America's "Other" Private Schools

If you mention the names of New England's private schools most Americans will recognize them. Both John F. Kennedy, Jr. and former president George W. Bush attended Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. Schools such as Phillips and Exeter have educated the children of generations of America's first families. Less well known, however, are Black private schools, whose existence has been virtually ignored.

Over 200 Black academies operated in the South prior to 1920. Secondary schools in the South during this time were few and far between, and the few that existed were in the major cities. In 1916 four southern states did not have a single public high school for Blacks, and half of all Black students at the secondary level were enrolled in private academies. Georgia had one public Black high school but closed it to redirect funds to the education of White children.

The lack of public secondary education provided for Black students reflected the philosophy in the South, which did not make education a high political or social item for Black Americans. So Blacks found ways to establish their own schools. They were aided by religious groups and by philanthropists such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Julius Rosenwald, who gave generous amounts of money to build schools in Black communities. These philanthropists often directed that their aid should fund "industrial education" favored by Booker T. Washington, who had counseled Blacks against pressing for social equality and urged them to train themselves as useful workers for the southern economy. No wonder “good old boy” Booker T was one of the few Black folks in history books.

The Washington concept of industrial education, however, was not embraced by all Blacks. Dr. William Edward Burghardt DuBois, the first Black American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard, actively opposed Washington's ideas. Dr. DuBois urged Blacks to pursue collegiate courses and a classical education. And the DuBois philosophy echoed well with Black academies. The competing Washington-DuBois concepts ultimately led to two types of schools for Blacks: County training schools largely emphasized industrial education and some teacher training, while academies largely emphasized college preparatory subjects and some teacher training.

Religious denominations also founded Black academies in the South, especially the Presbyterian Church, which established over 75 private schools in the South. In South Carolina alone, Presbyterians established 25 schools. Boggs Academy in Keysville, Georgia was the first boarding school established by the Presbyterians. Shortly before it closed in 1986, Boggs was the only predominantly Black accredited boarding school in the U.S. Today, the former academy continues as the Boggs Rural Life Center.

The Baptists founded Fredericksburg Normal and Industrial Academy in Virginia in 1905 and Bettis Academy in Trenton, South Carolina, in 1881. The Methodist Episcopal Church founded Mather Academy in Camden, S.C., in 1887. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church established Clinton Normal and Industrial Institute in Rock Hill, S.C., in 1896. The American Missionary Association established academies as well as some private Black colleges. Avery Institute in Charleston, S.C., was established by the AMA in 1865. Avery was a grade and high school with a small department for training elementary teachers and was known for its high academic and moral standards. It closed in 1954, and its successor is known as the Avery Museum and Research Center of African American Culture.

Black academies provided a high quality of education for Black youth in an inhospitable time, when the typical southern view of prejudice and a low view of Black intelligence denied educational opportunity to Blacks. Because large numbers of academies were affiliated with church denominations, a religious orientation and attendance at weekly chapel and Sunday services was obligatory. Social activities among students and between men and women were strictly monitored. Boggs Academy, for example, required its students to be in their dormitories by 9:30 p.m. and in bed by 10 p.m. Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina required the students to dress up for the evening meal and the rules of manners and table etiquette were strictly observed.

The instruction in academies was highly structured and heavily inclined towards college preparation. In fact, one of the touted values was that this type of schooling led easily to college admission. While the typical academy did not emphasize industrial education, its students were taught to respect the dignity of labor. Students frequently were assigned chores at their schools, such as trimming shrubs or cleaning floors. Courses focused on clerical, business subjects and home economics. Boggs Academy defined its program as having four parts: study, workshop, work, and play. The play aspect centered on athletics and the arts. Boggs had outstanding football and basketball teams. Its choir frequently toured the country giving concerts to raise funds for the school, as well as to provide experiences for the students to visit famous historical and cultural sites.

