The Marion Thompson Wright Reader: Edited and with a Biographical Introduction by Graham Russell Gao Hodges 9781978805408

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The Marion Thompson Wright Reader

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The Marion Thompson Wright Reader



Edited and with a Biographical Introduction by Graham Russell Gao Hodges

rutgers university press new brunswick, camden, and newark, new jersey, and london

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Wright, Marion Manola Thompson, 1904–­1962, author. | Hodges, Graham Russell, 1946–­ editor. Title: The Marion Thompson Wright reader / edited and with a biographical introduction by Graham Russell Gao Hodges. Description: New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021006613 | ISBN 9781978805361 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978805378 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978805385 (epub) | ISBN 9781978805392 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978805408 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: African Americans—­ Education—­ History. | Discrimination in education—­ United States—­History. | Segregation in education—­United States—­History. Classification: LCC LC2741 .W75 2022 | DDC 371.829/96073—­dc23 LC record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov/​2021006613 A British Cataloging-­in-­Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2022 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Introduction and scholarly apparatus copyright © 2022 by Graham Russell Gao Hodges All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. ♾ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—­Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-­1992. www​.rutgersuniversitypress​.org Manufactured in the United States of America

What would you have done in the same circumstances? —­Marion Thompson Wright to her son James Allen Moss, ca. 1939

Contents

Biographical Introduction   1 75

The Education of Negroes in New Jersey

Essays “New Jersey Laws and the Negro.” Journal of Negro History 28, no. 2 (April 1943): 156–­199.   251 “Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–­1875.” Journal of Negro History 33, no. 2 (April 1948): 168–­224.   278 Chapter IX from “Racial Integration in the Public Schools of New Jersey.” In “Next Steps in Racial Desegregation in Education.” Special issue, Journal of Negro Education 23, no. 3 (Summer 1954): 282–­289.   315

Reviews and Notes “Are Colonials People?” Review of Color and Democracy, by William E. Burghardt Du Bois. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 1 (Winter 1946): 63–­65.   325 “It Can Happen Anywhere.” Review of If He Hollers, Let Him Go, by Chester B. Himes. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (Spring 1946): 213–­214.   327 “Notes from Recent Books.” Journal of Negro Education 13, no. 4 (Autumn 1944): 532–­535.   329 “Notes from Recent Books.” Journal of Negro Education 18, no. 2 (Spring 1949): 155–­159.   334

Encyclopedia Entry “Lucy Diggs Slowe.” In Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Edward T. James et al., 3:299–­300. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.   341 Chronological Bibliography   343 Acknowledgments   347 Index   349 vii

A Marion Thompson Wright Reader

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Biographical Introduction

The Marion Thompson Wright Reader offers some of the best work by one of New Jersey’s finest historians and the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in the discipline of history. Marion Thompson Wright’s book, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey, is the centerpiece of this collection and is joined by her award-­winning essays from the Journal of Negro History and the Journal of Negro Education (JNE), selected reviews and notes from her decades as the editor of book reviews for the JNE, and a significant encyclopedia entry she composed about her mentor Lucy Diggs Slowe, the first Dean of Women at Howard University. A complete bibliography of her work appears at the end of the collection. This introduction provides a concise biography of Wright, using sources from newspapers, academic studies, accounts of friends and colleagues, and material graciously provided by her descendants. Despite the tragic end to her life, Marion Thompson Wright exemplified the committed Black female intellectual of her time. She firmly believed that African American society, especially its organizations, had much to contribute to the greater democratization of society and toward the lessening of the harsh racism that hindered all Black Americans of her time. That her personal life was sorrowful does not undercut her massive, constant efforts to better the lives of her people and of America. Marion Thompson Wright (1902–­1962) was the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in the discipline of history. Her book The Education of Negroes in New Jersey, published by Columbia University/Teachers College Press in 1941, remains a landmark study. In the book and in many articles and reviews published during her career as a professor of education at Howard University from 1940 to 1962, Wright sustained an unceasing argument that showed how the roots of racism and slavery lay deep and wide in the American past. More optimistically, she highlighted the positive efforts of Black and white activists who pushed for racially integrated education. From her 1928 Howard University MA thesis comparing white and Black educational systems in sixteen states through her acclaimed doctoral dissertation and subsequent scholarly articles written during her career, Marion Wright anticipated the recent argument of legal scholar Justin Driver that “the public school has served as the single most significant site of constitutional decision making within 1

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the nation’s history.”1 That faith and effort are reflected in Wright’s important research for the campaign that peaked in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Wright was one of the first Black female academics. This recovery of Marion Thompson Wright’s life and legacy fits into a renewed interest in the careers of Black female intellectuals during the era when Jim Crow America haltingly changed into a quasi-­integrated society between 1940 and 1963.2 After Wright’s death in 1962, her Howard University Department of Education colleague Walter Daniel published a valuable remembrance of her in the Journal of Negro Education. In the early 1980s, historians Clement Price and Giles Wright established a lectureship in her name, which continues to the present day. During the 1990s, Margaret Crocco, a historian of education, composed two fine book chapters comparing Wright with Mary Ritter Beard, one of the giants of women’s history, and with Elizabeth Amira Allen, a New Jersey educator.3 Wright was a dedicated professor, loving yet rigorous toward her students, and an excellent university citizen. Zachery R. Williams portrays male professors at Howard University as dedicated public intellectuals who worked well with political and philanthropic organizations, created accessible scholarship, and had a sizable impact on their society.4 Marion Thompson Wright displayed similar public talents through her lectures and writings. She served on numerous committees at Howard University and designed a student guidance system while teaching a full load. Deborah Gray White has noted that Wright’s “ordeal underscores Black women’s difficulties” at American universities and colleges. Wright studied at Howard University from 1923 to 1928, taught there from 1928 to 1931, returned as an instructor in 1939, and by 1940, became one of two female assistant professors in the College of Liberal Arts and the only member of the education department with a doctorate. She earned tenure in 1946, was promoted to full professor in 1950, and taught there until her death in 1962. As her son, Professor James Allen Moss, argued in a compelling speech at the Marion Thompson Wright lecture in 1989, attention should be given to her personal strength in the face of intense emotional trauma and pain.5 Marion Thompson Wright had deep personal sorrows. She presented herself in 1923 to Howard University as a single woman named Marion Thompson and maintained that identity until her marriage to Arthur Wright in 1931. In fact, while in high school in Newark, she had married and birthed two children with William Moss, a local laborer. Wright concealed her past in order to succeed at Howard University, a deception that inflicted deep wounds on her family and herself. Wright was estranged from her two children, James and Thelma Moss, until long into their adulthood. This book charts how Wright and her children strived to sustain family contact as powerful social forces kept them apart. At the same time, Marion Thompson Wright made choices about creating her own freedom. To create her freer life, Marion Thompson Wright employed what Angela Davis called a “radical imagination,” for which a “fundamental requirement is believing that the world you want to come into existence can happen. I think that that is how Black folks have engaged with and invested in and articulated freedom, as an ideal and as an everyday practice.” Wright’s radical imagination created chances and dangers that remain with us today.6 Marion Manola Thompson was born in East Orange, New Jersey, on September 13, 1902, the daughter of Moses R. Thompson and Minnie B. Holmes Thompson, both born in Virginia. Minnie

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Thompson was born in 1879, the daughter and youngest child of Thomas and Mary Holmes of Port Royal, Caroline County, Virginia. Thomas Holmes, a farm laborer, was born in 1835 and was enslaved by J. T. Martin of Port Royal. Mary Holmes was born in 1847 and was enslaved by William Jourdan from the same village. Thomas and Mary Holmes “cohabited” in 1861 and were likely freed by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The couple birthed six children, several of whom moved north to the Newark, New Jersey, area while the parents stayed in Port Royal. Minnie came north in the early years of the Great Migration and was listed in 1900 as a servant working for the family of William and Elizabeth Worth of West Orange, New Jersey. She had doubtless left Port Royal to escape Jim Crow restrictions, only to find that domestic work, with its clear descent from slavery, was the only work she could get in New Jersey.7 Within two years of her arrival north, Minnie Holmes married Moses R. Thompson, aged thirty-­one, listed variously as a laborer, an express man, and a driver. Moses R. Thompson was from Richmond, Virginia, born March 17, 1871, the seventh child of twelve birthed by Jonathan and Sophia A. Thompson. After several postemancipation decades in which Blacks made economic and social gains, the city of Richmond was slipping into Jim Crow, making it unattractive for a young Black man. The family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, sometime in the 1890s. After Jonathan Thompson died, his family lived in Vermont before settling in Newark, New Jersey. Sophia Thompson remarried to a barber and opened a restaurant. Like his wife, Moses Thompson had a sizable number of siblings living around Newark.8 Minnie Thompson left her West Orange job after the birth of her first child but returned to other domestic toils later. She named her first child after Marion Manola, a popular contemporary light opera star, who lived with her husband, John B. Mason, in Orange, New Jersey. It is possible that either Minnie or Moses Thompson worked for the famed couple. In the next few years, the Thompson family grew with the birth of Arnold, a son, in 1907 and twin girls, Thelma and Gladys, in 1909. During those years, the family moved often between Newark and Orange, spending no more than two years in any rental home.9 Sometime between 1910 and 1915, the family broke up. The New Jersey state census of 1915 recorded Marion Thompson as living with relatives Charles H. and Mary F. Thompson. Her sisters went to Port Royal to live with their grandparents. After a year, Charles and Mary Thompson moved away, and Marion Thompson returned to her mother’s residence. Marion’s brother, Arnold, lived with an uncle and his wife and family, James A. and Frances Holmes, in nearby Cranbury. Arnold was still there at the age of twenty-­three in 1930. After the breakup, Moses Thompson seems not to have had much of a role in his children’s lives, though he did remain in the area. For young Marion Thompson, the loss of her father in her preteen years created an abiding loneliness and a sense of unworthiness. Often such a loss meant deep anxieties about losing further relationships. For Marion Thompson, it seems to have created a hard shell protecting a deep hurt, joined by a willingness to inflict her pain on others. Depression stemming from the breakup took some time to manifest, but it ultimately plagued Marion Thompson.10 More hurt came from her grandfather’s death. Minnie Holmes Thompson suffered the loss of her father, who died in Virginia in 1919. Her parents, who had remained in Port Royal, Caroline

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Avon Avenue School, Newark, 1905, public domain.

County, Virginia, had been married fifty-­seven years. Minnie Holmes’s family, in contrast to her parents’, lasted about a decade before a bitter estrangement. The move north resulted in disappointments that surely affected the mother-­daughter conversations about marriage.11 Marion Thompson found succor at school. As she pointed out in her book, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey, public education in northern New Jersey was integrated, at least to the extent that some Blacks were admitted to better quality white public schools. She first attended the well-­equipped and designed Avon Avenue Public Elementary School, where she was among the first students in the school after its opening in 1906. She then matriculated at Barringer High School in September 1916. She excelled in her college preparatory curriculum until she abruptly dropped out in December 1918.12 On December 18, 1918, Marion Thompson married William Henry Moss of Montclair in New York City. William Moss was his wife’s age; his occupation was listed as “kitchen man.” William Moss left school after the eighth grade. Marion Moss’s occupation was listed as “nanny,” indicating that she was already working while in school. The young couple had to obtain parental consent to marry because they were under twenty-­one years of age. The fact that the marriage ceremony occurred in New York City rather than Newark indicates a desire to keep the event secret.13 The reason for the hasty marriage became apparent on January 2, 1919, when their daughter, Thelma Mae Moss, was born. Within six months, Marion Wright was pregnant again, giving birth to a son, James Allen Moss, on March 27, 1920. The couple moved around Newark, finally settling at 17 Crawford Street. Unsurprisingly, their low-­level jobs and the burdens of parenting as young adults created tensions. Economic opportunities for young Blacks in Newark were very poor. Clement Price’s analysis of census records indicates that Black males typically worked as porters, as laborers, and at other unskilled jobs. In 1910, for example, there were 311 Black delivery men in Newark compared with three African American store clerks. Marion Thompson would need luck to achieve as much as her mother, who worked as a housekeeper for prominent Montclair families. Such jobs were hard to get and maintain. Commuting while caring for infant children posed a significant problem for Marion Thompson. Her likely future lay was as a laundrywoman, the job for 684 Black women in Newark, compared with just 27 housekeepers or stewardesses. Moreover, Newark’s inner city was changing rapidly. In her childhood, Marion Thompson interacted with

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Newark (Barringer) High School, ca. 1910, collection of the author.

