The education of the negro in the South is the most important matter
that we have to deal with at present, and one that will claim
precedence of all other questions for many years to come. When, soon
after the breaking out of the Rebellion, schools for the freedmen
were agitated in the North, and teachers dispatched from New England
to go down to teach the “poor contrabands,” I went before the proper
authorities in Boston, and asked that a place be given to one of our
best-educated colored young ladies, who wanted to devote herself to the
education of her injured race, and the offer was rejected, upon the
ground that the “time for sending colored teachers had not come.” This
happened nearly twenty years ago. From that moment to the present, I
have watched with painful interest the little progress made by colored
men and women to become instructors of their own race in the Southern
States.
Under the spur of the excitement occasioned by the Proclamation of
Freedom, and the great need of schools for the blacks, thousands
of dollars were contributed at the North, and agents sent to Great
Britain, where generosity had no bounds. Money came in from all
quarters, and some of the noblest white young women gave themselves up
to the work of teaching the freedmen.
During the first three or four years, this field for teachers was
filled entirely by others than members of the colored race, and yet it
was managed by the “New England Freedmen’s Association,” made up in
part by some of our best men and women.
But many energetic, educated colored, young women and men, volunteered,
and, at their own expense, went South and began private schools, and
literally forced their way into the work. This was followed by a
few appointments, which in every case proved that colored teachers
for colored people was the great thing needed. Upon the foundations
laid by these small schools, some of the most splendid educational
institutions in the South have sprung up. Fisk, Howard, Atlanta,
Hampton, Tennessee Central, Virginia Central, and Straight, are some
of the most prominent. These are all under the control and management
of the whites, and are accordingly conducted upon the principle of
whites for teachers and blacks for pupils. And yet each of the above
institutions are indebted to the sympathy felt for the negro, for their
very existence. Some of these colleges give more encouragement to the
negro to become an instructor, than others; but, none however, have
risen high enough to measure the black man independent of his color.
At Petersburg I found a large, fine building for public schools for
colored youth; the principal, a white man, with six assistants, but not
one colored teacher amongst them. Yet Petersburg has turned out some
most excellent colored teachers, two of whom I met at Suffolk, with
small schools. These young ladies had graduated with honors at one of
our best institutions, and yet could not obtain a position as teacher
in a public school, where the pupils were only their own race.
At Nashville, the School Board was still more unjust, for they employed
teachers who would not allow their colored scholars to recognize them
on the streets, and for doing which, the children were reprimanded, and
the action of the teachers approved by the Board of Education.
It is generally known that all the white teachers in our colored public
schools feel themselves above their work; and the fewest number have
any communication whatever with their pupils outside the school-room.
Upon receiving their appointments and taking charge of their schools
some of them have been known to announce to their pupils that under no
circumstances were they to recognize or speak to them on the streets.
It is very evident that these people have no heart in the work they are
doing, and simply from day to day go through the mechanical form of
teaching our children for the pittance they receive as a salary. While
teachers who have no interest in the children they instruct, except
for the salary they get, are employed in the public schools and in the
Freedman’s Colleges, hundreds of colored men and women, who are able
to stand the most rigid examination, are idle, or occupying places far
beneath what they deserve.
It is to be expected that the public schools will, to a greater or
less extent, be governed by the political predilections of the parties
in power; but we ought to look for better things from Fisk, Hampton,
Howard, Atlanta, Tennessee Central and Virginia Central, whose walls
sprung up by money raised from appeals made for negro education.
There are, however, other educational institutions of which I have
not made mention, and which deserve the patronage of the benevolent
everywhere. These are: Wilberforce, Berea, Payne Institute, in South
Carolina, Waco College, in Texas, and Storer College, at Harper’s Ferry.
Wilberforce is well known, and is doing a grand work. It has turned
out some of the best of our scholars,--men whose labors for the
elevation of their race cannot be too highly commended.
Storer College, at Harper’s Ferry, looks down upon the ruins of “John
Brown’s Fort.” In the ages to come, Harper’s Ferry will be sought
out by the traveller from other lands. Here at the confluence of the
Potomac and the Shenandoah Rivers, on a point just opposite the gap
through which the united streams pass the Blue Ridge, on their course
toward the ocean, stands the romantic town, and a little above it, on a
beautiful eminence, is Storer, an institution, and of whose officers I
cannot speak too highly.
I witnessed, with intense interest, the earnest efforts of these good
men and women, in their glorious work of the elevation of my race.
And while the benevolent of the North are giving of their abundance,
I would earnestly beg them not to forget Storer College, at Harper’s
Ferry.
The other two, of which I have made mention, are less known, but their
students are numerous and well trained. _Both these schools are in the
South_, and both are owned and managed by colored men, free from the
supposed necessity of having white men to do their _thinking_, and
therein ought to receive the special countenance of all who believe in
giving the colored people a chance to paddle their own canoe.
I failed, however, to find schools for another part of our people,
which appear to be much needed. For many years in the olden time
the South was noted for its beautiful Quadroon women. Bottles of
ink, and reams of paper, have been used to portray the “finely-cut
and well-moulded features,” the “silken curls,” the “dark and
brilliant eyes,” the “splendid forms,” the “fascinating smiles,” and
“accomplished manners” of these impassioned and voluptuous daughters
of the two races,--the unlawful product of the crime of human bondage.
When we take into consideration the fact that no safeguard was ever
thrown around virtue, and no inducement held out to slave-women to be
pure and chaste, we will not be surprised when told that immorality
pervaded the domestic circle in the cities and towns of the South to
an extent unknown in the Northern States. Many a planter’s wife has
dragged out a miserable existence, with an aching heart, at seeing her
place in the husband’s affections usurped by the unadorned beauty and
captivating smiles of her waiting-maid. Indeed, the greater portion of
the colored women, in the days of slavery, had no greater aspiration
than that of becoming the finely-dressed mistress of some white man.
Although freedom has brought about a new order of things, and our
colored women are making rapid strides to rise above the dark scenes of
the past, yet the want of protection to our people since the old-time
whites have regained power, places a large number of the colored young
women of the cities and towns at the mercy of bad colored men, or worse
white men. To save these from destruction, institutions ought to be
established in every large city.
Mrs. Julia G. Thomas, a very worthy lady, deeply interested in the
welfare of her sex, has a small institution for orphans and friendless
girls, where they will have a home, schooling, and business training,
to fit them to enter life with a prospect of success. Mrs. Thomas’
address is 190 High Street, Nashville, Tennessee.