Perhaps the best testimonials to the excellence of the Black academies were supplied by their graduates, who distinguished themselves in many fields of endeavor. The long list of accomplished graduates includes:

Famed jazz musician Dizzy Gilespie, a graduate of Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina; Judge H. Carl Moultrie, a graduate of Avery Institute in Charleston, S.C., who presided over the trial of the eleven Hanafi gunmen who seized 134 hostages in Washington, D.C., in 1977; Dr. Frank DeCosta, former dean of the Graduate School, Morgan State University, was a 1927 graduate of Avery Institute; Ms. businesswoman and owner of TVOne and RadioOne, graduate of Piney Woods Country Life School in Piney Woods, Mississippi; and Alice B. Bullock, dean of the Howard University Law School, a graduate of Boggs Academy.

The “golden era” in education of Blacks in the U.S., which was established just after the Civil War, ended as church groups cut back on their support and as public school education, though segregated, became more available. The accomplishments of these schools provide eloquent documentation that blacks have had a long and historic interest in intellectual development, and they did what they could, in spite of severe hardships, to achieve their educational goals. There are today a half dozen private schools predominately for Blacks still in operation, which comprise the Association of African American Boarding Schools. The schools are: Laurinburg Institute, Laurinburg, N.C.; Piney Woods Country Life School, Piney Woods, Miss.; Southern Normal School, Brewton, Alabama; Pine Forge Academy, Pine Forge, Pennsylvania; and Redemption Christian Academy, Troy, New York.

Hampton University

Hampton University is a historical Black college and university (HBCU) located in Hampton, Virginia. The campus overlooking the northern edge of the harbor of Hampton Roads was founded on the grounds of "Little Scotland", a former plantation in Elizabeth City County not far from Fort Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp, each tangible symbols of freedom for former slaves shortly after the end of the Civil War.

Among the school's famous alumni is educator Dr. Booker T. Washington. Under what is now called the Emancipation Oak tree, Mary Smith Peake taught the first classes on September 17, 1861, in defiance of a Virginia law against teaching slaves, free blacks and mulattos to read or write, a law which had cut her own education short years earlier. Several years later, the Emancipation Proclamation was read to local freedmen under the same historic tree.

During the Civil War, the Union-held Fort Monroe in southeastern Virginia at the mouth of Hampton Roads became a gathering point and safe haven of sorts for fugitive slaves. These individuals were labeled "contraband of War by the Union commander, and thereby safe from return to slave owners. As large numbers of individuals sought status as contrabands, they built the Grand Contraband Camp nearby from materials reclaimed from the ruins of Hampton, which had been burned by retreating Confederates.

Hampton University can trace its roots to the work of Mary S. Peake of Norfolk which began in 1861 with outdoor classes taught under the landmark Emancipation Oak in the nearby area of Elizabeth City County adjacent to the old sea port of Hampton. The newly-issued Emancipation Proclamation was first read to a gathering under the historic tree in 1863. The tree is still located on the campus today, and also serves as a symbol for the modern City of Hampton. The Emancipation Oak was cited by the National Geographic Society as one of the 10 great trees in the world.

After the War, a normal school ("normal" meaning to establish standards or norms while educating teachers) was formalized in 1868, with former Union Brigadier General Samuel C. Armstrong as its first principal. The new school was established on the grounds of a former plantation named "Little Scotland" which had a view of the great harbor of Hampton Roads. It was legally chartered in 1870 as a land grant school, and was first known as "Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute."

At the close of its first decade, the school reported a total admission in the ten years of 927 students, with 277 graduates, all but 17 of whom had become teachers. Many of them had bought land and established themselves in homes; many were farming as well as teaching; some had gone into business. By another 10 years, there had been over 600 graduates. In 1888, of the 537 of them alive, three-fourths were teaching, and about half as many undergraduates were also currently teaching. It was estimated that 15,000 children in community schools were being taught by Hampton's students and alumni that year.

Among Hampton's earliest students was Booker T. Washington, who arrived from West Virginia in 1872 at the age of 16. He worked his way through Hampton, and then went on to attend Wayland Seminary in Washington D.C. After graduation there, he returned to Hampton and became a teacher. In 1881, Washington was sent to Alabama at age 25 to head another new normal school. This new Institution eventually became Tuskegee University. He built Tuskegee into a substantial school and became nationally famous as an educator, orator, and fund-raiser as well. He started work which ultimately caused over 5,000 small community schools to be built for the betterment of Black education in the South.