Germans, the Irish, Poles, and other Blacks. By 1915, the arrival of sizable numbers of Black migrants from the southern United States made the city more crowded. Newark landlords did not hesitate to carve older homes into small apartments and neglect repairs. Her neighborhood was becoming a ghetto for the very poor with increased competition for the lowest-­paid jobs.14 The young couple quarreled about Marion Moss’s ambitions and her treatment of the children. On a Sunday afternoon in October 1921, Marion Moss gathered together her clothing and other possessions and disappeared. William Moss believed that she went to her mother’s home at 50 Thomas Street, though he could not find her when he went searching for her. Family lore tells that Minnie Thompson was deeply influential in her daughter’s decision to leave her husband. At one point, William Moss spotted his wife in a crowd at Lincoln Park. Moss beseeched his wife to come back, but “she finally said she could not be bothered with the responsibility of children.”15 Mothers who consciously abandon their children are highly unusual in Western society. Enslaved women in America occasionally left their children in search of freedom. Harriet Jacobs and Mary Walker were among the Black women who deserted their children in desperate bursts for freedom from slavery and sexual abuse. Both, however, spent years later striving to regain contact. Their circumstances, including flight from slavery and rape, contrast sharply with Marion Thompson’s. She fled her family to pursue the finest education available to Black Americans of the time. Marion Thompson’s iron rod of ambition overrode her maternal instincts.16 After she dropped her married name, Marion Thompson devoted her energies to her education. Encouraged by a guidance counselor and by her mother, Thompson returned to Newark High in January 1922 after an absence of over two years. She focused on a liberal arts curriculum, taking required courses each year in English, math, history, science, and physical education with electives

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Marion Thompson Wright high school graduation photo, courtesy of the Barringer High School Archives.

in Latin and German. She also took skills courses in sewing and cooking. To make up her courses more quickly, she also studied evenings at Drake’s College, a nearby business school. Thompson threw herself into high school activities, serving on the board of the Epilogue and the Acropolis, the student magazines, and joining the science and glee clubs. Most of these activities were for upper-­ class students; her participation indicated how involved she was with high school and how openly her fellow students accepted her. Her nickname was “M. T.,” and her motto was “Deeds Survive the Doer,” a prescient forecast of her life. Generally, her classmates seem to have supported her, but she complained in a letter written years later of the high school slurs and innuendos about her perceived status as a loose woman. The school’s administration must have collaborated with her to keep her status secret from any potential colleges, at which married women and/or mothers were rarely welcome. Marion Thompson graduated on June 21, 1923, with a diploma in General Latin. There are reports that Thompson was the top student at Newark High School in her class year. At that time, the school did not list a valedictorian or salutatorian in its graduation ceremonies. She did appear in several semester honor roles but was absent in a few others. Suffice to say, she was an excellent student.17 Marion Thompson’s college prospects were propitious. Newark High School was a first-­rate secondary institution. White male graduates routinely entered Princeton, Harvard, and other Ivy League schools; white women went on to the top female colleges. The other two Black students in Thompson’s class, both males, enrolled at Rutgers. Marion Thompson, however, was intent upon matriculating at Howard University, the capstone of African American universities. There was a major obstacle: Howard University did not accept married women or women with children.18

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William Henry “Pop” Moss, courtesy of Gabriel Bacchus.

While Marion Thompson pursued her ambitions, William Moss struggled to care for their children. He moved several times, then finally boarded the children out by the week while he lived with his brother at 140 Broome Street. William Moss learned that his wife had enrolled at Howard University and was living in a dormitory under her maiden name. He wrote her a registered letter asking her to return home and help raise the children. In her reply, Thompson wrote she was “willing and shall do all I can for the children” but that coming back was “utterly impossible.” It would not be best, she explained, for the children to live in a home where “no affection or respect exists between the parents.” Any love, Thompson declared, that she felt toward William “died long ago.” If he did not understand that before, Thompson sharply pointed out, “that . . . is clear to you now.” She was willing to talk to Moss about the children, but any “hopes for reconciliation I absolutely

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refuse now and for all future times.” Several neighbors supported Moss’s claims about his wife’s neglect of the children and desertion of the family home. Thompson did not dispute any of these assertions; her silence indicates that she simply wanted to be free of her family. On September 21, 1925, William Moss was granted an uncontested divorce from Marion Thompson and given full custody of the children. On December 2, 1925, he remarried in New York City to Lula Moody, a twenty-­eight-­year-­old woman from Virginia with a single child.19 In the record of the divorce proceedings, Marion Thompson comes across as heartless and indifferent to her family. Likely her parents’ breakup instilled in her the impermanence of family; the allures of high school intellectual stimulation and enjoyable extracurricular activities made the grind of early childhood parenting even less desirable. An intelligent young woman, Thompson examined her surroundings and realized the dim prospects for a woman with two children and no high school diploma. Newark’s school system may have been integrated but its workforce was not. Jim Crow discrimination hardened in New Jersey after World War I. Professional work for Black men was becoming rarer. New Jersey’s former governor, and now president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson had pushed to evict Blacks from federal civil service, discrimination that was soon emulated by state governments. Most Black men were laborers; even those with industrial jobs toiled at the bottom of the ladder with no chances for upward mobility. For a woman such as Marion Thompson, poorly paid and demeaning work as the servant of white people, a status directly descended from slavery, was her likely future. Her mother, only a generation removed from actual slavery and having toiled in such slavish work, surely warned her daughter against it. Her husband, William Moss, as an unskilled high school dropout, offered few advantages. Leaving her family to resume her studies was a harsh but existential choice. Her long-­term success partially validated her decision yet foreshadowed the terrible life decisions professional women have had to make to the present day. As a lower-­class female, Thompson’s determination resembles the brave social experiments other urban, Black women chose in this era. Dedicated ambition, especially for female academics, rarely coincides with family happiness. Those women who “have it all” with professional and domestic satisfaction are rare. Studies have indicated that the bulk of high-­ achieving, academic women either never marry or have childless marriages.20 Marion could not know of those statistics and a scholarly career was only a dream, but she knew that school offered personal joy. Home did not. Had Marion Thompson chosen to stay with her family, there is no guarantee that life would have worked out for the best. As Saidiya Hartman has recently demonstrated, the early twentieth century was a time of sexual experimentation for young Black women and sometimes included dangerous risk-­taking.21 Wright recalled that when she and Moss Sr. parted ways, “she had nothing and could do nothing.” She credited her mother, Minnie, for getting her back into school. A study made a century later, but with direct application, indicates the impact single Black mothers had on their college-­bound daughters. Minnie Thompson may not have used the exact words, but later a young Black woman told an interviewer, “My mother was always in my head.” Single Black mothers advised their daughters that a man was not necessary to succeed, words that Marion Thompson took to heart. Indeed, choices had to be made. High schools frowned on married women being in class, and she did not want to “parade my troubles to the school public.” As the sole woman of color in her graduating

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class, Marion Thompson doubtless felt particularly anxious about appearances. The same was true for college. Her status would have been “an object of discussion and what not.” She would not have been permitted to live in a dormitory. As a divorced woman, she was already the “target of so many insulting proposals from men as to be nauseating,” personal assaults that “I got my fill of while finishing high school.”22 Her decision came with immense personal cost. Divorce was a heavy burden for all women, especially Blacks, and indicated a family failure that was painful to explain. Accordingly, Black women, Thompson included, had to engage in acts of dissemblance to disguise or conceal past marital problems. One primary reason was that divorced women were considered more sexually experienced and available to predatory males. For poorer women such as Thompson, divorce could mean falling through social cracks.23 Thompson’s act of deception and its costs may be understood by borrowing a metaphor from Nella Larsen’s Passing, published in 1929. Marion Thompson dissembled or “passed” as a single, childless young woman. She shaved three years off her age, dropped her husband’s name, and matriculated at Howard ostensibly as a sexually innocent, unmarried, childless young woman, seemingly identical to other female students. Marion Thompson had to maintain secrecy about her family, an act that haunted her for the rest of her life. Whereas most of her Howard University classmates came from middle-­or upper-­class Black families in which a college education was expected, Thompson’s family was working class at best and poorly educated (she was the only one of her siblings to graduate from high school).24 As she moved on up from high school to a prestigious college, Marion Thompson climbed out of an impoverished, broken home; found a successful pathway through education; and was poised to better herself as much as a Black woman in a Jim Crow society could do. She was also the mother of two by the age of eighteen and was estranged from her husband and infant children. Her success was happening at an immense personal cost.

Howard University, 1923–­1 932 Marion Thompson’s top-­notch academic record prompted Howard University to admit her with a scholarship on October 4, 1922, during the fall of her senior year of high school. Using her maiden name and forsaking all references to her husband and children, Marion Thompson enrolled at Howard University in the fall of 1923. Dean Dwight Oliver Wendell Holmes and registrar Fred D. Wilkinson recalled her as a first-­year student who was “regular in attendance, conscientious in the performance of duty, and mentally alert.” Holmes, later president of Morgan College (now Morgan State University), regarded Thompson with the tolerance he displayed toward Zora Neale Hurston, who arrived at the school two years before. Hurston dissembled by lowering her age ten years to enroll at Howard University. Hurston realized that Holmes saw through her deceptions but silently conveyed an understanding that now that she was at Howard, she should make the most of it.25 Thompson arrived as Howard University was going through major changes. The student population had soared in the previous few years. Student unrest over mandatory ROTC meetings and poor faculty relations with the president of the university, J. Stanley Durkee, led eventually to his

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resignation in 1926. Later in her career, Marion Thompson Wright commented that the students were “testing the limits,” seeking to become a potent force in school governance.26 Replacing Durkee, the last white chief executive of the school, was Mordecai Johnson, a renowned African American Baptist minister. Johnson immediately worked to improve federal funding for Howard and to lift its research profile by hiring eminent Black professors. The selection of a Black man initially enthused students and faculty; soon, however, Johnson’s autocratic methods dismayed his early supporters. Nonetheless, he stayed in office until 1960, nearly matching Wright’s entire tenure at the school.27 As she enrolled at Howard University, it was impossible for Marion Thompson to keep her past life secret. A Howard University classmate met James Moss Sr., who told him of their marriage. She related, “The fellow realized what I was doing and said nothing about it.” Still, rumors abounded at Howard: “I did not know she was married.” Mudslingers implied that both children were illegitimate. Instead of telling the world of her failed marriage, Marion Thompson decided to “get along.” The court had given Moss Sr. full custody of the children; Marion Thompson felt “everything was settled without my being in the future. . . . I then set up my goals and worked toward them.”28 Anxious that her past might be revealed, Thompson strived to remain obscure at the onset of her college career. She was especially concerned about attracting the attention of Lucy Diggs Slowe, who had punctuated the first year of her illustrious career as Howard’s inaugural Dean of Women by suspending three female students. Marion Thompson’s efforts to lay low ended when, upon returning one day to her dorm room, she found a note advising her that Slowe wanted to see her. The frightened and puzzled young woman wondered “what on earth had she done to merit such an invitation.” The next twenty-­four hours were torture. When Thompson appeared at Slowe’s office, she learned to her relief that the dean merely wanted to meet her, as she did with other female students.29 Lucy Diggs Slowe quickly enlisted Thompson in leadership activities. Slowe advocated for activities and role models that would prepare Black women for leadership, a quality that she found sadly lacking at the patriarchal Black college. Slowe demanded from a recalcitrant Johnson and other officials at Howard University that women be able to serve on university councils and have their own dormitories and that the school establish counseling services for female students.30 Slowe already was establishing herself as a national leader. Washington, D.C., and Howard University were exciting places for a young woman of color, despite local, tightening segregation and acceptance of the Ku Klux Klan at the highest levels of government. Slowe was part of the New Negro Womanhood that emphasized voluntarism, club membership, leadership in social affairs, activism toward universal suffrage, and the democratic promise of education for all Black people. Slowe was concerned that Black female graduates were unduly directed into teaching and sought to establish a guidance program that would open young, educated women to broader prospects, themes that Wright would echo throughout her career.31 Guided by Slowe, Marion Thompson plunged into Howard activities. By the autumn of her sophomore year, she had been elected to the Howard University student council and served as recording secretary for her class. She was named an honor student at the annual campus convocation and in 1925 was elected to Kappa Mu, Howard University’s academic honor society.32 As

