Education for Liberation: The American Missionary Association and African Americans, 1890 to the Civil Rights Movement

Education for Liberation

Education

for

Liberation

The American Missionary Association

and African Americans,

1890 to the Civil Rights Movement

Joe M. Richardson and Maxine D. Jones

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2009 by the University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

Hardcover edition published 2009.

Paperback edition published 2015.

eBook edition published 2015.

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of

Alabama Press.

Typeface: Bembo

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover photograph: Principal Julia Johnson and students at Cotton Valley School; courtesy of

Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana

Cover design: Kaci Lane Hindman

∞

The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American

National Standard for Information Science–Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,

ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8173-5848-8

A previous edition of this book has been catalogued by the Library of Congress as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Richardson, Joe Martin.

Education for liberation : the American Missionary Association and African Americans, 1890 to

the Civil Rights Movement / Joe M. Richardson and Maxine D. Jones.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Christian reconstruction.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-0-8173-1657-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8245-2 (electronic)

1. American Missionary Association—History—19th century. 2. American Missionary Associ￾ation—History—20th century. I. Jones, Maxine Deloris. II. Richardson, Joe Martin. Christian

reconstruction. III. Title.

BV2360.A8R54 2009

266'.02208996073—dc22

2008050470

To Pat, Leslie, and Joseph

and to the memory of

James “Skeeter” McDonald, Arthur Carl Jones,

Robert “Bo” Bennett, and Willie Bowles

Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xix

1. Common Schools 1

2. Normal and Secondary Schools 16

3. Administration and Fund Collecting 57

4. “Houses of Refuge”: Functional Education

and Community Centers 70

5. “Temptation to Right Doing”: The AMA

and Public Schools 101

6. AMA Colleges, 1890–1950 117

7. Race Relations Department 159

Afterword 198

Note on Sources 205

Notes 209

Index 277

Illustrations

1. Principal Julia Johnson and students

at Cotton Valley School 3

2. Lincoln School seniors, 1927 19

3. Principal George N. White and male students

at Burrell Normal School 45

4. Avery Normal Institute faculty, ca. 1941 47

5. Ballard High School band, 1941 54

6. Frederick L. Brownlee and black ministers

at Kings Mountain, North Carolina 64

7. Brick cannery, ca. 1942 87

8. Brick farm family, 1945 88

9. Blacks vote in Liberty County, Georgia, 1947 96

10. Race Relations Department Institute participants, 1947 175

Preface

The Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter had barely penetrated northern

consciousness when the American Missionary Association (AMA) exulted

that the war had opened a grand fi eld for missionary labor. Organized in New

York as a nonsectarian anti-slavery society in 1846, it quickly focused on re￾lief and education for slaves fl eeing Confederate lines.1

In September 1861,

it sent agents to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and its teachers tracked the Union

Army so closely that roaring cannons occasionally interrupted classes, and

killed at least one teacher.2

The number of AMA teachers and missionaries

assisting freedmen in the South increased from 250 in 1864 to 320 in 1865

and to 532 in 1868. In addition, the association provided much needed re￾lief for black refugees, insisted on equal pay for black soldiers, attempted to

help freedmen acquire land, demanded civil and political rights for former

slaves, established scores of schools and colleges, and lobbied for a system of

free public education for all southern youth. AMA supporters were moti￾vated by religion, patriotism, and a sense of fairness, and an equal, educated,

moral, industrious black citizenry was their goal.

Equality before the law was “the gospel rule,” the AMA concluded, and

the country’s “political salvation” depended upon its implementation. It en￾thusiastically supported the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and ini￾tially believed that they would provide equality before the law and substantial

black political clout. Education, improved morals, and economic success, the

AMA hoped, would result in white Americans’ acceptance and recogni￾tion of blacks. Association offi cials were bitterly disappointed that by the

mid-1870s violence, fraud, and declining northern interest in black welfare

allowed southern whites to make a mockery of the amendments and relegate

their former slaves to a politically powerless, economically dependent, segre￾gated class.3

Not surprisingly, the AMA sometimes failed to live up to its own lofty