In 1878, Hampton established a formal education program for Native Americans, beginning the Institute's lasting commitment to serving a multicultural population. Recent initiatives have proven unsuccessful in renewing the interest of indigenous people in Hampton. (Virginia has two reservations and a growing number of recognized Native American tribes). There are a number of grave markers in the university cemetery that display the diversity of tribes that attended the school.

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute became simply Hampton Institute in 1930 and became Hampton University in 1984. Originally located in Elizabeth City County, it was long-located in the town of Phoebus, which was incorporated in 1900. Phoebus and Elizabeth City County were consolidated with the neighboring City of Hampton to form a much larger independent city in 1952. The City of Hampton uses the Emancipation Oak on its official seal. From 1960 to 1970, noted diplomat and educator Jerome H. Holland was president of the Hampton Institute.

The school is informally called simply "Hampton" or "HU" by many students, faculty and supporters. Students informally refer to the school as "HIU", or Hampton Institute and University. The "Institute" refers to the undergraduate program, while the "University" is the graduate program. Hampton and Howard University constantly claim the title, "The Real HU".

A 15 acre portion of the campus along the Hampton River, including many of the older buildings, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark District. Buildings included are:
• Mansion House, original plantation residence of Little Scotland
• Virginia Hall built in 1873
• Academic Hall
• Wigwam
• Marquand Memorial Chapel, a Romanesque Revival red brick chapel with a 150 foot tower

The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and was further declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.

Hampton's colors are blue and white, and their nickname is the "The Pirates". Hampton sports teams participate in NCAA Division I (I-AA for football) in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) in which they joined in 1995 after leaving the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Since joining, Hampton has won MEAC titles in many sports, including football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's track, and men's and women's tennis. In March 2001, the men's basketball team made NCAA Tournament history, becoming only the fourth 15th-seeded team to defeat a 2nd-seeded team. Hampton defeated Iowa State, 58–57 on March 15, but lost to Georgetown two days later. The win still makes SportsCenter's Top 10 NCAA tournament upsets.

Notable alumni include:
Charles Phillips President, Oracle Corp.
Kimberly Oliver 2006 National Teacher of the Year
Spencer Christian former weatherman for Good Morning America
Wanda Sykes Comedian
Douglas Palmer Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey
Angela Burt-Murray Editor-in-Chief of Essence Magazine
Booker T. Washington Educator
Alberta Williams King Mother of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rick Mahorn former NBA Player Detroit Pistons

Grambling State University

Continuing on with the list of historically Black colleges and universities here is what is commonly known as “the Black Norte Dame”.

Grambling State University is a public, coeducational university, which is among the Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States. Located in Grambling, Louisiana, Grambling State was founded in 1901 and accredited in 1949. The GSU motto is “Where Everybody Is Somebody”.

Grambling State University emerged from the desire of Black farmers in rural north Louisiana who wanted to educate other Blacks in the northern and western parts of the state. In 1896, the North Louisiana Colored Agriculture Relief Association was formed to organize and operate a school. After opening a small school west of what is now the town of Grambling, the Association requested assistance from Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Charles P. Adams, sent to aid the group in organizing an industrial school, became its founder and first president. Under Adams’ leadership, the Colored Industrial and Agricultural School opened on November 1, 1901. Four years later, the school moved to its present location and was renamed the North Louisiana Agricultural and Industrial School. By 1928, the school was able to offer two-year professional certificates and diplomas after becoming a state junior college. The school was renamed Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute.

In 1936, the program was reorganized to emphasize rural education. It became known as "The Louisiana Plan" or "A Venture in Rural Teacher Education." Professional teaching certificates were awarded when a third year was added in 1936, and the first baccalaureate degree was awarded in 1944 in elementary education. The institution’s name was changed to Grambling College in 1946 in honor of a White sawmill owner, P.G. Grambling, who donated a parcel of land for the school. Thereafter, the college prepared secondary teachers and added curricula in sciences, liberal arts and business. With these programs in effect, the school was transformed from a single purpose institution of teacher education into a multipurpose college. In 1949, the college was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). In 1974, the addition of graduate programs in early childhood and elementary education gave the school a new status and a new name – Grambling State University.