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a junior, Thompson became president of the newly formed Women’s League at Howard. The Women’s League represented the university at the annual National Student Conference, lent support to the Howard football team, and hosted annual candlelight services at the last vesper service before Christmas. The league set up a loan fund for needy female students and sponsored an annual May Festival.33 Slowe formed the Women’s League as the prototype of the National Council of College Women (NCCW) on the Howard campus in 1923, one of the first and most important female organizations. The NCCW was dedicated to shaping women’s leadership and improving society. Within a few years, the NCCW had chapters across the nation. The NCCW rapidly politicized, making appeals to President Calvin Coolidge for clemency for a condemned Black prisoner, lobbying congressmen for better treatment of Haiti, striving with congress for improved education for Blacks, endorsing the antilynching bill, and later offering support in the 1930s for President Franklin Roosevelt’s economic recovery program.34 Marion Thompson joined Delta Sigma Theta, a Black sorority founded on the Howard campus in 1913. Noted early on for its extravagant balls and banquets, which were intended to foster community and sisterhood among its members, Delta Theta Sigma held a May Week that included public programs, plays, cultural teas, guest lecturers, scholarship awards, and group singing. By 1925 when Marion Thompson became a member, Delta Theta Sigma embraced social activism and issued its first public denunciations against racism. By the time of her graduation, the sorority had taken on a directly political position, organizing marches in support of female suffrage and increased Black rights. Membership in Delta Sigma Theta lasted a lifetime. Even so, Marion Thompson’s situation at Howard was never secure. Someone tried unsuccessfully to use information about her past life to keep Thompson out of the sorority.35 Joining Delta Sigma Theta and being at Howard University meant partaking in a rich social life. Washington, D.C., was the national center for Black professionals, politicians, and prosperous families. The commercial and cultural center of Black Washington was around U Street, with its stores, restaurants, movie houses, and theaters. After inexpensive shows at either the Lincoln or Republic Theatres, patrons could pass down the alley by the Lincoln, enter its basement, and dance at the Lincoln Colonnade, the city’s most expansive dance hall. U Street was the home of important Black churches, the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, the Twelfth Street YMCA, the Odd Fellows Lodge, the Masonic Temple, the Industrial Savings Bank, and Scurlock’s Photo Studio (the official photographer for Howard University). Nearby Seventh Street was a more downscale, sensualized version of U Street. Other areas were more bourgeois. Neighborhoods adjacent to the campus, such as Shaw, Striver’s Row, and Le Droit Park, were the homes of the city’s Black professionals and educators, including Howard University administrators and faculty.36 In their study of the city’s Black labor force, Lorenzo Greene and Myra Colson Callis found that the city’s unemployment level in 1930 was the smallest of any large city in the United States. Washington, D.C., depended on employment in the government sector rather than in big industry, where unskilled and semiskilled workers of both races had lost jobs across the country. While Black Washingtonians lost work generally, local firms and industries—­including dairy, welding, laundry, wholesale grocery, newspapers, chain stores, and wrecking companies—­employed white

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Inscription from Langston Hughes to Marion Thompson, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives.

and Black workers. Blacks tended to hold only lower-­paid, unskilled jobs in these sectors, while whites held managerial or better-­paid staff positions. Lest Marion Wright forget her past, the difficulty for Black women to gain even domestic jobs in the city would be a reminder of what her dedication to education and respectability had allowed her to escape.37 Marion Thompson developed her own circuit of friends. She was among the revelers at the annual Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity reception at a local casino in late 1924. As a Howard University undergraduate, her social itinerary merited inclusion in national Black newspapers. In 1924, the Pittsburgh Courier reported twice on her visits to Newark, Atlantic City, and New York City in August and October 1928.38 As head of the Women’s League, an organization newly formed by Slowe, Thompson and Mabel Holloway were selected to represent Howard at the 1925 National Collegiate World Court conference held at Princeton University. As Thompson recorded the event for the newspaper, the conference elected Mabel Holloway to represent the entire southern region of the nation on the seven-­person executive committee. Two white students objected, based on Howard’s location and her race. Marion Thompson was considered as well but did not qualify because of her geographical origins. After a heated debate and prayers in which the vast majority of white students supported her, Holloway was seated despite the racists’ objections. She and Thompson returned to Howard praising the association and noting that democracy could work.39

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There were other attractions at Howard University. As the African American national university, Howard University was a must-­visit for top Black scholars and writers. Langston Hughes visited Howard University in 1926. Starting a hobby of collecting signed first editions, Marion Thompson got Hughes to inscribe her copy of The Weary Blues. Dated February 6, 1926, the occasion was likely one in which Marion Thompson met Hughes as an organizational leader. Thompson obtained other signed Hughes works in the future. She devised a personal bookplate that resembled a library checkout folder, asking any who borrowed from her collection to please return it. Earlier, she had enlisted friends to help her obtain signed copies. Glenn, a friend, got Countee Cullen to autograph his path-­breaking debut, Color, in New York City on December 20, 1925.40 Washington, D.C., held other attractions for young female undergraduates. A center of the New Negro Woman movement, the town’s Black culture moved from a politics of respectability toward greater individual expression. There were numerous hair salons to attract Marion Thompson, whose photographs display a careful attention to her hair. Nannie Helen Burroughs, founder of the National Training School for Girls and Women, advocated feminine propriety and Black style in bodily presentation but rejected practices of hair straightening and skin lightening. Washington political leader Mary Church Terrell advocated the joys of Black female artifice in hair design and accepted the realities of African American stylization. As this photograph indicates, Marion Thompson combined stylish clothing with straightened hair.41 While the 1920s were a new era for personal sexual self-­expression, older attitudes about Black uplift and strict morality prevailed in proper Washington Black society. Young Black undergraduate women were expected to be moral and feminine beyond any feminist goals. Personal chastity was the litmus test for a young woman’s reputation and served as a class and cultural wedge between middle-­class college women and the masses of poorer Black females. Black female club women, who were from the class to which Thompson aspired, urged higher levels of morality, in part to retain the respect of Black men. As someone who had emerged from impoverished circumstances and had a secret life of a past marriage and children, Thompson’s daily existence was filled with constant anxiety over discovery of her Newark life. Open revelations about her past would spur condemnation from the school president and likely from her peers. Expulsion and shunning would surely follow.42 Clothing was another marker of class difference. Despite public disapproval of the parade of dances, parties, teas, and other social affairs, Black women had trouble keeping up with the demands of fashion. At Howard University, undergraduate women expected to spend over five hundred dollars annually on clothing, which amounted to nearly a working person’s yearly earnings. Marion Thompson would have to walk a fine line between being fashionable and falling into debt.43 Dean Slowe was an invaluable ally. Under Slowe’s guidance and following the example of upper-­class women who had helped her, Marion Thompson began mentoring younger female students. Her benevolent desire almost led to disaster. There was an opening in the personnel office to replace someone absent for a term. An anonymous letter to Thompson threatened exposure to the president of the school, the conservative Mordecai Johnson, and to Lucy Slowe, the Dean of Women, if she accepted the position. Distressed, Thompson broke her silence and told Slowe her secrets. Slowe asked Thompson to produce the marriage license and divorce. After

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Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe, 1929, courtesy of Moorland-­Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

she viewed the documents, Slowe told Thompson to say nothing further about it. The immediate problem dissolved when the friend for whom she was to substitute changed plans and canceled the leave. Once that danger eased, Thompson began to expand her mentoring. She directed a younger student, Selma White Palmer, to work with the famous minister Rev. John Clarence Wright of the First Congregational Church of Atlanta so that Palmer could earn a degree in social work. Rev. Wright was also the brother of Arthur M. Wright of Newark, whom Marion Thompson was dating at the time. Selma White Palmer and Marion Thompson remained close friends throughout life. After Selma’s first marriage failed, she turned to Thompson for succor and lived with her to regain personal stability. When Marion Thompson was a graduate student, she “took an interest” in Theodora Daniel, later wife of Walter G. Daniel, who became one of Wright’s closest colleagues in Howard University’s education department. Theodora Daniel recalled Thompson’s role as an instructor in educational sociology as imaginative and interpretive. Theodora Daniel remembered Thompson as having very high standards, a strong sense of purpose, and expected the very best of her students. After her marriage to Walter, Theodora Daniel and Marion Thompson Wright remained close friends and took lengthy trips together. Marion Thompson worked with male students as well. She provided financial assistance to Dr. Elias Blake, who later headed the

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Marion Thompson, Bison Yearbook, 1927, courtesy of Moorland-­ Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

counseling service she initiated in 1946. She was known as a “big sister” to Carroll Miller, later chair of the education department, and a close friend of Wright’s. Decades later, Miller tried to complete Wright’s manuscript on Lucy Diggs Slowe. While his death prevented finishing the book, he is listed as a coauthor.44 Marion Thompson graduated from Howard University magna cum laude in 1927. Her yearbook epigram reflected her powerful relationship with her mother: “All That I Am, or Hope to Be, I owe to My Mother.”45 After graduation from Howard University, Marion Thompson could easily have found employment as a school teacher in a Black school anywhere in the United States. While teaching was the overwhelming destination for college-­educated Black women, there were reasons not to choose this path. Black teachers were underpaid, worked in difficult conditions, had little or no contact with their white counterparts, seldom married, and were often resented by poorer Blacks. White-­dominated schools in New Jersey rarely hired Blacks, male or female, to teach white children.46 Marion Thompson remained at Howard University after she received a fellowship for a master’s degree in education. Charles Thompson (no relation), dean of the School of Education at Howard, encouraged her scholarship. Recruited by Dwight Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Thompson ascended to full professor in just three years. He was noted for encouraging female scholars. As a graduate student, Marion Thompson continued to work with Howard students, organizing the Pestalozzi-­Froebel Society for undergraduates studying education. The society supported kindergarten for all. Marion Thompson received an MA degree in June 1928.47 Earning an advanced degree in educational studies at Howard University was a significant achievement. Charles Thompson was publishing important articles in prestigious journals, organizing tight networks of like-­minded scholars, and pushing the benefits of integrated education. He had garnered sizable fame for his 1928 article “The Educational Achievements of Negro Children,” which appeared in the prestigious Annals of the American Academy of Science. His thesis that Black children were not inherently inferior to white children but that their mental and scholastic

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Charles H. Thompson, courtesy of Moorland-­Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

achievements were a direct function of their educational and environmental opportunities was a landmark finding.48 Marion Thompson’s MA thesis carried the weighty title of “A Comparative Study of the Efficiency of Public White and Colored State School Systems in Sixteen States.” Replete with twenty-­ three full-­page tables, the work is a quantified tour de force. After exhaustively reviewing past efforts to understand the values of the parallel systems,49 Thompson studied their comparative values using statistics provided by state boards of education, the United States Census Bureau, and state superintendents of education. Some agencies responded that most states did not keep separate accounts for white and Black schools.50 Thompson’s tables on school enrollment, school attendance, school terms, high school attendance, the number of teachers per student, and teacher salaries are dense forests of data. Ultimately, she found that only in West Virginia were Black schools more efficient than white. Tabulating data

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from 1920 to 1926, Thompson concluded that “the colored schools are inferior to the white school systems,” and that these disparities were actually increasing, placing “colored children . . . at an even greater disadvantage than they were before the World War [I].” Composed decades before the NAACP’s ambitious strategy aimed at dismantling separate but equal schools, Thompson’s MA thesis demonstrated her qualities as a scholar with sizable talents and energy and with a clear agenda in place. She would use those skills again and again in the coming years.51 With her advanced degree, Thompson joined an elite group of Black women. At the same time, social maladjustment accompanied higher education. Marion Cuthbert, who was in was in the doctoral program at Columbia around the same time as Thompson, wrote a dissertation on marginality and educated Black women. Cuthbert discovered that educated Black women faced a number of social obstacles. Other members of Black society often regarded them as snobby, selfish, and clannish. They were often criticized for failing to help advance the race, though Thompson overcompensated for that concern. Educated Black women faced racial barriers for employment and were paid far less than their white counterparts. An educated Black woman had to assume total responsibility for her family. Despite such contributions, husbands and other Black men harbored “antagonisms.” The Black community at large was either indifferent or even resentful of educated Black women. At elite schools such as Columbia University, Black women faced segregation, stereotyping, and invisibility.52 At the same time, there were benefits for educated Black women. Degrees reflected personal desires and raised their own and their family’s status. As was the case with educated, white females, there were fewer children. Interracial contacts could be problematic and racist, but occasionally whites could be warm and supportive. Educated Black women were more race-­conscious and lived between two worlds: the Black community and the larger white world. Cuthbert did not identify sexism and patriarchy as underlying problems, as a scholar would today, but viewed educated Black women as leaders in racial and interracial work.53 Staying at Howard University confounded Thompson’s personal dilemma. Had she taken a job in New Jersey, she might have reconciled with her children. To help fund her studies, Howard University awarded her work as a residence counselor, with teaching duties and supervision of female students. Had President Mordecai Johnson learned of the existence of a secret family, Marion would surely have lost her job and all future contact with Howard University. As her son James put it, “Things just closed in after that; she never found a way out.”54 After earning a master’s degree, Marion Thompson became an instructor in Howard’s education department and enrolled in a program for teachers at Columbia University in the summer of 1929.55 Marion Thompson ended her college years when, identified as Marion Manola Thompson, she married Arthur Wright on April 3, 1931, in Alexandria, Virginia. Arthur Wright, a Howard University graduate, was a postal worker from Newark, seventeen years older than his new wife, and had been previously married. They had appeared socially at least since 1926. Five years is a lengthy courtship, but Marion Thompson put her education and career ahead of romance. The couple took up residence in Newark that year.56 Back in Newark with her new husband, Marion Thompson Wright could look back upon her eight years at Howard with much satisfaction. She had earned a BA and MA with high distinction

