publicly de- 
clared that the banning of Mr. Childs showed that Dr. 
Corning’s clearance policy had been ‘‘ ‘reduced to ab- 
surdity.’ ’’ Dr. Davies further made it known that -he 
had tried to withdraw from speaking at Miner Cen- 
tennial but that, at the urgent request of President 
Eugene A. Clark of that school, he had consented to 
fulfill the engagement. Dr. Davies promised that, 
when he does speak, he will say ‘‘ ‘exactly what my 
conscience prompts me to say. as a free, unfettered 
and eonfident American’ ’’ (Washington Star, Feb- 
ruary 2, 1951, p. A-7). 


WASHINGTON Post ON BLACKLISTING 


There are thus some Washingtonians who are not 
. afraid to confront the superpatriots who are seeking 
to surround freedom of speech with unconscionable 
fetters, The danger was clearly pointed up by the fol- 


93 


lowing editorial from the Washington Post of Janu- 
ary 28, 1951 (p. 4-B): 


Dr. Cornine’s BLACKLIST 


With the addition ef four prominent names to the black- 
list of citizens who may not speak in District schools, the 
screening policy that is being carried out by Superintendent 
Corning has assumed truly alarming proportions. In fair- 
ness to the four men who were sounded out as prospective 
speakers at the forthcoming centennial celebration of Miner 
Teachers College and then informed that they could not be 
invited to speak, this newspaper is withholding their names. 
But the facts of their blacklisting are indisputable, and the 
full responsibility for this vicious system. appears to rest 
upon the school authorities. 

This exclusionist policy had its origin in the appearance 
of Mrs. Shura Vozilova Lewis at a Western High School 
assembly in 1947. As the speech turned out to be largely 
Soviet propaganda, it raised a furor and convinced Dr. 
Corning that some means of controlling the issuance of in- 
vitations to speakers in the schools would have to be main- 
tained. Considering the times in which we are living, it 
seems to us that that conclusion was right. But Dr. Corning 
has since permitted himself to be pushed step by step into 
a procedure that is utterly indefensible. 

Badgered by Adelbert W. Lee, vice president of the 
Board of Education, the superintendent began submitting 
lists of prospective speakers in the schools to the Committee 
on Un-American Activities. Apparently he took it for 
granted that the committee studied each case and sent back 
evaluated conclusions. But the committee appears to have 
done nothing of the sort. It has merely reported whether 
or not its so-called public files contain information about 
the individuals in question, and if so it has quoted the ref- 
erences in reports to the superintendent or has noted where 
the data available to it may be found. Spokesmen for the 


DR. C. HERBERT MARSHALL 








94 


committee insist that in no instance have the school authori- 
ties been furnished any evaluated reports. 

Dr. Corning’s statement yesterday indicates that his 
office has made no effort to evaluate these unevaluated re- 
ports from the committee. As in the case of Pearl Buck, a 
mere listing of an individual in the files of the Committee 
on Un-American Activities has been sufficient to place the 
name on the blacklist of persons who may not be invited to 
address a District school. To be sure, this system was sup- 
posed to operate without embarrassment to the individual. 
Priacipals have been instructed not to invite speakers with- 
out getting clearance, and when an invitation is withheld an 
effort is made to keep it secret. But the fact that a: pros- 
pective speaker has been blacklisted is certain to be known 
around the school deprived of his appearance. From there 
the whispering is certain to spread. And even if it did not, 
we should still be confronted by the vicious practice of hav- 
ing citizens secretly barred from the schools on loyalty 
grounds with no actual test of their loyalty. This is an out- 
rageous situation to which no self-respecting community 
can submit. 

There is, of course, need for some sort of screening to 
prevent insidious propagandists serving the interests of 
Moscow from using the schools. If the Board of Education 
believes that a central screening is necessary for this pur- 
pose, it should either assume the task itself or delegate the 
responsibility to a committee of high-caliber citizens. Cer- 


THe Necro History BULLET 


tainly it is not the function of the Superintendent of 
Schools, as Dr. Corning notes, to act as a loyalty board. No 
one individual should exercise such a power. If the board 
is not willing to trust the good judgment of the school prin. 
cipals, it has no reasonable alternative to setting up a 
screening committee either within the board or attached to 
it to perform this function. The present system is a dis. 
grace to any community of free people. Now that it has 
been exposed we do not believe for a moment that the 
people will tolerate it. 


Not the least interesting aspects of this deplorable 
situation are the facts that some of the persons barred 
are Negroes and that the two most recent situations 
involved colored schools. No one who knows the two 
colored speakers—or the others—has any doubt as to 
their loyalty. It is most gratifying that the last two 
incidents have arisen from invitations extended by the 
assistant principal of Cardozo and the president of 
Miner Teachers College. For, as it has-been frequently 
stated, the treatment of the Negro in the United 
States is the ‘‘acid test’’ of democracy at home. Real- 
izing the great stake that we have in the maintenance 
of democracy, many Negroes will continue to insist 
upon a sensible application of that essential -of the 
Four Freedoms, freedom of speech. 


