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).

- of dis- irst ous the and ates [a fol- Ne- ind- ame ates pat- leg- 1871 for tion Ited y at eol- ame ymp- col- 1879 ‘tion Ken- yl at that nsti- nsas, ouri, 1 in Anne rhere otted

er of shing-

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).

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*

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

*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.

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.