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and had become a leading campus figure with memberships in key women’s and general student organizations. She had gained several powerful mentors, including Dwight Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lucy Diggs Slowe, and Charles Thompson. Despite her second marriage, the wounds from her first marriage and her relationship with her children remained deeply unresolved. New affections had not unlocked the iron box around her soul. Newark, New Jersey, had changed in the eight years since Marion Thompson Wright had last been a full-­time resident. The Black population had grown substantially from nine thousand in 1910 to nearly thirty-­nine thousand in 1930. Housing segregation replaced older integrated neighborhoods. Despite this increase, largely fueled by migration from the South, skilled opportunities for Blacks in industrial work declined in the 1920s and cratered after the onset of the Great Depression. Work in domestic service or general labor was most common. There were fewer than one hundred Black women in professional positions in Newark in 1930.57 Marion Wright found a job in the Newark Department of Welfare then transferred to the New Jersey State Emergency Relief Organization, receiving rapid promotions to become a case supervisor. In 1935, Wright was instrumental in a massive survey of 10,000 New Jersey relief cases by the Emergency Commission. The findings surely taught her how fortunate she was to have completed an education and, sadly, had confirmed her difficult family choices. Newark, as the state’s largest city, accounted for 2,754 examples in the statewide 10,000-­family survey. Black men and women with limited education, which included her former husband, William Moss, and Black male laborers and female domestics fared the worst. Egerton Hall’s 1935 examination of Black wage earners in New Jersey likely shored up her convictions that her path, however emotionally fraught, was the right one.58 Likely her brilliant research methodology, honed at Howard University, and her dogged persistence and hard work meant that Marion Thompson Wright was able to hold on to her job as a relief investigator even during cutbacks in the employment of Black workers.59 During the survey, she met Mabel Carney, professor of rural education at Teachers College of Columbia University. Using substantial grants from the Rosenwald Fund, Carney had enabled over two hundred fifty African Americans in the late 1930s to attend Teachers College during the school year and over five hundred during the summer sessions. Carney also created a lecture series on Black life featuring W. E. B. Du Bois, Mordecai Johnson, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Marion Wright had passed qualifying examinations at Columbia in 1932. Exposure to Carney and the intellectual excitement of Teachers College undoubtedly created a hunger in Wright to finish her dissertation. She had stayed in touch with Charles Thompson, who in 1932 had founded the influential Journal of Negro Education and was a key advisor to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s reports on Black education. Marion Thompson Wright credited Charles Thompson with giving her the idea of writing on Black education in New Jersey. She lost her job when the New Jersey Emergency Relief Administration disbanded in April 1936.60 Charles Thompson’s new journal invigorated excitement for proponents of racially integrated education. Thompson and his editors focused on the direct relationship of national educational policy with school discrimination in the South and the implications of the southern states’ failure to build high-­quality, accredited high schools for Blacks. He also pointed to the inequities in teacher salaries for Blacks versus whites. His major July 1934 essay reaffirmed his earlier findings about the

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Marion Thompson, undated, late 1930s, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives.

equality of Blacks and whites as potential learners. Charles Thompson favored litigation to achieve such ends rather than the class-­based efforts urged by Ralph Bunche and Du Bois. Thompson’s Journal became the home for liberal, progressive ideals and possibilities, which Marion Thompson could easily endorse.61 Marion Wright enrolled in 1933 in a program leading to a diploma at the New York School of Social Work, established in 1898 and now part of Columbia University. Wright commuted to the school, which was located at 105 East Twenty-­Second Street in New York City. Soaring demand in the Depression years induced the school to curtail the number of part-­time students, prompting Wright to make a genuine commitment toward earning a diploma. The program of study entailed courses, fieldwork, and the preparation of a thesis. One-­third of the students were New Yorkers, while the remainder came from across the nation and internationally. Students intended either to become social workers who dealt with individuals or those who worked to bring about social changes affecting masses of people. Wright likely fell into the latter category, given her employment

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in New Jersey, though her matriculation at the school indicates that she considered social work as a career. The curriculum was increasingly oriented toward the psychological evaluation of students and toward improving the quality of education, both areas that Wright later emphasized in her teaching career. At the same time, Wright’s work experiences in New Jersey fulfilled the mandatory fieldwork component. Tuition was high, but a Rockefeller Foundation grant allotted financial assistance to Black students.62 Attendance at the New York School of Social Work introduced Wright to radical “practitioner groups” or discussion groups that emphasized public works, the NRA, labor movements, and concerns over fascism and war, all social issues that augmented Wright’s earlier exposures from Delta Theta Sigma and Howard University’s education department. The movement also had a branch in Newark that stressed education and group consciousness as means of social betterment.63 Whatever lessons Marion Wright gained from the New York School of Social Work, she had to consider race as a decider about career choices. Earlier, white social workers had strived to assimilate recent European immigrants into mainstream American society. While white social workers used class and gender methods to enable assimilation, Black social workers were always aware of the race question and the gnawing reminders of racial injustices and horrific violence. None could avoid the constant, demeaning insults of Jim Crow. Any accomplishments occurred through the lens of a class system that existed in the American caste system of racism. Wright lived this contradiction as an emergent, middle-­class northern Black woman who worked in New Jersey studying the masses of newly arrived southern Blacks, from whom she was but one generation removed.64 At the New York School of Social Work, Wright encountered a cohort of ambitious Black men and women. Among her fellow students were Ophelia Shields Johnson, the education director of the Harlem Branch of the YMCA; Frances Taylor, a caseworker in the child care division in the Department of Public Health in Washington, D.C.; Florence Adams, head of the Department of Group Work and Community Organization at the Atlanta, Georgia, School of Social Work; and William Valentine, the principal at the Bordentown Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth. In 1938, the year Wright graduated, there were 24 male and 149 female students at the New York School of Social Work, numbers that were standard across the decade. Marion Wright received a diploma from the school on February 1, 1938.65 The New York School of Social Work offered Wright a faculty position, but she declined to pursue a doctorate in education. She became a candidate in January 1932. Marion Wright and Walter G. Daniel, both identified as instructors in Howard University’s Department of Education, passed preliminary examinations for a doctorate in education at Columbia University. Marion Wright listed her field of study as “educational sociology,” a usage that W. E. B. Du Bois and E. Franklin Frazier coined that blended history and sociology to show how African Americans fit into American society. Wright and Daniel were travelers on an “intellectual corridor” connecting Howard University and graduate programs at Columbia University in the 1930s and 1940s. Wright apparently segmented her doctoral studies from her time at the New York School of Social Work. None of the key professors at the latter are mentioned in the acknowledgments section of her dissertation.66

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Walter G. Daniel, 1947, courtesy of Moorland-­Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

Along with Charles Thompson, Marion Wright maintained contact at Howard University with Lucy Diggs Slowe. While Dean Slowe battled with President Mordecai Johnson about the terms of her position, she seemed to have softened her attitude about discipline. In the 1930s, Wright and Slowe discussed the suspension of the three women in 1922. Slowe expressed regret over her intemperance. Marion responded that one of the women had thanked Slowe for helping her avoid a bad future. Slowe criticized herself saying, “You know, Marion, if I could have kept them at Howard and saved them.” Wright, decades later, remarked that Slowe continuously studied her own position, and once she realized that she had erred in her judgment was “not afraid to admit it to herself and to others.” Fear of such honest self-­scrutiny would take Marion Wright many years to overcome.67 In the 1930s, Slowe’s battles with college president Mordecai Johnson had become more visceral. The chief executive battled with many male scholars at Howard University as well. Rayford Logan disliked Johnson so much that he omitted an entry about him in his voluminous 1982 Dictionary of Negro Biography.68 Johnson was notorious for referring always to female academics, regardless of rank, as “daughter.” Johnson’s fights with Slowe were particularly fierce and damaging. Johnson

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mandated that Slowe abandon her private residence and live on campus, a move that would have exposed Slowe’s homosocial relationship with her partner, Mary Burrill. Slowe also feared living in a college home would reduce her standing among female students to that of a matron. Slowe refused to live on campus. She accused Johnson of pay disparity with male administrators and having failed to back her in a dispute with a male faculty member who had written “vile” accusations against a female undergraduate. Wright supported Slowe during her travails. She wrote to Board of Trustees member Channing Tobias on October 11, 1933, begging for his intercession with Johnson, telling him how concerned alumnae felt demoralized by the president’s demands on Slowe, how Howard needed to reduce fears of female insecurity.69 Slowe’s battles with Johnson damaged her health, and she died on October 21, 1937. Slowe’s funeral attracted testimonials from sororities, students, deans from across the nation, the Howard University Board of Trustees, and her personal friends. Doubtless, Marion Wright attended the packed service at Rankin Chapel on the Howard campus. Mary Burrill asked President Mordecai Johnson not to attend, though he slipped in as the service started and sat by himself. Burrill soon fired off an angry letter to the Howard University Board of Trustees, complaining of the treatment of Slowe and demanding her past salary. Burrill also snubbed Howard University when she donated Slowe’s papers to Morgan State College in Baltimore; the archive did not come to Howard until 1966.70 Despite her early death, Slowe remained foremost in Wright’s life. James Allen Moss contends that Slowe’s death was a heavy blow to his mother. Twenty years later, Wright began a biography of her old mentor. In her notes for the biography, Marion Thompson Wright recorded that “because of [Slowe’s] depleted physical condition brought on by hypertension, which had continued over many years, she succumbed to a cardio-­vascular renal disease.” Wright wrote, “Dean Slowe became a martyr to her ideals for education in general of student personnel work in particular so the Negro youth might live more wholesomely and, more abundantly.” Wright observed that Slowe was regarded as impertinent and even disrespectful and, as was often the case of women entering nontraditional jobs, “had left one social group without being able to gain acceptance in another.” As the only woman on many committees or advisory groups, Slowe was “extravisible,” a term that could later apply to Marion Wright herself. When preparing her biography of Slowe in the early 1960s, Wright secured testimonials about the dean from surviving friends, colleagues, and students. She also supplied her own sentiments, describing Slowe as “an inspiring and creative teacher of English,” whom colleagues regarded as a “conscientious and insightful administrator dedicated to high principles in the performance of other duties.” Plainly, Marion Wright looked to Slowe as a rigorous and devoted role model in whom she could create her own destiny.71 Such was the tenor of a lengthy letter that Marion Wright sent to Slowe on September 16, 1936, a year before the dean’s demise. It was ostensibly a letter of recommendation for Julia Spain Cheevens, whom Wright had met earlier. Cheevens had graduated from the Minor School in 1925, then taught at public schools in Oxford, North Carolina, and Albany, Georgia. She planned to pursue further education at Howard in 1936 and Wright believed she would serve as a valuable assistant to Slowe. Wright reported to her mentor that she had enjoyed a lovely summer in Montclair

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Minnie B. Holmes Thompson, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives.

and was pleased that Howard friends had come to stay with her. She hoped that Slowe would do the same so that “we may soon have the pleasure of entertaining you in our house.” Ending the letter with “Lovingly yours, Marion Thompson Wright,” the former student displayed her deep affection for Slowe.72 During the early 1930s, Arthur and Marion Wright lived at 38 Berwyn Street in East Orange, over seven miles away from her former husband and children. Minnie Thompson maintained her home at 50 Thomas Street, about a mile closer to her grandchildren.73 A few years later, Marion and Arthur Wright moved to 154 Lincoln Street in Montclair before purchasing a home down the block at 144 Lincoln. The home was a modest two-­story structure, with an ample front porch and sizable back lawn where Marion Wright planted a garden. It was a vast upgrade on the apartments where Wright had lived in Newark and far better than the home where her children resided with their father. The new home, which cost about six thousand

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Marion Thompson Wright, in front of her home at 144 Lincoln Avenue, Montclair, late 1930s, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives.

