The Great Migration of Black Women Educators from Segregation to Integration

By Obiora N Anekwe

The Great Migration of Black Women Educators from Segregation to Integration documents the real-life journey of Black women educators who migrated North in order to obtain their advanced academic degrees. Remarkably, these women did not remain in the North. Instead, they returned to their communities in the South in order to educate Black children.

Dr. Obiora N. Anekwe uses photographic images, archival documents, oral history interviews, essays, and a documentary script to tell the untold stories of Black women educators he personally knew. These women have influenced his educational, ethical, and moral values, which, in turn, have impacted how he teaches young people today. While reading the book, we are reminded to never give up in the face of human injustice. In the end analysis, this book speaks to how education serves as the gateway to a better life for all humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796080896

Obiora N Anekwe

Obiora N. Anekwe is a writer, visual artist, bioethicist, counselor, and teacher. To date, he has authored and co-authored 15 books. He was born in Tuskegee Institute, Alabama on the campus of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital. Dr. Anekwe was reared in Lagos, Nigeria and Columbus, Georgia. He is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University (B.A., mass media arts with honors), Tuskegee University (M.Ed., counseling and student development with honors), Auburn University (Ed.D., educational leadership with honors), Columbia University in the City of New York (M.S., bioethics with high honors and distinction), and Pace University (M.S.T., special education with honors). Dr. Anekwe is a tenured public school special education teacher who resides in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, Rev. Alexis S. Anekwe, and their son, Amari O. Anekwe.

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Copyright © 2020 by OBIORA N. ANEKWE, M.Ed., Ed.D., M.S. Bioethics, M.S.T., SARSM

Cover Image: Obiora N. Anekwe

Photograph of Author: Alexis S. Anekwe

Library of Congress Control Number:      2019921210

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-7960-8069-8

                Softcover         978-1-7960-8070-4

                eBook               978-1-7960-8089-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/14/2020

Xlibris

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Dedicated to the Black women educators highlighted in this book:

Mrs. Mary Lee Bussey

Mrs. Gertrude Kirkland

Professor Amaryllis Hawk

Dr. Isabella T. Jenkins

Mrs. Annie Kate Maddox

Mrs. Eliza W. Maddox

Special thanks to Ms. Emma Jeanette Anekwe, Mrs. Rosemary Manley, and

Mrs. Geraldine M.B. Guerra Watson for generously participating in oral

history interviews and providing artifacts and photographs for this book.

A new generation’s future is always spoken

through the words of their ancestors.

~ Obiora N. Anekwe

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1    The Lessons In Education I Learned From My Maternal Grandmother

Chapter 2    A Brief History In The Migration Of Black Women Educators From Columbus, Georgia

Chapter 3    The Education Of Black Teachers In The South During Racial Segregation

Chapter 4    A Train Ticket To Freedom

Chapter 5    My Maternal Grandmother’s Migration North To Acquire Her Advanced Education

Chapter 6    Migration Encounters That Made Lemonade Out Of Lemons

Chapter 7    The Migration Of Three Black Women Educators: A Documentary Script

Chapter 8    How Jeanes Supervisors Impacted American Public Education

Chapter 9    Exit To Serve: The Anna T. Jeanes Supervisors And How They Worked To Better The Lives Of Black Students

Chapter 10    Jeanes Supervision Through A Daughter’s Perspective

Chapter 11    Educating Adults And Children In Rural Georgia

Chapter 12    The Impact Of Public School Integration On The Black Educator

Chapter 13    Black Educators, Where Do We Go From Here?

Appendices

INTRODUCTION

Black women educators have been teaching their students since they themselves learned how and what to teach. Even during slavery, Black American women sought and fought for a quality education. Although it was illegal for Blacks, in general, to read during American slavery, some Blacks still found a way out of no way and learned how to read and write. Education was always a priority in Black American culture. I know this first-hand from the many struggles that my maternal grandmother, Mrs. Eliza W. Maddox, told me she faced in trying to obtain her own education. She shared these stories with me in order to help me understand the past so that I could fight and protect against racialized oppression. Once I understood her past journey, I could understand my own purpose.

The essays, oral history interviews, and other archival works found in my book are all reflective of what I have learned from women who have surrounded, embraced, and mentored me. I share the insights of Black women educators who taught children during legalized, racial segregation until public school integration. In particular, I highlight the impact of both segregation and integration in how these women taught and what challenges they faced in trying to obtain their own education. As an example, many Black women educators were forced to obtain their advanced degrees out of state due to segregated public colleges and universities in the South. Therefore, their respective states would provide an equal, but separate education for them, as long as they were accepted by the admissions officers at their respective institutions in the North. As a result, many well-respected women educators migrated, usually during summer months, to northern states to work on their advanced degrees. As Hatfield (2019) indicated, because the establishment of separate black graduate and professional schools represented an enormous financial burden, Georgia and other state governments routinely offered out-of-state tuition vouchers to black students who wished to pursue a graduate education (p. 1).

Many Black women educators, including my maternal grandmother, benefited from the voucher system until it was deemed unconstitutional by the federal judiciary, which ordered recalcitrant state governments to create ‘substantially equal’ black graduate schools or admit qualified black students to state-supported white universities (Hatfield, 2019, p. 1). The stories of Black women educators who participated in the voucher program by migrating to northern institutions to acquire advanced degrees is rarely, if ever, discussed in the literature. Furthermore, the stories of these women who returned to the South to further educate children is also a rarity of discussion and research in academia. My book provides an insightful look at how Black women educators achieved educational success during racialized oppression.

Within my book, I use the proper titles of Mrs., or Ms. when referring to Black women educators who taught during racial segregation in the South. I made it a point to distinguish their full names with the formal title of Mrs. or Ms. because during segregation these women were often not referred to in writing or by word with formal, proper titles from White supervisors