CARDOZO HIGH SCHOOL 


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JANUARY, 195] 
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 


After the article above was prepared for the press, 
five incidents throw further light on the problems 
raised. Miss Jennie Mustapha, assistant principal of 
Cardozo who had invited Miss Buck, was severely 
reprimanded by Superintendent Corning for extend- 
ing the invitation to Miss Buck before her name had 
been ‘‘cleared.’’ Mr. Marquis Childs in an article in 
the Washington Post, February 9, 1951 (p. 22) ex- 
pressed his fear that the ‘‘listing’’ of some 75,000 
names a year in the unevaluated files may be ‘‘the 
base of what threatens to grow into a kind of thought 
control in this country.’’ He then showed to what ri- 
diculous extremes the automatic cataloguing of names 
may lead. ‘‘On the basis of one document,’’ Mr. Childs 
wrote, ‘‘that includes the names of the late Henry L. 
Stimson, Seeretary of State under Herbert Hoover 
and Seeretary of War under Franklin Roosevelt, the 
following respectable citizens who have repeatedly 
demonstrated their anti-Communist convictions are 
‘listed.’ 

‘““H. V. Kaltenborn, Dorothy Thompson, Dean 
Christian Gauss of Princeton University, Kathleen 


Norris and Louis Bromfield novelists, Newbold Mor- - 


ris, Republican reform candidate for mayor of New 
York; John Chamberlain formerly editor of Life 
magazine; the late A. F. Whitney, president of the 
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; Brooks Atkinson, 
drama critic of the New York Times; Donald Rich- 
berg, former New Deal administrator; Prof. Harold 
G. Urey, the distinguished physicist; Margaret Cul- 
kin Banning, writer active in the Republican Party.’’ 

Dr. C. Herbert Marshall, former president of the 
= National Medical Association and an active leader in 

the eivie affairs of Washington, has also made it 
known that he had not been cleared by Dr. Corning 
to address the. graduating class of Dunbar High 
5 School. 


The fourth subsequent development is the new pro- 
cedure unanimously approved by the Board of Educa- 
tion for clearing speakers. A committee of three con- 
sisting of the principal of the school, the immediate 
superior of the principal and the superintendent will 
decide whether the speaker is to be invited and make 
the final decision after consulting the unevaluated 
files which will be considered in connection with other 
facts known about the speaker. The conservatively 
liberal Washington Star of February 10, 1951 (p. A-4) 
approved this new procedure and suggested that Miss 
Buck and Marquis Childs should be invited by some 
school principal to appear in the public schools. The 
editorial closed with this significant evaluation of the 
situation that had. prevailed: ‘‘Their appearance in 
the public schools would go far to correct, gracefully, 
a previous error and would be welcome assurance of 
recovery from a recent spell of heebyjeebies.’’ 


Finally, three of the four speakers who had been 
barred from speaking at the Miner Centennial have 
been cleared. Two of them, Mr. Childs and Dr. Buell 
Gallagher, former president of Talladega College and 
now director of program development and coordina- 
tion of the United States Office of Education, have 
accepted. Dr. Charles H. Thompson, dean of the 


95 


Graduate School of Howard University, declined 
because in the meanwhile he had accepted another 
commitment. It would be interesting to know 
what ‘‘known facts’’ about the fourth person pre- 
vented him from being cleared. It is even more im- 
perative than ever before that a careful watch be kept 
on the list of persons invited to speak in the public 
schools. In the normal course of events certain well 
known educators and civic leaders would receive invi- 
tations from one of the schools. If these invitations 
are not forthcoming, ‘‘Dr. Corning’s Blacklist’’ will 
still be barring loyal American citizens from the 
schools. 


Two REPRIMANDS 


Further publicity was given to the reprimand of 
Miss Mustapha by Superintendent Corning in the 
Washington Post, March 8, 1951 (p. 1). It was made 
known that the superintendent had castigated not only 
Miss Mustapha but also the principal of Cardozo, Mr. 
Robert ‘N. Mattingly. The Post immediately repri- 
manded Mr. Corning in an editorial on the following 
day, March 9 (p. 22): 


Pretrry REPRISAL 


The assistant principal of Cardozo High School, aided 
and supported to some extent by the principal, exposed a 
stupid, ugly and basically un-American situation in the 
District school system—the banning of school speakers by 
indiscriminate reference to the hodge-podge files of the 
House Committee on Un-American Activities. This signal 
service to the schools and to the publie operated also to 
relieve Supt. Hobart M. Corning of a procedural rule the 
impropriety of which he has since publicly acknowledged. 
Dr. Corning should have been grateful. Instead, he has 
written letters to the two Cardozo High School officials 
reprimanding them in the most intemperate and arrogant 
terms. ; : 


It is true, of course, that the assistant principal, Miss 
Jennie E. Mustapha, violated a rule laid down in 1947 when 
she invited Pearl Buck to participate in Cardozo’s com- 
mencement exercises without first clearing the invitation 
with the superintendent. But the rule is one which, for- 
tunately, was violated often. And violation of it was cer- 
tain ot so serious as to merit the condemnation in Dr. 
Corning’s letter to Miss Mustapha that she was guilty of 
“eonduect unbecoming a public official.” Public officials in 
the United States are not robots. They have obligations 
which may transcend procedural regulations. 