dollars, meant that the Wrights were now in the upper-­middle rank of Montclair’s Black society. This house remained the home for Arthur and Minnie, his mother-­in-­law, for the remainder of their lives.74 Black middle-­class life during the Depression was always precarious. Arthur Wright faced a significant crisis in March 1936, about the same time his wife’s employment ended, when the Newark post office inspector accused him of a “shortage of $14.17 found in your fixed credit of $250.” He could be suspended and even discharged. Arthur Wright sent a plaintive letter stating that he had intended to return the cash upon receiving his paycheck and begged forgiveness based on his ten years of honorable service. The chairman of the executive council of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, Newark Branch, wrote a letter of support, arguing that the removal of funds was

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temporary and contending that “dismissal would be too severe in this case . . . requesting that he be given another chance in the Office.”75 Arthur Wright’s membership saved his job. He advanced in the Black National Alliance of Postal Workers, becoming the treasurer for the sizable Newark local. The Alliance, closely aligned with the NAACP, was a staunch Black activist organization, pushing hard for a Double V strategy during World War II and battling segregation at all times.76 Nonetheless, the threat to Arthur Wright’s job was a reminder of his insecure financial position. Seventeen years older than his wife, Arthur Wright faced dilemmas that burdened many middle-­ class Black husbands during this era. Contemporary mores dictated that the “New Negro Man” hold a financial and professional position and be the breadwinner in his family and, optimally, his wife remain a homemaker. The couple’s reality was distant from that male fantasy. Marion Wright was employed for most of the 1930s, sought professional advancement through advanced study, and was apparently unwilling to give up any of her pursuits outside of the home. Had Arthur Wright lost his position, he would have fallen into an undesirable dependency. Marion Wright’s ambitions do not suggest that she would tolerate such a situation.77 Relations with her siblings were distant. As Marion Thompson Wright settled into life in northern New Jersey, her sisters moved to Port Royal in Carolina County, Virginia. Their mother had left the tiny town thirty years earlier. Gladys Thompson married Jerry Roots, with whom she had a daughter, Edna. Nellie Thompson lived in the same town, a single woman with two children, Champ and Dorothy. They were in touch with brother Arnold Thompson, who had moved to Trenton during this period. In a later message to Thelma Moss, which indicated that there had been little contact between his birth family and him, Arnold Thompson had been married to a woman named Clyde but divorced her after many years of marriage after he discovered that she was a divorcée and that her previous husband was still alive. Arnold Thompson became a preacher offering salvation sermons to congregations in nearby Yardley, Pennsylvania, and supported himself as a handyman. Arnold Thompson’s dismissal of his wife because of a long-­past marriage along with Nellie’s single motherhood indicates the extensive damage their parents’ divorce had wreaked on their psyches.78 Meanwhile, William Moss and his blended family, including his children by Marion Thompson; his new wife, Lulu; her daughter, Willimae; and a boarder, lived in Newark at 24 Avon Place, an apartment building. William Moss was employed as a laundry steamer, a semiskilled, low-­paid position. By 1940, the children had moved out and Lulu was gone. William Moss and a new wife, Ada, lived at 66 Barclay Street.79 Marion Thompson Wright could not legally visit her teenage children, so she often watched from a car while her children cavorted in playgrounds. She attempted to contact her daughter, Thelma Mae Moss, but William Moss refused to allow any communication. Later, Marion Wright and her maturing son, James Moss, corresponded by mail even though they lived nearby. In a 1939 letter, Wright explained that “you made it increasingly difficult for me to work with you, so for the time, I gave up.” What, she asked her son, “would you have done in the same circumstances?” Such a question to an anxious son emerging into adulthood seems unnecessarily hard and even cruel, but Marion Thompson Wright had made herself and was about to ascend into what for her

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must have seemed a dream world of teaching and research. Her inability to reach her son with love and kindliness came from her hard choice two decades earlier. Her son recalled this period as a “struggle of the adolescent male to join with and separate from his mother.”80 A second letter from August 1939 demonstrated Wright’s brittle status insecurity. James Moss had apparently referred to her as “Doctor” in a financial statement. Though Marion Wright was working assiduously at her dissertation, she sharply admonished her son for using a title “to which I have no claim.” She detested, she let her son know, “empty titles,” and wanted to be known by “Mrs.” rather than a term she had yet to earn, as “white people prefer to call you by any other name than ‘Mr. or Mrs.,’” which are the titles for gentlepeople. Wright’s sensitivity to self-­parody and racial ridicule was a lesson she wanted to pass along to her son.81 Publication in 1939 of Howard University professor E. Franklin Frazier’s book The Negro Family in the United States exacerbated Wright’s anguish. In the book, Frazier excoriated postmigration Black motherhood. Frazier claimed that life in the cities created immoral Black women, including those who might kill their children and throw them into the garbage can. Wright certainly had not murdered her children, but she had discarded them. Frazier also condemned female promiscuity for the production of disordered families and thereby created masculine weakness. While such attacks did not hit Wright directly, their messages surely made her suffer more for her decision years earlier.82 Marion Thompson Wright’s marriage to Arthur Wright faltered after his problems at work. Even while married, Marion Thompson Wright looked afield for greater satisfaction. She wrote openly seductive letters to Lorenzo Greene, who had graduated from Howard two years before Thompson, worked for Carter Woodson, and had become a distinguished historian. He had already published a book, The Employment of Negroes in the District of Columbia, with Woodson’s Associated Press and spent two years as an itinerant salesman for the press. Wright opened her heart to Greene about her academic frustrations. Written toward the end of her period in Newark, Wright referred to her dissertation as a straitjacket and expressed feelings of loneliness and isolation: “But that’s the whole trouble—­always I’ve been alone, with nothing vital to give me a sense of anchorage, with the feeling that I make it or not.” In a subsequent letter, Wright bared her disappointment in love: “But you see, I happen to have a tremendous capacity to be loved—­really—­I have a tremendous capacity to love—­but when one is continually frustrated as I have been—­life somehow loses its zest.” Unfortunately for Wright, as his diaries written while working for Woodson indicate, Greene was adept at sparking amorous feelings from many women, even as he very gradually moved toward marriage in 1942 to Thomasina Talley, a concert pianist.83 Family ties disappointed her, so Marion Wright looked to associations and scholarship for succor. Marion Wright stayed in touch with her Delta Sigma Theta sorors, attending the national convention in New York City in 1938.84 Her academic life provided more long-­term challenges and support. Marion Wright’s incomplete dissertation finally came into fruition in the late 1930s. Merle Curti, the eminent social historian at Columbia University, was one of the few white scholars who considered Black history a worthy field and, more so, was willing to mentor a Black female scholar. Curti was devoted to proving that education could change social attitudes. This argument

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Merle Curti, courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society.

was close to a “master myth” in twentieth-­century America. Curti was a pacifist and a socialist and was deeply concerned with women’s rights and the plight of the ordinary person. He was a Harvard classmate with Charles Wesley, a top Howard University history professor. While teaching at Smith College, Curti arranged for W. E. B. Du Bois to give a lecture there. He told Du Bois that he was especially interested in getting sympathetic whites and “many young Negro scholars” to study Black history in all its aspects. After he moved to Columbia, Curti was well-­positioned to enable Marion Wright’s progress toward her doctorate.85 A deadline nudged Marion Wright to complete her studies. Other Black women were completing landmark dissertations. Wright received a message from Columbia that her candidacy for the doctorate would expire on July 1, 1939. She sprang into action, going to archives, writing, and very importantly, keeping in touch with her mentor. She also learned that Curti’s name opened doors for her. When traveling to Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges to work in their famed Peace Collections, she displayed Curti’s letters of introduction. The staff became more alert, asked many questions about him, and mentioned their desire to get a copy of his book The Learned Blacksmith while giving Wright inside information. Wright’s affiliation with Curti got her admission to the “sanctum sanctorum,” the law library at the Prudential Insurance Company in Newark where she “got a complete and final report on the funds [Tadeusz] Kosciusko was to have left for the

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Marion Thompson Wright, doctoral graduation photo, 1940, Scurlock Studio, courtesy of Moorland-­Spingarn Center, Howard University.

freedom and education of negroes” and that was supposed to be “used for the founding of a colored school in Newark.” Wright also mentioned her research on other early Black schools in New Jersey and discussed her immediate plans to travel to Washington to work at the Library of Congress.86 Wright’s years working in the New Jersey State relief organizations doubtless attuned her to successful interrelations with important white people, a mandatory skill in an era when a Black person’s presence at any archive was automatically suspect. The New York Public Library demanded a formal statement from Curti before giving her access to the rare book room. Wright kept Curti informed of her progress.87 Wright was courteous, respectful, and open in her messages with Merle Curti. Deborah Gray White has noted that middle-­class Black women were often distrustful and wary of white people. Doubtless, many of them had experiential histories that taught them to be so. Wright, however, had

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been raised in a semi-­integrated neighborhood in Newark and had graduated from a high school where she had to deal with whites. Curti was a very sophisticated, liberally minded white mentor. In fact, he was one of very few white scholars who would teach a Black woman.88 Wright defended her dissertation in the summer of 1939, then marched in the procession and received her diploma in 1940, one of ten scholars at Columbia working on topics related to Blacks. She informed Curti of this and other happy news. While spending most of her summer resting, she purchased a new home up the street at 144 Lincoln Street. Her husband, Arthur, and mother, Minnie, accompanied her in the move. Notably, Wright signed this letter as “Marion Thompson Wright,” though previous missives were signed as “Marion Thompson.”89 The 1930s, so catastrophic for many Black and white people, favored Marion Thompson Wright. She had been employed most of the decade in rewarding work. She secured a diploma in social work from a top program in New York City and capped that with the nation’s first earned doctorate in the discipline of history by a Black woman, working under the mentorship of a lauded, respected American historian, Merle Curti. Except, of course, that she was a Black woman in a patriarchal, racist profession. She converted its currency into a professorship at Howard University, the capstone of Black education. She was also a homeowner in Montclair, New Jersey, arguably the center for the state’s Black bourgeoisie. Not all was glowing. She had lost her mentor, Lucy Diggs Slowe, but retained ties with Charles Thompson. Her marriage to Arthur Wright was shaky, and she seemed content to leave him in Montclair with her mother. Thelma Moss, her daughter, soon joined the household in Montclair. Mother and son, James Moss, exchanged powerful letters seeking to find some common ground. He needed his mother’s support, though that and even recognition of her maternity, seemed elusive. The decade ended with significant achievements and unresolved personal problems.

Return to Howard, 1940s By completing her dissertation and then publishing her book in 1941 with Columbia University Press, Wright joined Black female scholars who took what Anna Julia Cooper called “the Third Step” by earning a PhD in this era. In addition to Marion Cuthbert, the ranks of Columbia-­trained scholars included 1945 graduate Beverly L. Greene, the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in architecture. Marie Maynard Daly received her degree in Chemistry from Columbia in 1947, the first Black woman in the nation to do so. Mamie Phipps Clarke gained a doctorate in psychology from Columbia in 1944, a year after her husband, Kenneth. Their distinguished careers and research sustained the complaint in the Brown v. Board of Education decision a decade later and then continued to inspire the civil rights movement. Among the male holders of Columbia doctorates was Lorenzo Greene (1942), whose dissertation The Negro in Colonial New England is still read with benefit today. One should not overlook the work of Herbert Aptheker, a Jewish New Yorker with a “Black heart,” whose 1944 doctoral dissertation on slave insurrections in America is the seminal work in the field of Black resistance to chattel bondage.90 The doctorate provided Marion Wright other new chances. She had considered returning to her old job at the family agency, but then received two new offers, one to be a research assistant