From 1977 to 2000, the university grew and prospered. Several new academic programs were incorporated and new facilities were added to the 384-acre campus, including a business and computer science building, school of nursing, student services building, new stadium, stadium support facility and an intramural sports center. In a renewed emphasis of its commitment toward modernized university facilities, student housing and sustained scholarship support, Grambling State University kicked off a Comprehensive Capital Campaign, November 24, 2007 with the goal of raising $30 million over the next five to seven years. GSU students were among the first to contribute to the campaign with their contribution of a $1 million scholarship endowment to forge sustained financial support for academic programs. Their endowment was made by a $500,000 contribution which will be matched dollar for dollar and used for need based scholarships.

Following the first university president Charles P. Adams, in 1936, the school’s longest serving and most noted president, Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, became the second president who served until 1977.

Currently, the GSU Department of Athletics sponsors men's intercollegiate football and baseball along with men's and women's basketball, track & field, softball, golf, soccer, tennis, bowling and volleyball. GSU is best known for its world famous football and marching band programs. At the time of his retirement in 1997, Coach Eddie Robinson held the NCAA record for most career wins as a head coach in college football. During his stellar 57-year career Coach Rob sent over 100 G-Men to the National Football League (NFL) and many more to the Canadian Football League (CFL) causing the school to gain a national reputation. After Robinson’s retirement in 1997, former GSU standout and NFL Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams took over the reins of the University's football program. Grambling has won thirteen Black college national championships, more than any other HBCU school. The Tigers sports teams participate in NCAA Division I (I-AA for football) in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). The school colors are Black and Gold. Grambling State plays its arch rival Southern University in the annual "Bayou Classic," in New Orleans over Thanksgiving weekend at the Louisiana Superdome and broadcast nationally on NBC.

Composer Sam Spence wrote an instrumental piece for NFL Films entitled "Ramblin' Man from Gramblin,'" acknowledging both the University as well as the Bob Seger song "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man".

Since the arrival of the late great Conrad Hutchinson in 1952, the Tiger Marching Band has performed all around the world, from Tokyo, Japan to Monrovia, Liberia; in movies, TV commercials, TV shows, numerous Super Bowls, NBA games, albums, etc.

• Since the early 1960s the “famed band from Tiger Land” has performed in nearly every major stadium in the U.S.
• Performed at Super Bowl I.
• Performed at the inauguration of Liberian President William Tolbert.
• Performed at the U.S.’s bicentennial celebration in Washington, D.C.
• President Bill Clinton performed with the band for a halftime show in Grambling, Louisiana and gave Grambling State's Marching Band the undisputed title of "The Best Band in the Land!"
• The Tiger Marching Band has an average of 250 students with a grade points average of 3.00 or more each year.
• The Tiger Marching Band — along with GSU's female dance troupe, "The Orchesis Dance Company" — was featured in a nationally televised commercial as part of Procter & Gamble's "Tampax Was There" marketing campaign.
• In 1998, the band was featured in Super Bowl XXXII, alongside Boyz II Men, Martha Reeves, and Smokey Robinson.
• The band appeared in "Marching Band/Coke Is It," an award-winning commercial developed for Coca-Cola USA.
• The band also performed in the Hollywood films Grambling's White Tiger (1981), and Drumline (2002).
• In the 118th Tournament of Roses Parade, Grambling State's marching band was the marching band in the Star Wars Spectacular, in which all members were wearing Imperial officer uniforms.
• The band was in the inaugural parade for President George W. Bush.

In 2006, Grambling State was the setting for the Black Entertainment Television network docudrama "Season of the Tiger," which chronicled the daily lives of members of the football team and marching band throughout the 2005 season.

Notable alumni include Willis Reed, NBA Hall of Famer; Erica Abi Wright (better know by her stage name Erykah Badu); Doug Williams, NFL Super Bowl XXII MVP; Ronnie Coleman, 8 time Mr. Olympia winner; actress Natalie Desselle-Reid; and a list of who’s who in the NFL including Hall of Famers Buck Buchanan and Willie Davis.

