“Let the school be a fine demonstration farm of what the Negro farmer can do for himself by himself” – R.L. Smith, president of the F.I.S College
While most historical scholarship on black higher education in Texas focuses primarily on institutions that would later operate as colleges/universities in the modern sense such as Prairie View and Texas Southern, others have been obscured from our view, occupying the shadows of African American history in Texas. However, many of these institutions provide examples of black educational philosophy during the early 20th century, black collective agency, and perhaps most importantly, how black people tied higher learning to their freedom dreams. One such example is the Farmer’s Improvement Society College.
Established in 1906 in Wolfe City, Texas, the Farmer’s Improvement Society College was an extension of the Farmer’s Improvement Society, a collective farmer’s alliance founded by Robert Lloyd Smith. The school functioned as an affiliate high school exemplifying the philosophies of its parent organization and embodying the Tuskegee program made famous by Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Employing the doctrine of self-help, scholars note that “Both Smith and Washington intended to create hard working, independent black men and women who would be models to help others develop positive feelings for blacks in a white dominated society.” (Sturdevant, pg.53). After receiving financial and moral support largely from African Americans across Texas and the blessing from A.B Lennox, pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, the F.I.S College opened its fifty-acre campus. Its curriculum, modeled after the Tuskegee Institute, emphasized racial uplift through vocational training. Offering a description of the school’s approach, founder and president R.L Smith noted “thus we relate the out of class activities to the in-school procedures making a cooperative effort, the one supplement the other” (FIS School Literary Notes). Serving grades 6 through 12, the FIS College promoted ideas of thrift, industry, economy, and high morals. Paying a tuition of $87.50 in 1921 that included boarding costs, students undertook courses in vocabulary, arithmetic, religion, and agriculture, the latter being the basket in which most of Smith and the FIS’s eggs were cast. So much so, that the school’s sessions coincided with the growing season to allow students to work their families’ farms and apply their newfound skills and methods.
Agricultural and other vocational training reflected the gendered-labor roles of the time, relegating male students to classes in animal care, agricultural methods, and husbandry, while female students were required to take courses in sewing, cooking, canning, and gardening. In addition to their studies, students were instrumental in the sustainability of the institution. These young pupils also served as the school’s employees, working as mechanics, cooks, laundresses, painters, and farmers. Implementing work as a part of the curriculum and requirements for students allowed for the growth of the school, playing a major role in its ability to exceed its original fifty acres to occupying ninety-two acres. This form of ‘work-study’ was a product of the doctrine of self-help. While the school certainly had its white supporters, self-help also meant self-support. There are remaining records that are indicative of this black agency. Although, the dual duties of students and faculty were vital, the school relied on donations from its supporters, which came from largely black farmers, merchants, organizations, and churches. Surviving subscription slips show financial support for the college. Documents from the 23rd Annual Convocation in 1918 illustrate the types of collective fund-raising endeavors employed by the school’s administration and affiliate organization to sustain the institution. While the records are scant, those that survived offer a glimpse of how black people in places like Mexia, Cold Springs, Waco, Hempstead, Marshall, Chapel Hill sought to carry out the ultimate mission of the school.
During the first half of the twentieth century, from 1906 until 1947, the institution functioned as “Texas’ answer to Washington’s Tuskegee Institute” (Sturdevant, pg. 52). Within this paradigm, the FIS College has been subject to similar criticism as an agent of accommodationist philosophy. Its declining enrollment into the century commonly attributed to changing educational philosophies amongst black communities that urged liberal studies which reflected aims for political and social equality. Criticisms of the adherence to respectability politics and white paternalistic sentiments are not without warrant. The esteemed scholar activist W.E.B Du Bois, becoming one leading critics of the Tuskegee program as it was promoted by men like Booker T. Washington and R.L Smith, posed the question “How far have these schools established successfully Negro farmers on their own farms?” (Sixth Annual Conference on Negro Education, March 29, 1935). More recent scholars have argued that “the real success of Tuskegee Institute’s agricultural program came primarily from its graduates and former students who took the lead in teaching agriculture to black farmers” (Allen, 1975, pg. 253). Not only did the lack of increase in black landownership generate criticism, but advocating that African Americans work primarily with their hands was seen as an acquiescence to the racial order in the South.
Rather than viewing these institutions within a similar framework, schools like the FIS College ought to be held in reverence as examples of black efforts to pursue better educational opportunities. These young black women and men, seeking opportunity, reflecting the dreams of countless families, provided the foundation for African American farmers, artisans, educators, business owners, and organizers moving forward. Their ‘real success’ coming in promoting a racial consciousness and uplift approach that would serve as the foundation for achieving economic, political, and social equality. This ‘inspiring sight of Negro achievement’ functions as more than an extension of the accommodationist thread. The Farmer’s Improvement Society College serves as an attempt of black people in Texas to liberate themselves from oppressive political and economic structures amid national economic crisis, racial terror, and lack of support.