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in the Washington, D.C., public school system and the second, which she accepted, to rejoin the education department at Howard. In messages to Merle Curti, she wondered what it would be like to return to the department after an eight-­year absence. Wright expressed her profound gratitude to Curti, for his “kind, friendly manner in which you took me, a total stranger, on for supervision.” Had he known how much “fear that gripped me as the time approached for our first interview,” he might have understood “what your warm greeting meant to me.” She was not just being polite. No less a personage than John Hope Franklin contended that to be a Black scholar in white American academia was to be “indescribably lonely.” Very few whites regarded Black history as a worthy project. The major associations were either rigorously or informally segregated. Archives, except for the Library of Congress, did their best to either refuse Blacks admission or make them as unwelcome as possible. At the same time, a number of Black males, most notably Rayford Logan, John Hope Franklin, and Charles Wesley of Howard University along with Alrutheus Ambush Taylor, Lorenzo Greene, Luther Porter Jackson, W. Sherman Savage, and James Hugo Johnson were creating histories that made white scholars take notice.91 Even after finishing her degree, Wright remained respectful, even diffident in her relations with Merle Curti. She attended the 1940 American Historical Society meeting in New York City where Curti had arranged a panel session on “The Negro in the History of the United States” that included W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles Wesley, Rayford Logan of Howard University, and Vernon Wharton of Millsaps College, with commentary by Alex M. Arnette and A. Ray Newsome of the University of North Carolina and Horace Mann Bond, president of Fort Valley College. It was the first time Du Bois had spoken at the American Historical Association in decades and was easily the largest collection ever of Black scholars at the conference. Papers were mimeographed and circulated in advance to spur discussion. Wright expressed her gratitude for Curti’s efforts in making the session possible but was “disappointed at my inability to tell you at the time but you were a very busy person.” Even being his successful doctoral student did not allow Wright to push her way to the front of the crowd around Curti.92 Achieving the doctorate put Wright at a higher status. While it perhaps marginalized her even more, it opened doors to greater financial worth. Though Wright was married, she did not share the burden of child-­rearing and was free to travel and chart her own course. With a separate residence in Washington, D.C., she had much greater liberty.93 Her anxieties about her past continued. Howard University, though politically progressive toward an integrated society, remained socially very conservative. One woman was expelled from the university when she dated a dining room waiter. In a letter to her son, James Moss, in 1939, Marion Wright advised, “In the field in which I am working” divorce was a very real handicap. This was because “so conservative are many of our communities.” Marion Wright’s current troubles with her husband, Arthur, likely weighed upon her mind as much as her first divorce. She had even turned down a permanent job elsewhere because she realized that “someone opposed to a divorced woman in that field would probably make it difficult for all concerned.”94 There were other moments when exposure loomed. James Moss applied for insurance and listed his mother on the form. The agent inquired about Marion Wright at the Howard University registrar’s office; they knew that she had no children and so concluded that the agent was in

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error. Another time at Howard University, Marion Wright scolded her son that a “little friend of yours. . . . A little light girl with reddish hair, came up to me in the hall” and announced, “I did not know you were Jimmie’s mother.” Wright was aware that the young lady was friends with many faculty members and, given her proclivities for talking, expected that the whispering campaign would soon begin, as “tact is not one of her virtues.”95 Marion Wright’s last surviving letter to her son during this period was more conciliatory. She expressed her pleasure that he was working with his problems, which seemed to be primarily financial. Marion Wright was more interested in her son’s political views. He apparently referred to himself as a radical, which she noted, depended on “time, place, and people.” Young people, she observed, were now raising very pertinent questions; if he could “find [his] way about amidst the current confusion, [he] was doing very well.” She expressed anxiety that he was favoring communism, which she noted was “supposed to be anti-­imperialist” but had now “marched against Finland and poor Poland” in addition to other “grabs.” With such advice, Wright positioned herself in the anticommunist, liberal wing of Black intellectuals.96 Despite her anxieties, Wright was able to secure and sustain her job at Howard University. Getting a job at Howard in those days did not require surpassing a national search. One was simply asked to come. Contracts were annual; a new professor was given two years on approval. Professors then went through a perfunctory process, though they needed to have a doctorate for tenure. New associate professors had to wait five years to obtain tenure; assistant professors had to endure a pair of three-­year terms. She was an assistant professor in 1941 but was one of the few members of the education department with a doctorate, let alone a published book, and with an award-­winning article on the way. Nonetheless, she taught summer school at Howard University in 1941.97 Publications were not, however, a sure road to promotion at Howard. Esteemed historian John Hope Franklin commented that his years at Howard were “stressful. It is not without significance that the Howard period was the [one] in which I did the least of my publishing.” Franklin gained numerous honors during his years at Howard University including a coveted Guggenheim Fellow­ ship, but the school took him off the payroll when he received the grant. Overall, Franklin contended that, at the university, the facilities for research, teaching load, “and all the other things” stood in the way of scholarly productivity. Because of President Mordecai Johnson’s treatment of the faculty, Franklin “regarded Howard years as my most unhappy years.” He and his resourceful wife were ecstatic when Brooklyn College offered him a job in 1956.98 Franklin’s career ultimately placed him among the preeminent American historians. In the 1940s, Marion Thompson Wright was his peer. Her book—­published by an excellent university press—­articles, reviews, editorship, national service, and massive university committee work far surpassed the suggested criteria for academic promotion at all research universities. Her family life demanded little of her as she lived apart from her husband. Her adult children were estranged. As she became a tenured associate professor in 1946, Marion Thompson Wright’s career had a sturdy platform for takeoff to greater accomplishment.99 Such success had obstacles. Teaching at Howard University meant real work for not much pay. During Wright’s first year at Howard teaching, responsibilities were fifteen hours per week during three quarters. The median pay at her level was $2,300 per year, but there were only six

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The Miner Building, Howard University, which was home to Teachers College (eventually renamed the School/College of Education), courtesy of Moorland-­Spingarn Center, Howard University.

salary raises across the 76 full-­time faculty members. Professors were expected to provide considerable committee service, though, under the autocratic reign of President Mordecai Johnson, the reality of faculty governance was illusory. Reflecting wartime needs, the Department of Education adjusted its curriculum to determine “civilian morale among Negroes,” reflecting its support for the Double V campaign: victory abroad and victory at home. There was ample concern in Wright’s early years about the quality and purpose of student counseling at the university.100 In addition to research, teaching, and committee work, Howard professors, especially women, were expected to provide a familial atmosphere for undergraduates. Indeed, the demands on women faculty to help students detracted from their research.101 Marion Thompson Wright was determined to do it all. What Howard University did have was location. The Library of Congress was nearby and integrated. Other historians constantly visited. The city held immense attractions in Black culture and was perhaps less segregated than New York City, Princeton, Chicago, Berkeley, or Boston, venues highly attractive to white intellectuals. Franklin recalled the faculty at Howard as he commenced his career there. Among the luminaries were Sterling Brown in the English department; Alain

Title Page of Marion Thompson Wright, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey (New York: Columbia Teachers College Press, 1941), collection of the author, photograph by Rich Grant.

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Locke in philosophy; Ralph Bunche in political science; Rayford Logan, Eric Williams, and Merze Tate in history; and E. Franklin Frazier in sociology, to cite a shortened version of Franklin’s list. The theology, medical, and law schools were all distinguished.102 In addition to Tate, Howard University was the home for a number of female scholars. Librarian Dorothy Porter Wesley was a significant contributor to the history of abolition and early Black literature. Lulu Johnson, Loraine Johnson, Susie Owen Lee, Elsie Lewis, Helen G. Edmonds, Margaret Rowley, and Wright formed, in Pero Dogbovie’s words, “the first coterie of formally trained Black women historians.”103 Howard University was regarded from top to bottom as a patriarchal school, but during World War II, it was very much a woman’s world. In addition to the outstanding female faculty, wartime call-­ups meant many male students had left for the service, leaving behind a school body that was sixty percent female.104 Her home education department was first-­rate and housed the top-­ranked Journal of Negro Education. The depth of intellectual talent at Howard University meant that many departments surpassed most counterparts in national white universities.105 Wright found companionship among other Howard University faculty. In addition to Theodora Daniel, her former student and now wife of colleague Walter Daniel, Wright became close friends with Lois Maillou Jones, a major African American artist and faculty member at Howard University, and with Celine Marie Tabary, a French white scholar and painter and a faculty member at Howard University in the 1950s. Wright was either given or purchased paintings from Jones and Tabary for her personal collection.106 Wright next wrote to Curti in 1943 after learning that he was leaving Columbia to teach at the University of Wisconsin. While hoping that Curti would be happy in Wisconsin, Wright expressed her sadness as “many of us had hoped that your liberal and just attitudes would be pervading the atmosphere of Teachers College for years to come.” She sent him an offprint of her new article on “New Jersey Laws and the Negro” that was soon appearing in the Journal of Negro History. She also asked Curti a professional question about good commentary on the use of hypotheses in historical research. Wright mentioned that she was traveling to the South for the first time to be a guest instructor at Alabama State University (ASU) in Montgomery, Alabama. President George Washington Trenholm of ASU devoted much energy to Black history in the campus pedagogy. While Trenholm had to tread lightly in the severely racist state of Alabama, he was able to attract a wide spectrum of Black scholars to a literary club on campus. Among the luminaries who spent time at ASU were poets Margaret Walker Alexander, Langston Hughes, Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, novelists Zora Neale Hurston and Arna Bontemps, singer Marian Anderson, and the king of intellectuals, W. E. B. Du Bois. During her sojourn at ASU, Wright spent time with John Hope and Aurelia Franklin, who had also devoted their summer to teaching in the South. She closed by sending warm wishes to Curti’s wife. ASU provided Wright with outreach for her scholarly arguments to Black colleges and access to a haven of Black thought in the American South.107 Meanwhile, she could enjoy the success of her book. Wright’s study covers from the colonial period to World War II, creating a synthetic history of Black New Jersey that inspired Clement Price and Gilles Wright among others.108 Along with her subtle blend of relevant secondary sources, Wright displayed a thorough reading of primary sources, some of them very difficult to obtain at the time or even today. She announced the book’s intentions in the preface, arguing that if schools

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are the laboratory for greater democracy, then it is necessary to study those place and times where conditions deny education.109 Her influences were several. Curti deeply influenced Wright. In a lengthy passage that Wright quoted in her dissertation from Curti’s famous book, The Social Ideas of American Educators, the educator contended that intellectuals, especially those in academe, had to recognize their class positions and humbly “rise above the limitations of their class and personal backgrounds . . . obsolete ideas and emotional attitudes” to become “whole-­hearted pioneers in the building of a better social order.” Wright’s dissertation combined the moral tone of this passage with a condemnation of segregation and the cultural support of racism. Curti also promoted an interdisciplinary approach. Considered one of the fathers of modern social history, Curti recommended that scholars broaden their approaches to incorporate other branches of the social sciences. Wright took this advice naturally as it fit into her life experience and intellectual propensities. Accordingly, while her major works were in the discipline of history, she also wrote extensively in educational studies, guidance, and literature.110 Her book also confronted the challenges posited by Carter Woodson’s jeremiad against educated Blacks. Writing in The Miseducation of the Negro, Woodson blasted Black college graduates as sour, pessimistic imitators of white oppressors. Educated Blacks, Woodson argued, “decry any such thing as race consciousness” and dismiss any efforts at a racial history as inviting racial discrimination. Wright’s study of New Jersey uniquely examined northern Blacks at a time when virtually all other discussion focused on southern African American life. Her powerful moral tone contrasted sharply with Woodson’s pessimism about middle-­class Black reformers.111 Wright cited John Dewey’s concept of instrumentalism as an influence. Dewey and his daughter, Evelyn, wrote Schools of Tomorrow in 1915 followed by Democracy and Education in 1916, both of which described experimental schools that ushered democracy into a renewed system of mass public education. Dewey pointed to a Black school in Indianapolis, principaled by William J. Valentine, later head of the Bordentown School in New Jersey. While Marion Wright was critical of the Bordentown School, she contended that education must be democratic in practice in order to insure democracy in society.112 Wright’s book was the most sophisticated study on Black life and education in New Jersey, indeed next to Greene’s study of New England, the best history of African Americans in the American north published before the 1960s. Wright ably combines the history of education and religion with slavery and Black-­earned freedom. Her connection between abolitionism and the growth of Black leadership anticipated the work of Benjamin Quarles. Wright demonstrated that school segregation was not only a southern state problem but that New Jersey’s system showed the same discriminatory methods, using a model that allotted a pittance for Black students, who learned in subpar buildings and classrooms and were taught by underpaid, overworked teachers with few outlets for ambition and promotion. The social consequences were juvenile delinquency, crime, joblessness, and poverty. Wright’s liberal approach indicated that racial change was necessary for Blacks and whites to achieve a true American democracy. Using arguments that echoed those of W. E. B. Du Bois, Wright’s scholarship inspired later critics of northern Jim Crow such as Thomas Sugrue.113