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was an author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God which was adapted for a 2005 film of the same title by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions, starring Halle Berry with a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida located six miles north of Orlando. It was one of the first all-Black towns to be formed after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and, on August 15, 1887, was the first such town to be incorporated. Hurston's parents were Lucy Ann Potts Hurston, a schoolteacher, and John Hurston, a carpenter and Baptist preacher. Her father was also a three-term mayor who helped establish the laws of the town. In 1904, her mother died and her father sent her to a private school in Jacksonville, Florida. She graduated from Morgan Academy, the high school division of Morgan College, (Morgan State University), formerly Centenary Biblical Institute, a historically black college. She did undergraduate studies at another HBCU school, Howard University. While at Howard, Hurston became one of the earliest members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority and co-founded The Hilltop, the University's student newspaper. Hurston left Howard in 1924, unable to support herself. Hurston was offered a scholarship to Barnard College where she received her B.A. in anthropology in 1927. While at Barnard, she conducted ethnographic (Ethnography is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of character and number descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork).

In 1925, shortly before entering Barnard, she became one of the leaders of the literary renaissance happening in Harlem, producing the literary magazine Fire!! along with Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, John P. Davis, Richard Bruce Nugent and Gwendolyn Bennett. (Fire!! is a Black literary magazine published in 1926. This literary movement became the center of the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston applied her ethnographic training to document Black folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men (1935) along with fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God and dance, assembling a folk-based performance group that recreated her Southern up bring, with one performance on Broadway. Hurston was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to travel to Haiti and conduct research on Haitian spiritual magic in 1937. Her work was significant because she was able to break into the secret societies and expose their use of drugs to create the voodoo trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer/anthropologist Katherine Dunham.

In 1954 Hurston was unable to sell her fiction but was assigned by the Pittsburgh Courier to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the rich Black wife of a local racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail, a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie. Hurston spent her last 10 years as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers. She worked in a library in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and as a substitute teacher in Fort Pierce, where she died of a stroke. The publication of Alice Walker's article "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston" in the March 1975 issue of Ms. Magazine revived interest in her work and helped spark a Hurston renaissance. Hurston's house in Fort Pierce is a National Historic Landmark. Fort Pierce celebrates Hurston annually through various events such as Hattitudes, birthday parties, and a several-day festival at the end of April, Zora Fest. Her life and legacy are also celebrated every year in Eatonville, the town that inspired her, at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities.

During her prime, Hurston was a bootstrap Republican and fan of Booker T. Washington's self-help politics. She was opposed to the visions (including communism) professed by many of her colleagues in the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston thus became the leading Black figure on the conservative Old Right, and in 1952 she actively promoted the presidential candidacy of Robert Taft, who was, like Hurston, opposed to forced integration. She opposed the Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954. She felt the physical closeness of Blacks to Whites was not going to be the salvation her people hoped for, as she herself had had many experiences to the contrary. In addition, she worried about the demise of Black schools and Black teachers as a way to pass on cultural tradition to future generations of Black Americans. She voiced this opposition in a letter, Court Order Can't Make the Races Mix, which was published in the Orlando Sentinel in August 1955.

Hurston's work slid into obscurity for decades, for a number of reasons, both cultural and political. Many readers objected to the representation of Southern Black dialect in Hurston's novels. Her stylistic choices in terms of dialogue were influenced by her academic experiences. Thinking like a folklorist, Hurston strove to represent speech patterns of the period which she documented through ethnographic research. Some critics during her time felt that Hurston's decision to render language in this way caricatured black culture. In more recent times, however, critics have praised Hurston for her artful capture of the actual spoken idiom of the day.

With the publication of the ambitious novel Seraph on the Suwanee in 1948, Hurston burst through the tight bounds of contemporary Black writing in another way. This is a tale of poor Whites struggling in rural Florida's citrus industry. Black characters recede to the background. Neither the Black intelligentsia nor the White mainstream of the late 1940s could accept the notion of a Black writer speaking through White characters. Seraph ended up being Hurston's last major literary effort as she retreated to small-town Florida for the rest of her life. The text stands out, as she remarked herself, as a testimony to her own self-definition as a regional as much as a Black writer. The re-discovery of Hurston's work coincided with the popularity and critical acclaim of authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Walker herself, whose works are centered on Black experiences which include, but do not necessarily focus upon, racial struggle.