The absurd bent of Dr. Corning’s ire was revealed in his 
censure of Miss Mustapha for having joined with other 
Cardozo High School faculty members in signing a letter 
to the school board protesting the ban on Pearl Buck. In 
our judgment, the signing of that letter was commendable 
and courageous. But Dr. Corning condemned it on the 
ground that Miss Musthapha had criticized “action of the 
school administration . . . without recognition of the fact 
that your own failure to follow established regulations was 
the cause of all the difficulty.” From this it is apparent 
that to the superintendent the “difficulty” consisted wholly 
in thesembarrassment to him caused by disclosure of the evil 
rather than in the evil itself. A very serious wrong was 
righted by Miss Mustapha’s minor infraction of a rule. A 
school superintendent who thinks she ought to be punished 
on this account merely demonstrates his own unfitness for 
his office. 








Tut Nearo History Buia 


“DR. CORNING’S BLACKLIST” 


By Raveoke W. Locan 


of the District of Columbia have provided 

a fascinating example of history in the 
making. While they do not affect exclusively 
“Negro Life,” Negro schools have been in the cen- 
ter of the developments. They involve one of the 
basic freedoms of the American people—freedom 
of speech in a time of suspicion, fear and danger to 
our national security. As a result of the coura- 
geous acts of a few individuals and the high con- 
cept of the leading Washington dailies of their role 
of instruments of the community’s conscience, at 
least a partial victory has been gained. Conse- 
quently, the series of episodes may be soon forgot- 
ten. They are all the more likely to be forgotten if 
the current forces that have restricted freedom of 
speech lose their vigor. On the other hand, the 
public needs constantly to be reminded that pro- 
tests do sometimes prevent undue violence to the 
American Bill of Rights. 

The current situation grew out of the unusual 
procedure adopted by the superintendent of public 
schools in “clearing” prospective speakers. The 
name of the proposed speaker had to be submitted 
to the superintendent who then ascertained wheth- 
er the speaker’s name was listed in the “unevalu- 
ated files” of the House Committee on Un- 
American Activities. Dr. Corning undoubtedly 
consulted these files with the same thought in mind 
that had prompted him to declare publicly: “I 
would not run the risk of employing anyone about 
whom there is any question whatever.” In other 
words, the mere fact that a name appeared in the 
unevaluated files was sufficient for the superin- 
tendent to bar the speaker. He ignored the fact 
that these files contain information which is in part 
irresponsible gossip and which may include false 
accusations. The House Committee has passed no 
judgment on the loyalty of the persons concerned. 
Most, if not all, of them learned for the first time 
that there was any question as to their loyalty when 
they were barred from speaking in the public 
schools of the District. ~ 


R ert developments in the public schools 


Not only is it disturbing that the sup 
tendent of public schools should resort to this pro: 
cedure, but it is perhaps even more disturbing té 
learn the grounds on which he has barred speakers, 
One prospective speaker, for example, aroused sus 
picion by signing a petition protesting the passag 
of a law by Congress. The fact that some Com 
gressmen had voted against this law apparently 
no significance for the superintendent of schools. 
Does their vote make them also questionable? 
Would Dr. Corning bar, for example, Senate 
Lehman, who voted against the McCarran Bill? 7 


BANNING OF Peart Buck 


In mid-January, 1951, Dr. Corning prevented 
Miss Pearl Buck, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize Wine 
ner, from speaking at the commencement exercises 
of Cardozo High School because she too had not 
been “cleared” by the House Uhn-Americe 
Committee. The Washington Post published ot 
January 26, 1951 (p. 8), the full text of a mes 
sage sent by Miss Buck to the students of Cardozo, 
The message, released through the Women’s Inte 
national League for Peace and Freedom, was pubs 
lished in full also in the Washington Star and i 
part by the New York Times. Excerpts from het 


message follow: 


“Dear Friends: 


It is a deep disappointment to me that I am not with 
you tonight. I had looked forward to the occasion as ail 
opportunity when we might consider afresh, and 1 
gether, the great ideals of our country, in order that"Wwe 
do our share toward preserving them in a threatening 
world. j 

“That I am forbidden to be with you only. makes tht 
ideals of democracy the more valuable, the more impom 
tant. Ideals can be so easily lost and in such strange an 
unexpected ways. If anyone had told me a week ag 
that I could not stand before you tonight I would nol 
have believed it. That it has happened to*you and to m 
makes me realize as never before that as long as th 
enemies of human freedom rule anywhere in the 
their evil influence creeps in everywhere. . . . 


(Continued on page 92) 





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