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Above all, Wright’s study shows the application of history to political goals. A fervent activist toward school desegregation, Wright demonstrated, especially in the later chapters, how much Jim Crow education hampered the growth of young Blacks and by extension, of society. She would continue to connect history and public policy goals in her future publications and activities. Wright’s dissertation, with its emphasis on the religious origins of Black education, contrasted with a similar, well-­known book published a few years earlier. Horace Mann Bond’s Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel emphasized economic factors in the pedagogical methods used to instruct the state’s Black population.114 Despite their philosophical differences, Bond wrote a very gracious review of The Education of Negroes in New Jersey for the Journal of Negro Education. Bond called Wright’s book a “significant contribution to the literature in a number of fields.” He complimented Wright’s research, methodology, and “calm and dispassionate exposition.” Wright, contended Bond, was resurrecting the study of political reform as a valuable technique toward the history of education. He related the Fair Haven controversy of 1881, as recited by Wright, as one that could have happened “in 1901, 1911, or in 1921.” Wright’s style, Bond assured the reader “is liquid, and would be acceptable in a volume of a lighter theme.” It is “nothing short of possessing distinction.”115 Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University, another highly prominent scholar, praised Wright’s “thorough and painstaking” work in the prestigious American Journal of Sociology and argued that the book’s arguments held profoundly useful implications for American educational policy. Thomas E. Drake, writing in the Bulletin of the Friends Historical Society, blessed Wright’s determined effort to show how integration was positive and that advocates of segregation were either prejudiced whites or clannish Blacks. Drake did point out the lack of an index and noted several typos including an allusion to the “Quakerana Collection at Haverford.”116 Marion Wright’s approach, which expressed strong support and appreciation for interracial activism and the importance of religion and education, contrasted with Bond’s work and with the class interpretations popular among important contemporary Howard scholars. As Jonathan Scott Holloway has shown, Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche wrote powerful critiques of the Black past that contended that class mattered as much as race. Wright’s cultural approach countered their popular arguments.117 Marion Wright also put her research for the Emergency Relief Administration to use by publishing her first article in the Journal of Negro Education in July 1940. The article explored the experiences of Black youth in the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration.118 Washington, D.C., was also the home of the Association of Negro Life and History, its flagship Journal of Negro History, the Associated Press—­which published important monographs—­and the overwhelming energy of founding editor and historian, Carter G. Woodson. Since founding the association and journal in 1915, Woodson, in addition to writing twenty-­three books, had established Black history as an academic and popular subject. The journal attracted submissions by top scholars and included articles that read far better today than most published in major white historical periodicals of the era. Woodson was openly contemptuous of Black academe and could be very crusty but was supportive of and rewarded Black female historians. While Woodson did not publish studies of Black women’s history or engage in battles for female rights, he did publish important articles in the journal that reconstructed negative views of Black women and welcomed

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their efforts at writing and publicizing Black history. The Association’s headquarters was an open, welcoming resource center for Black scholarship. Woodson was far ahead of his time in acknowledging Black women’s history and even challenging the masculinist ideologies of his time.119 Marion Wright was a key member of the cohort of new, credentialed Black women historians. For generations, Black female scholars came from the ranks of club women and enthusiastically supported Carter Woodson’s public Black history. Now Wright, joined by Marion Cuthbert, Edna Colson, Dorothy Porter, and Marie Carpenter, created dissertations and books that were academically skilled and examined the effects and legal grounding of Jim Crow.120 At first, the publication of her book earned Marion Wright greater acclaim. Gunnar Myrdal cited her book in his massive study, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy.121 By 1947, New Jersey, influenced by Marion’s book, voted to end segregation in key areas of social life. New Jersey’s desegregation of public schools proved a pathway for the Truman administration’s integration of the armed forces.122 After her book appeared, Marion Wright published three influential articles. “Mr. Baxter’s School,” an examination of a successful nineteenth-­century New Jersey Black school, appeared in the spring of 1941. Later that year, she published a terrific article on Quakers as revolutionary-­era social workers among Blacks in the Bulletin of the Friends Historical Society. She branched out into another discipline in the article “Have You Met the Social Worker?” in Schools and Society in Spring 1942. Her review of Frank Klingberg’s book on Blacks in early South Carolina won the prize for best annual review in the Journal of Negro History.123 The Journal of Negro History published her forty-­five-­page article, “New Jersey Laws and the Negro,” in its April 1943 issue, comprising a study of state legislation affecting Blacks in slavery and freedom from 1664 to 1943. The article extended the insights of her book by emphasizing law rather than religion. Her article was divided into four sections: from 1664 to 1776; from 1776 to 1804, when New Jersey became the last northern state to pass a Gradual Emancipation Act; from 1804 to 1865, a transitional era from the onset of freedom until the end of the Civil War and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and from then until World War II. Wright thereby anticipated by a half-­century the work of Ira Berlin in studying American slavery and freedom in time and place. Her focus on law as an instrumental force in American social freedom also predated other scholarship by two decades. Her focus on slavery and freedom in northern states anticipated Edgar McManus’s studies by over a quarter-­century.124 Wright argued that while there had been ample study of Black life and inequality in the southern United States, in New Jersey, many people believed that problems regarding Blacks had been suitably solved; there were in fact practices that differ only in minor degrees from those in the South. If there was a difference, it was now contributing toward an increase rather than a decrease in discriminatory practices. While she did not claim that all New Jerseyans supported those laws, her study showed that the laws “serve as definitions of relationships and rights until they are repealed or superseded by other acts.” As New Jersey moved toward a greater social and racial democracy, its citizens needed to understand their past. Wright’s sense of the pace of New Jersey history is largely flawless, with close attention to the larger drumbeats of history. Her writing style remains formal yet accessible. There is perhaps too

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little on the American Revolution, though she grasps the fundamental contradiction of the conflict: that it was fought for the freedom of one race and enslavement of another.125 Wright’s essay highlighted that contradiction in New Jersey. The state had a powerful abolition society, yet many opposed the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1804. She covers well the invidious influence of the American Colonization Society and was the first, outside of Polish historians, to realize the missed opportunity of Tadeusz Kosciuszko’s legacy. Her work on the antebellum legal conflicts over slavery is sound, though she neglected to cover much on the Underground Railroad. Marion Thompson Wright excelled in her coverage of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras. In addition to her discussion of the important Fair Haven school dispute in 1881, Wright focused much of her attention on the Bordentown School and antidiscrimination acts in New Jersey and continued her coverage into World War II. Her conclusions connected, remediating the legacies of slavery with the nascent civil rights movement. The twenty-­eighth meeting of the Association for Negro Life and History awarded Wright the top prize for best article published in the Journal of Negro History in 1943. Competition was stiff; second place went to her Howard University colleague Dorothy B. Porter for her pioneering article on Black abolitionist and journalist David Ruggles. Other authors whose articles appeared in the journal that year were John Hope Franklin and Kenneth Stampp, later giants of the field.126 Marion Wright became a regular at academic associations. In addition to the Association for Negro Life and History, she became a lifetime member of the National Council of Negro Women and joined the editorial board of its magazine, the Aframerican Woman’s Journal in 1944. She wrote articles on the council’s responsibilities toward Black education and the problem of juvenile delinquency.127 In 1940, Charles Thompson put Marion Wright on the editorial board of the Journal of Negro Education. She became the book review editor for the JNE, sought out reviewers, and compiled “Notes,” which were review essays that effectively organized current trends in the field. The Journal had become, in the years after the folding of The Crisis, the leading progressive periodical on racial issues in the nation. While Charles H. Thompson edited the main section of essays and editorials, Marion Wright’s book reviews accounted for 10 percent of the journal’s pages. Service as the book review editor of the Journal brought Marion Thompson Wright into contact with its Advisory Board, which was, as Louis Ray observes, “top-­heavy with foundation executives, scholars, African American college presidents, deans, public school administrators, federal officials and state education officers.” Horace Mann Bond, E. Franklin Frazier, Mabel Carney from Teachers College, and H. Councill Trenholm, president of Alabama State Teachers College, were among the scholars. Wright knew these individuals through positive, progressive networks, a method in which Charles H. Thompson specialized.128 Wright continued her bibliophilia. In a series of letters in late 1942, she sent a note on the Journal of Negro Education letterhead, along with one of her last copies of the Education of Negroes in New Jersey, to W. E. B. Du Bois. She petitioned Du Bois to send her “an autographed copy of your Souls of Black Folk. That would make me very happy.” Du Bois replied at the end of the year and explained that he only had two copies left, one of which was with his wife. Wright waited a few

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months and then sent Du Bois another request on March 10, 1943, pleading that if he would send the book, then he could “get me off your list,” presumably of responsibilities, though Du Bois never indicated he felt any pressure. Du Bois sent Wright a signed copy of Dusk of Dawn and mentioned a plan to review her book in Phylon. She gushed in her reply that she could not think of a book “that I would have treasured more” and alerted him to her upcoming essay in the Journal of Negro History. Wright kept her copy of Dusk of Dawn for the rest of her life.129 Wright also enjoyed receiving offprints of articles. She sent offprints, often signed, of her articles to friends and hoped-­for contacts. Autographed offprints were a means for the shy Wright to reach out and expand her network. Despite her diffidence, Marion Thompson Wright became a sought-­after panelist and speaker. Just before she became an assistant professor at Howard, she gave talks on her new book and on Anthony Benezet at the Montclair YWCA, a prominent Black venue. She spoke in Camden in 1942 on studying Black history in New Jersey. She pitched in at campus events at Howard, speaking on art and education, religion and campus life, and choosing a vocation. She led discussions at Howard dormitories on group relations. She became a regular speaker at the Washington, D.C., YMCA and at local churches. On April 7, 1944, she spoke at a discussion on “Democracy and the Darker Races” at the National Association of College Women (NACW) meeting at the 135th Street Public Library (now the Schomburg Center). Joining her was Merze Tate, then beginning a distinguished career in the history department at Howard. Wright was always willing to speak before her sorority, giving the lead address to the Kappa Sigma (Newark) branch of Delta Sigma Theta in 1944. Reflecting her new interest in guidance, she was the keynote speaker at a conference devoted to helping students hosted by the NACW at Bordentown in 1946. Her constant stream of events demonstrates how Wright strived to contribute and make the most of her academic career.130 During the summer of 1943, Marion Wright joined fellow historian John Hope Franklin as a visiting instructor at the Alabama State Teachers College in Montgomery, Alabama. Going to the South in 1943 meant encountering unrestricted, omnipresent Jim Crow. To get there, she would have to use the famed Negro Travelers’ Green Book to find safe stops en route, which meant switching after entering Virginia into a “colored car” with sections divided by a barrier between white and Black.131 Wright traveled frequently. She joined multiple organizations and attended their annual and other meetings. Her resume lists membership in the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the Society for the Advancement of Education, the American Association for the Advancement of Society, the National Education Association, the National Association of College Women, the New Jersey Historical Society, and the Friends’ Historical Association. She also branched out to unique organizations such as the National Probation Association and took training for an advanced certificate in first aid and was a member of the Civilian Volunteer Defense.132 Marion Thompson Wright’s whole-­hearted participation in a battery of women’s organizations raises a significant question: Was sisterhood sufficient to shelter a Black woman from personal depression? Contemporary scholarship has affirmed the significance of women’s organizations to help Black women (and men) buffer Jim Crow’s harms and to build a better world for themselves and their families. Underneath that collective spirit were individual sorrows.133

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Howard University expected substantial committee work from its professors, like serving on campus and departmental committees and joining the Faculty Club. She advised a number of majors in education and directed student teaching from 1940 to 1946. Wright expanded her interest in student guidance in 1946 by forming a complete guidance and counseling program for Howard University undergraduates, thereby fulfilling a dream of Dean Slowe’s. She appended a massive, thirty-­page argument to the dean’s annual report for 1946–­1947 and augmented it with a sharp commentary about the state of the student body three years later. Wright undertook the onerous task of coordinating a student teaching program. Wright served as director of the university-­wide counseling service until a full-­time director was appointed; she continued her contributions over the next years, though the Howard University programs were poorly funded. Wright focused on the middle group of average learners who composed the majority of the school’s population and created two unpublished manuscripts about teaching “the middle classes.” Over the years, she hosted other Howard students in her homes in Washington, D.C., and Montclair, New Jersey. She mentored young female faculty and housed students in her home during their personal emergencies. Her friend Theodora Daniel once heard her say, “Never lend money to anyone you wouldn’t give it to.”134 Her publications, external activities, and university service were more than enough to qualify Marion Wright for promotion to associate professor starting September 1, 1946.135 Although creating the guidance program took up much time, Marion Wright was active after gaining tenure in other Howard University services. Howard University was not the only focus of Marion Wright’s career. Her Delta Theta Sigma committee launched a book mobile in Georgia and distributed books to Blacks throughout the South. With the guidance of Dorothy Height, the project launched the vehicle on national television on NBC-­TV, debuting at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. The National Library Association awarded the sorority with a prize for these efforts. These contributions enabled one library in Alabama, which had received a conditional accreditation, to retain its rating and linked Wright’s efforts to the NAACP, the Urban League, and the Association for Negro Life and History.136 Marion Wright chaired the powerful and highly visible Delta Vigilance Committee from 1944 to 1946. The Vigilance Committee had distinguished itself over the years for strong protests against lynching, poll taxes, and government indifference to the lives and memories of Black veterans and for pushing American presidents to do more about integration and serving as a unity bridge between a number of Black women’s organizations. Dorothy Height’s presidency of Delta enabled the sorority in the late 1940s to reach very high levels of international thinking and activism. As an active member and office holder of Delta and the National Council of Negro Women, Marion Wright was very much a part of the sorority’s international status.137 Wright was very active in the American Teachers Association, an organization for Black teachers, and strived to coordinate its efforts with the white National Education Association and worked with it to create teaching materials for Black students. Wright never stopped writing. Serving as book review editor of the Journal of Negro Education, she penned eleven short reviews between 1944 and 1946 and five “Notes” of recent publications. Being book review editor of the Journal of Negro Education meant that Wright had her pick of books to read and critique. She reviewed for the JNE in the mid-­1940s novels by Arna Bontemps,