Despite its shortcomings and criticisms of its approach to the education of African Americans, the FIS College offered young aspiring black men and women a chance to ‘cast down their buckets’ where they were with hopes that the returns would sustain whole communities. Although its doors closed in 1947, their efforts and “ultimate faith in the power of love to overcome and transform whatever in human nature disfigures, mars, frustrates, destroys” (FIS School Literary Notes) provided for a new generation that would carry African Americans into the modern civil rights era.
]]>Chopping firewood might not seem like a fun closing activity for most school students today, but for John Mosely, it was neither a punishment nor a chore. It was one of the highlights of his school day.
Mosely, a student at the all-black Jackson School in Smith County, Texas in the 1950s, remembered having a sense of pride when he got to go to a nearby thicket with other boys his age to break tree limbs and gather kindling to feed the large wood stove which heated his classroom.
As he recalled decades later, it was a responsibility he was proud to take on. “It was a privilege,” Mosley said. “You had to have all your work done, and you couldn't be in any trouble. After school, you would get the wood so it would be ready the next day. You'd come early, while it was still dark outside and start the fire.”
Mosley was not alone when he willingly sacrificed his time and effort for his school. Jackson School was one of 72 schools that opened in the early twentieth century to serve East Texas county’s black populace. Like many black schools at the time, the state only partially funded the school, so the community had to work together to see to the students’ needs.
Unable to afford football uniforms, school officials decided to start a basketball team as it only required the purchase of a ball. Men from the community then carved out a dirt court in the school’s lawn and mounted two metal hoops to serve as goals. On game days, a local farmer would quit work early so he could pick up the players on his wood-sided truck and drive them to the games.
That sense of pride and willingness to sacrifice for your school was not unique to Jackson School. Historian James Smallwood noted that enthusiasm for public education by Texas’ black residents began immediately after the Civil War. In the Antebellum years, most slave owners did not approve of slaves having an education. In June 1865, when Union forces occupied Texas at the conclusion of the war, about 95 percent of the state’s black population were illiterate. Understanding the power of education and the role it could play in “economic advancement, social equality, and political power,” blacks enthusiastically embraced the opportunities for providing their children with an education.
Henry Bullock, the first black professor hired by the University of Texas, stated that the black education movement in the state was not “imposed” on blacks by “overzealous Northerners” but seized by them as they sought to help themselves.
Smallwood noted that the “self-help” philosophy was ubiquitous among black residents of Texas in the early twentieth century. Many wanted to “do all possible” to improve the lives of their children through education.
Even before the Freedman’s Bureau established its presence in the state in September 1865, blacks began pooling together their monies to purchase writing slates and primers. Soon after they began organizing their own schools.
This was especially true in East Texas, which was home to about 90 percent of Texas’ black populace. Those who had previously received some education as free blacks or as slaves served as the first teachers at these early schools.
By the time the Freedman’s Bureau opened its first office in Tyler in 1867, blacks had already established their first school in Smith County. The first black public school in Smith County opened in 1887.
By the start of the 20th century, there were seventy-two public and private schools in Smith County.
In addition to Jackson, another all-black school in the area was Emmett J. Scott High School. The original school, which served first through tenth grades, opened in 1888 and had just four classrooms. When Scott High School opened in 1949 it had 26 classrooms and facilities that many of the rural all-black schools lacked such as an auditorium, band hall, gymnasium, administrative suites.
Edward Moore, a student at Scott Junior High, remembered how proud parents and students were in having the opportunity to gain an education.
“All these teachers at Emmett Scott Junior High School, they were concerned about us getting an education,” Moore said. “The dropout rate was pretty low. I think it says a lot for our community and our teachers back in the day.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the segregation of public schools to be unconstitutional in 1954, segregation was banned.
Jackson School was eventually absorbed into the all-white Chapel Hill school district that same year. The other all-black schools closed through the 1960s and the 1970s. Scott High School closed in 1970 after a federal court ordered all Tyler public schools to integrate.
Still, for many who attended one of Smith County's all-black schools, having attained education at one of the schools remained a source of pride.
Sarah Ryder, who was in the inaugural ninth-grade class at Jackson School in 1926, remembered that in those critical days before the Civil Rights movement, having a school in your community – even with all the challenges – provided its students and the community with a sense of dignity.
"It was important to have the school in your district because your community has an identity,” she recalled. “A school was more than just a place to learn. It meant you had teachers living in your community. Teachers were important people. They were your leaders.”
