The Historic Evolution of Black Adult Education
UNITE 2022
Keep us, O Lord, from the fallacy of thinking that it is only the whole of a deed that can be well done. A bad deed well-ended is better than a deed wholly bad. A school year whose December had been thrown away may be in part retrieved in May. The neglected education of a child may be saved from ignorance in youth. It is never too late to mend. Nothing is so bad that good may not be put into it and make it better and save it from utter loss. Strengthen in us this knowledge and faith and hope, O God, in these last days. - W.E.B Du Bois, Prayers for Dark People
Introduction
When we think about the promise of Black higher education, we often have an image of an adolescent and their endeavor to achieve great things under dire circumstances. This attention to young students is needed, but it begs the question, what about adults?
UNCF on Twitter: #UNCF78 #HBCUStrong
This digital exhibit displays three cases of an unheard song that reflects the same issues regarding Black higher education today. I utilized digital humanities methods (digital archiving research) to display this information in a unique way. This exhibit highlights more of the biographical information on the people involved in these movements because there is limited archival material that has either been recovered or processed.
I hope that this exhibit inspires the reader to think about some essential questions: Do we need to expand our vision of learners and their potential to include students to fit more adults? Have we kept the promise of Black higher education for adults in the Black community?
UNCF: Dr. Michael Lomax Historical Instroduction
Historical Backdrop
Wiley College (1903)
In W.E.B Du Bois’s historical text, Black Reconstruction in America (1935), he explains that in 1863, illiteracy among the Black population was well over 95 percent, “which meant that less than 150, 000 of four million slaves emancipated could read and write" (Du Bois, Pg. 638).
W.E.B Du Bois' Notes from Black Reconstruction, 1933
Still, as James Anderson reiterates in The Education of Blacks in the South (1988), the first mass public education movement was an idea that grew from southern Black people who were formally enslaved and laid the groundwork for education today
African American Schoolhouse (Library of Congress) Date Unkown
Du Bois explains further, “emerging from their bondage, the Negroes in the very beginning manifested the utmost eagerness for instruction, and their hunger was met by a corresponding readiness on the part of the people of the North to make provisions for it” (Du Bois, Pg. 638). As a result, Black people were the leading challengers in the resistance to the south’s enduring opposition to free schooling.
Eventually, different institutions would emerge throughout the United States to educate Black people. Today, these institutions are what we call HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges & Universities), and many of the first HBCUs were founded in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Most of our HBCUs were founded after the Civil War, but that was not the case for establishing the early institutions. For example, the Institute for Colored Youth (originally named African Institute) was founded on a farm outside Philadelphia in 1837. Today, it is called Cheyney University of Pennsylvania , which is part of the Pennsylvania State Higher Education System. Another institution, The Ashmun Institute, was also founded outside of Philadelphia; it became Lincoln University of Pennsylvania in 1866 in honor of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and started as a men’s college.
(L-R) Lincoln University of PA, Cheyney University of PA, and Wilberforce University
(L-R) Lincoln University and Wilberforce University Pennant Flags (Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)
In 1856, the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Wilberforce University in Tawawa Springs (today called Wilberforce), Ohio. This institution was the oldest private HBCU in the U.S. and was dedicated to educating free men and women who escaped enslavement. Toward the reconstruction era, several HBCUs emerged with a diverse range of aims. On the one hand, institutions such as the Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute (1868; today’s Hampton University) and Tuskegee Institute (1881; today’s Tuskegee University) were committed to vocational skills and studies. While on the other hand, institutions such as Fisk University (1866), Howard University (1867), Atlanta University (1865; today’s Clark Atlanta University), Morehouse College (1867), and Spelman College (1881) were invested in the liberal arts tradition. Regardless of different methodologies, all of these institutions are committed to the upliftment of Black students and continue to lift as they climb through every human endeavor.
(L-R) Spelman College, Howard University, Morehouse College, and Tuskegee Institute
With the development and expansion of Black institutions, adults began to learn from their children. Ira De Augustine Reid expands this observation and says, “The development of public and private schools for Negroes in the South was the chief process in the education of Negro adults. They learned through their children. The Negro's church provided training in the ministry, in Bible study and organized church work, and did a yeoman job in furthering some form of literacy through its zeal for proselyting" (Reid, Pg. 302). Hampton Insitute would pioneer the adult education literacy effort through night school programs to teach the neighborhood sanitation, cooking, childcare, reading, and writing skills.