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]]>John Arthur (Jack) Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas on March 31, 1878. Jack, who was often referred to as the Galveston Giant, was the first African American heavyweight boxer of the world. He won the title in 1908 at the beginning of the Jim Crow era and held the title until 1915; however, his accomplishments in the boxing ring were often overshadowed by the tragedies of his personal life. His life was amazing and unusual because of his ability to be able to fluidly move between the two worlds of being a boxer celebrity and being a black man during a time of racial hatred after the Reconstruction period.
Jack’s pursuit of the heavyweight champion title was a difficult one in the early nineteen hundreds. There were separate leagues for most sports competitions. He was able to finally get a chance at the title after Jim F. Jeffries retired and the new champion, Tommy Burns agreed to a fight in Sidney Australia. Johnson defeated Burns and held the title for several years but was challenged by Jeffries who came out of retirement to be “the Great White Hope” to win back the title and to supposedly demonstrate the boxing superiority of the white man. The fight, which was nicknamed the “Fight of the Century,” was so notorious that author Jack London wrote for the press, “Jeffries would surely win' because the white man 'has 30 centuries of traditions behind him - all the supreme efforts, the inventions and the conquests, and, whether he knows it or not, Bunker Hill and Thermopylae and Hastings and Agincourt.” The mainstream press was also very hostile towards blacks before the fight. The New York Times ran an article that stated “If the black man wins, thousands and thousands of his ignorant brothers will misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors.” Jeffries was soundly defeated and Johnson’s victory sparked waves of racial violence across the country in New York, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Omaha, Columbus, St. Louis, and Wilmington, and Delaware.
Johnson’s celebrity status allowed him access to parts of society that African Americans were not privy to at the height of the Jim Crow era. He was able to parlay his winnings and social status into business ventures such as a black and tan night club in Chicago that he named Cafe de Champion. A black and tan night club was a desegregated establishment when desegregation was not tolerated. The pressure he received from locals and the police ultimately led to its closing, costing Johnson a fortune. Johnson not only faced discrimination in the ring and his financial dealings but also in his personal life.
Johnson’s relationships with women, especially white women, were highly controversial for the times. Once again, his celebrity status and outgoing nature allowed him access to social circles most African American men would have never considered. Dating or marrying a white woman could have easily gotten him killed in some parts of the country. This did not stop Jack from marrying three white women during his lifetime. He contended that it was his bad experiences with black women in his past that led him to only have relationships with white women.
His first documented marriage was to Etta Terry Duryea. Their troubled marriage lasted only one year with Etta suffering from depression, abuse, and infidelity. Her depression continued to worsen until she finally committed suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It has been assumed that her depression worsened because of the stress of their interracial relationship. His second marriage was to Lucille Cameron, an 18-year-old prostitute he met at his nightclub. They stayed married for twelve years but she filed for divorce because of his infidelity. It is important to note that his relationships with prostitutes will become a major issue later in his life when the government tries to accuse him of wrongdoing. His last wife was Irene Pineau. Their relationship proved to be the longest of all his wives, lasting for the last twenty-one years of his life. She stood by him and had only good things to say about Jack after his death. She was asked what she loved most about him, and she stated, “I loved him because of his courage. He faced the world unafraid. There wasn’t anybody or anything he feared.”
It was during his marriage to Lucille that Jack faced one of the most desperate times of his life. In 1912 he was arrested for his violation of the Mann Act for transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes. Most agree today that the government was concerned about the popularity Johnson was gaining across the country, especially in the black community and his arrest was based on trumped-up charges to squash the hopes of African Americans. He was convicted by an all-white jury and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. He skipped bail and fled the country and lived in exile in Europe for the next seven years. He finally came back to the U.S. and served his sentence in Leavenworth but ultimately at the cost of his boxing career.
There were many efforts over the years to have Johnson pardoned by several presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. All efforts were stymied by congress or the executive office. When Barack Obama became president, celebrities and athletes tried once again to push for a pardon. Mike Tyson started a Change.org petition campaign effort. There was no denying that the racial discrimination involved in Johnson’s arrest should have been forgiven. His history of abusing women would not allow them to issue the pardon. However, during the Donald Trump administration, this changed. Actor Sylvester Stallone approached Trump with the request because he was considering producing a movie about Jack’s life and convinced Trump to issue the pardon.
Jack Johnson is buried in Chicago with his first wife, but a memorial exists in Galveston, Texas describing his important role in Texas and boxing history. His grave was initially unmarked but after Ken Burns released a movie about his life in 2005 a new marker was placed with the words “First black heavyweight champion of the world” on it. On the back of the stone is Jack’s signature.
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