Hampton Institute (Library of Congress)
Reid notes further, that while Hampton and other institutions were pioneering educational deeds for adults for years, most formal adult education programs for Black people did not emerge until the 1930s (Reid, Pg. 303). The following pages of this exhibit display their stories.
Frelinghuysen University
In 1906, Jesse and Rosetta Lawson founded Frelinghuysen University, an adult education university for colored working people. Jesse Lawson was a prominent attorney who was educated at Howard University School of Law. His wife, Rosetta was a social activist who organized the first Congress of Colored Women in the U.S., and was elected to the executive committee of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs.
Jesse Lawson, Esq.
Rosetta Lawson
Early archvial advertisements show that the students at Frelinghuysen Univesity took courses in English, social sciences, mathematics, history, nursing, funeral directing, and foreign languages. It is not clear from current information why these courses were taught, but one could infer that the combination of liberal arts and vocational training fit the needs of the local neighboorhood.
Frelinghuysen University
This university would have close ties to the Howard University community and was eventually led by Dr. Anna Julia Cooper.
A promotional advert for a lecture in Guthrie, OH (Dec. 1908).
Dr. Cooper was a Black feminist pioneer, educator, and activist. She would become the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree when she received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. In 1892, she published her magnum opus, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South. This groundbreaking text broke barriers with her discussions on oppression, education, race, and gender.
Title page of A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, 1892
Scholars have identified that Dr. Cooper’s interests in adult education may have begun when she was teaching literacy to adult students in 1868. She completed this endeavor at the early age of eight years old as a student at St. Augustine Normal School and Collegiate Institute (Now St. Augustine’s University). Eventually, she would take on the heavy task of joining the “New Negro” Black adult education movement in 1930 with Frelinghuysen University.
Leading Figures In Education: Anna Julia Cooper
Anna Julia Cooper, PhD
Since its initial organization, Dr. Cooper held a close relationship with Frelinghuysen University and worked to promote, develop, and expand the institution. She became Frelinghuysen’s President in 1930, a position she held until 1941 at the age of 83. Cooper later wrote that it was never her intention to rent her home to the University, but had planned to leave her entire estate to the institution upon her death.
Symposium on Liberal Education and African American History
The Harlem Experiment
In 1938, Morse Cartwright, director of the American Association for Adult Education (AAAE), was a keynote speaker at the Hampton Insitute for the First Annual Conference on Adult Education and the Negro. His intention was the recruit Black leaders for his cause of the liberal adult education model. This model reflected an adult education experiment that he organized in 1931.
Tens Tears of Adult Education (1935) by Morse Cartwright
Carnegie Corportation of New York
Julius Rosenwald
This experiment had two locations - Harlem, New York, and Atlanta Georiga. Reid describes the funding of this program when he states, “grants totaling $31,000 were made by the Carnegie Corporation, supplemented by $15,000 by the Julius Rosenwald Fund, for experiments extending from 1931-1934" (Reid, Pg. 304). The funding for this experiment was very much needed because, at the time, there was a large number of illiteracy amongst Black people, and almost three-fourths of Black children never progressed beyond the fourth grade.
Old days in Harlem: West 125th Street looking west from Seventh Avenue
Formerly 135th Street Branch; renamed Countee Cullen Library,1951
For Harlem, this program took place at the famous 135th Street Branch, situated in the heart of Harlem and home of the internationally recognized Schomburg Collection of Negro Life and History. Ernestine Rose, Librarian of the West 135th Street Branch Library in Harlem, was the experiment's director. Other prominent people involved in organizing the experiment were Alain Locke, Eugene Kinkle Jones, and Arturo Schomburg.
Schomburg Founder Arturo Alfonso Schomburg in Our Original Reading Room
Alain Locke, Eugene Jones, Arturo Schomburg, and Ernistine Rose
Old Days of Harlem
Harlem New York Area
During the height of the experiment, Alain Locke was hired to evaluate the program. Locke had always attended conferences on Adult Education, so it came as no surprise that he was interested in the program. One of Locke’s observations was that the Harlem experiment had a bottom-up approach to educating adults. They took the needs expressed by the people and developed a curriculum based on their responses. Other programs in adult education usually design what they thought the community needed without consulting the community.
In due course, Locke received funding from the AAAE for his organization, The Associates in Negro Folk Education, and he used the budget the create a series of bronze booklets. Each booklet covered a particular topic regarding Black people and was edited by Locke himself. The series included information on adult education, history, art, politics, and culture. The purpose was to provide books to a community of Black people who could not engage with topics at Universities. Locke wanted to share his love of the humanities and educate the community through serious engagement on topics of race and culture.
Alain Locke's Bronze Booklet Series
The Atlanta University People’s College
In the fall of 1942, Atlanta University opened The People’s College, which was widely known in Atlanta as the college for all people. It was a major step for the Atlanta University Center to engage in intentional community education.
Atlanta University Adminstration Building
Atlanta University
Atlanta University Seal
A few years prior, the Atlanta community participated in the Atlanta Adult Education experiment during the 1930s; still, Du Bois and Reid observed that it was not as polished as the People’s College (Atlanta University, Pg.3).
Atlanta's Carnigie Library
Reid & Du Bois on The People's College Radio
This idea came from the mind of two distinguished scholars in the Atlanta community – Ira De Augustine Reid and W.E.B Du Bois. Many people today are aware of Du Bois’s prominence, but few today are aware of Ira Reid, but he was a prominent scholar in his own right.
Morehouse College Football (1921) Ira Reid on the left + Morehouse's Graves Hall
UNCF: Professor Illya Davis on Atlanta's People's College
Reid completed his high school years at the Morehouse Academy and entered the College at sixteen. After Morehouse, Reid earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1925. Then, in 1939, Reid received his Ph.D. degree in sociology from Columbia University. Reid’s research usually focused on immigrant communities, but he would frequently write on issues with adult education. So, it came as no surprise that he would serve as the first director of Atlanta University’s People’s College.
Atlanta University Bulletin, 1942
Du Bois had been interested in starting a people’s college for quite some time. Du Bois’ archive at the University of Massachusetts indicates that he was in contact with many people -- including Mrs. Lillian A. Alexander of Harlem and S. A. Mathiase -- to inquire about the possibility of starting a people’s college.
Letter from Pocono People's College to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 6, 1931
Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Pocono People's College, January 2, 1931
His ideas on education were always grounded in the idea of sacrifice and Atlanta University’s People’s College was no different.
The Atlanta University Bulltin of 1942, reveals that The People’s College of Atlanta enrolled 350 women and men of all backgrounds to achieve whatever needs that the student desired ( Atlanta University, Pg. 4). The Atlanta University Center faculty collaborated with each other to create different classes from vocational skills, art, culture, business, philosophy, and race. Du Bois’ course was called “The People’s of the World and Race Relations.” His papers in his archive reveal that there was a small number of students and many did not show up for the class. However, he continued to persevere because he understood that this was an essential need for the Atlanta Community.
(L-R) Course Notes from Du Bois and Letter from Reid
The college went on for a few years but when Du Bois was forced to retire in 1944, the program was no longer supported. Reid also eventually departed when he went to become faculty at Haverford College, where he became the institution's first tenured Black professor. He would also chair both of the college’s Sociology and Anthropology Departments in 1947.
Conclusion
Today, many institutions have either already developed or are trying to develop strategies to reenroll adults who have either previously dropped out of programs or who never received a chance to enroll in college in their younger years. For example, Benedict College has an Office of Extended Learning Service s, which offers a degree completion program for adult learners who want to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Claflin University also has a Center for Professional and Continuing Studies , which offers various degree programs for students.
More recently, HBCUs in Atlanta have started developing programs to assist with these challenging times. In 2021, Morehouse College developed Morehouse College Online to help students return to finish their education. Spelman College launched a similar initiative with the development of the eSpelman Online Certificate Enterprise, which helps expand educational opportunities for adult learners. In addition, the United Negro College fund announced one of the most innovative platforms within the sector of higher education – HBUCv.
(L-R) Chronicle of Higher Education and UNCF
HBCUv will enable synchronous and asynchronous learning for students to choose courses that work best with their schedules. Platforms like HBCUv would help many students, including working-class adults, accomplish their goal of achieving education through a more flexible process. As a society, we have to consider how to develop more accessible options and platforms for all of our students because the post-pandemic effects of the virus will have a tremendous impact on higher education. We have to consistently reevaluate what it means to be a student and the steps we can take to help them. This effort may be a dream, but it is a dream worth considering.
Researched & Written By Jordan D. Ross
Jordan D. Ross
Jordan Dean Ross is a higher education professional, diversity strategist, and digital humanist. He is a first-generation graduate of Morehouse College (’18) and holds a Master of Arts in Higher Education from the University of Michigan (’21). Jordan’s dedication to HBCU archives and education led him to become a strategy development fellow with the United Negro College Fund. As a fellow, he assisted with website content for the New ICB Website and content development for the UNITE Exhibit. Jordan has dedicated his life to examining the stories and legacies of HBCUs through digital archival methods.