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Chester B. Himes, Lillian Smith, Frank Yerby, Willard Motley, and Shirley Graham, future wife of W. E. B. Du Bois. Wright created a small scandal when she invited Smith, a white woman, to give a well-­received lecture at Howard University. Her “Notes on Recent Books,” published in the JNE, ranged in size from a couple of pages to over twelve pages and covered a sizable selection of books, pamphlets, and journal issues related to education, fiction, and history. Sections of the “Notes” accounted for conference proceedings of Black associations of colleges, secondary schools, and business schools. However arcane they might be, Wright treated these publications with respect and insight. There were reports on the Rosenwald Fund, the Rockefeller Fund, the National Education Association by the National Society of College Teachers, and another on the annual conference of the Alpha Kappa Mu honor society. Wright produced these lengthy notes at least twice a year for a decade while contributing individual reviews and her own articles.138 As she ramped up her work with students and with the JNE, Marion Thompson Wright did not abandon her own scholarship. Her most substantial work was a hefty fifty-­page article in 1948 in the Journal of Negro History on the saga of Black voting in New Jersey between the Revolution and Reconstruction.139 Wright’s 1948 essay in the Journal of Negro History on Black suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–­1865, was jubilant. Wright composed the piece in the aftermath of the enactment of the 1947 New Jersey Constitution that specifically barred discrimination due to religious principles, race, color, ancestry, or national origins, “establishing a significant precedent in American history.” Labeling the first section “A Dramatic Historical Event,” Wright proudly noted that J. Oliver Randolph, the lone Black delegate to the constitutional convention and a Howard University Law School graduate, signed the document as the nation watched.140 That Randolph was the sole Black member of the New Jersey legislature indicated how much work needed to be done. In the article, Wright created sections on the early republic, the transition years from 1807 to 1844, the intensified battles for Emancipation, and the rights of citizenship through the Reconstruction period. In so doing, Wright set the stage for later historians such as Clement Price and Giles Wright. Marion Thompson Wright’s coverage of the first period revealed the extent of Black and women’s voting after the American Revolution until a “reform” in 1807 stopped the practice. What Wright’s findings showed, however, was that Black voters had participated in elections and that only political scheming had removed their rights. Her section on the Middle Period focused on the American Colonization Society. Less attention is given to the burgeoning abolitionist movement. That neglect is corrected in the third section in which Wright offers the fullest account ever of the political organizations of Black activists in the 1850s, particularly the leadership of John S. Rock, a New Jersey lawyer who later became the first Black man to present a case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wright cites the journalist debate over the Fifteenth Amendment, quoting from Black voices that countered the words of racist whites. By 1875, the legislature removed the word “white” from the voting qualifications. Wright’s careful reading of convention notes, newspaper accounts, and political records made this essay a model for similar efforts regarding other states. Wright’s book and articles were significant contributions to the emerging consensus favoring integration in the schools of the Garden State. As the state government prepared a new constitution mandating integration in its school districts, Marion Wright published a key article in the New

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Jersey Herald News on November 1, 1947, reviewing the constitutions of New Jersey and its Black citizens. The following year on October 29, 1948, the Herald News recognized her for “outstanding achievement and contribution to the Welfare and Progress of Negro Citizens of the State of New Jersey,”141 Wright maintained her community service with talks at Washington, D.C., high schools on exceptional children and at a panel for the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. She also traveled out to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in February of 1946 to speak on women and international affairs.142 A commuting marriage, a busy academic career, and mutual disillusionment cost Marion Wright’s union with Arthur Wright dearly. On February 19, 1947, Marion Thompson Wright filed for divorce in Cleveland, Ohio. Marion Wright had established a residence in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio, in 1946 and had returned for thirty days in early 1947, thereby qualifying as a resident for purposes of getting a divorce. Her marriage to Arthur Wright was dissolved on February 19, 1947, for reasons of “gross neglect and willful absence.” Arthur Wright was then “forever barred of his rights in the property which the plaintiff has or any acquire in the future,” clauses that would cause major legal headaches after Marion Wright’s death in 1962. Arthur Wright’s bad year continued with the death of his esteemed brother, the Reverend John Clarence Wright, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Atlanta.143 As her marriage seemed to end (though the divorce proceedings dragged on for years and Arthur continued to live in the Montclair home with Minnie Thompson and Thelma Moss), Marion Wright looked into her past for romance by writing Lorenzo Greene. Greene was teaching at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. He had finished and published his dissertation on Blacks in colonial New England. He had also, after years of playing the field, married dancer Thomasina Tally in 1942. Addressing him as “Rennie,” Marion Wright sent him a letter asking him to review John Hope Franklin’s major new survey of African American history, From Slavery to Freedom. Wright’s salutation teased Greene by saying, “Don’t faint. I might as well tell the truth. You are hearing from me because I want something. Darling, since you have a copy of John Hope’s book, will you not review it for the Journal of [Negro] Education?” She hoped Greene would do so immediately so that the review could appear in the next issue; otherwise, it would have to wait for the spring. Wright teased Greene by telling him that his wife, Thomasina, should not worry about the endearments as “that is a weapon to get what I want.” Wright’s mixture of coquettishness with a professional request indicates that she was subtly checking to see how her old flame would respond. She then bragged about a letter for the New Jersey Herald News exhorting voters to support the upcoming state antidiscrimination law and her article in the Journal of Negro History. She pointed out that her dissertation had “thrown the light of history” on discrimination in New Jersey, with a double-­sided comment that “you will see that I have been playing in your field.” She hoped the Greenes would visit Washington, D.C.: “I have never met your wife and would like to very much.” Her ambivalent salutation was signed, “as ever, Marion.”144 Greene did not respond to this letter. Two months later, Wright cajoled Greene, complaining “that I thought you were a friend to John Hope and me but now I am beginning to wonder.” The winter issue of the JNE had passed and now the deadline for the spring theme edition loomed. Without copy soon, a review would have to wait until the fall: “For that reason, I am pleading with you to let us know at your earliest convenience if you will do this.” Otherwise, she would have

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to find someone else, quickly. Her tone in this letter was more professional, though there was an undercurrent of hurt that he had ignored her playful teasing. Greene wrote back more than a month later, telling her that she would have the review on time. He briefly provoked her hopes by thanking her for “assuring me that we are still friends” (emphasis in original). It had been a difficult year for Thomasina and him, but things were now brighter. Thomasina had heard many good things about Wright, he assured her, that his wife considered her among their circle of friends, a subtle means of telling her that she was no danger to their marriage. Greene continued the letter, praising Franklin as one of the finest historians in America. His generally professional response should have given her very little hope of renewed affection.145 Marion Wright responded immediately that “I feel much better to know that I have not been scratched from your list of friends.” She regretted that Thomasina “had been on the sick list” and that she had heard so many good things about her “that I feel we are friends.” She needed the review by February 1 for the spring issue. She spoke about how great it was to have Franklin on staff and sweetly queried, “Who knows, maybe someday we shall be able to entice you to come this way,” a hint that surely would excite Greene, who longed to leave Lincoln University of Missouri for more money elsewhere. She then discussed her counseling work enthusiastically before closing with hopes he would drop a line to say how Thomasina and he were doing. Greene described the book as brilliant but spent two pages detailing its errors. Neither of them realized, of course, that the book would become the standard text on African American history for generations and went through ten editions during Franklin’s lifetime, plus two updates by other scholars after his death in 2009.146 Marion Wright’s flirtation apparently did not bother Lorenzo Greene. Two weeks after his deadline to get in the Franklin review he sent her an “S.O.S.” pleading for an article for his new journal, soon called the Midwest Journal. He needed some copy right away. This time, she made him wait two weeks before replying. She explained that the end of the quarter term at Howard was customarily busy and that she had been finishing an article for the yearbook edition of the JNE. But she offered to send an article on “Guidance—­the Weak Link in the Educational Chain,” provided that he accepted it without changes, would send her an autographed copy of the “first issue of your publication,” and would put the JNE “on your exchange list.” She was in a hurry but asked him to “remember me to Thomasina.” Turnabout, she seemed to say, was fair play. He responded a few days later, with a “Bravo!” and gladly accepted the terms: “My dear, an autographed copy of the first issue of the Journal is practically in your hands.” He assured her that he was a neophyte editor and would be glad to have her advice whenever she thought it helpful. Thomasina was off to Arkansas and Louisiana for recitals, allowing Greene room for a bit of flirtation himself.147 A month later, Marion Wright sent the article accompanied by a breezy handwritten letter in which she asked for one hundred offprints. Knowing that this request was beyond custom, she joked, “You may kill me.” Five days later, Greene acknowledged receipt of the article, which “reads mighty good.” One hundred offprints might be possible though there could be a small fee involved. When the journal with her article appeared, Marion Wright sent another handwritten note thanking Greene but suggested that “it would add to the dignity and prestige of the journal if a better grade of paper could be used and a better job of binding could be done,” advice that Greene, operating the journal on a shoestring budget, probably did not enjoy. Wright tapped

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Greene for reviews twice more for the Journal of Negro Education, but there are no indications that a reunion occurred.148 Her marriage dead, Wright did little to make amends with her children. Without her direct involvement, her children matured. Their father and his wife, Ada, had provided them with a good home, despite William Henry Moss’s poverty and unstable home situation. Thelma Moss worked as a beautician during these years. Wright’s son, James, grew to become a fine young man and graduated from the New York City High School of Commerce in 1940. He married Juanita Wright, daughter of a prominent Princeton, New Jersey, African American family. Going to college meant asking his mother for help. In a 1941 letter, James wrote “Dear Marion” about hopes of living at the Phillis Wheatley House and attending the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The Wheatley House was actively involved in social services and hosted Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois, who were barred from the city’s hotels. James Moss’s plan was for his father to pay tuition and for his mother to either give him an allowance of $2.50 per week or loan him the money for a room. He would find a way to pay for his own food. If that did not work out, would she “object to my going to Howard?” Would she help financially there or even while he was in New York City with some money so he could attend night classes at City College of New York (then tuition-­free)? Moss asked his mother to let him know and mentioned “that it would be nice if we could talk this over together, Lovingly Jim.” Marion Wright advised her son to stay in New York City, find a job, develop good work references, and save some money for the future. She mentioned seeing him at a tennis match, but he seemed busy with other people, “so I did not disturb you.” The reluctance of someone’s mother to join him in an informal public gathering speaks volumes about the distance and tensions between the two. She continued by telling him to set goals and work for them: “Heavens knows most of my life has been spent working toward goals . . . and I have just completed my formal training” at the age of thirty-­eight. She signed the letter, “au revoir, Marion.” Eventually, James Moss enrolled at Fordham University. What part his mother took in paying for tuition at the Catholic private school is unknown, but clearly her son had learned to appeal to the tender side of her emotions rather than express anger over childhood neglect.149 James Moss enlisted in the army on December 8, 1942, as a private in the warrant officer core. One of Juanita’s brothers, Bruce Wright, joined him, and the pair became lifelong friends; Bruce Wright later became a distinguished judge in New York City. Known as “turn-­em-­loose Bruce,” Judge Wright often granted low bail to impoverished defendants, much to the anger of city policemen. Marion Wright became a grandmother in 1943 when Juanita and James’s first child—­a son, Jay—­was born in 1943. His sister, Alison, was born in 1949. The birth of her grandchildren did not bring Wright closer to her own children, and there are no indications that she celebrated their entrance onto the world stage.150 After the war, James Moss returned to Fordham for two years, then transferred to the New School for Social Research and received a BA in 1948 and a master’s degree in 1949. His thesis was entitled “Effects of Racial Discrimination on the Aspiration Level of the Negro.” While studying, James Moss became with Bruce Wright a regular at New York City’s jazz clubs, befriended many musicians, and worked as an assistant manager at a liquor store in Harlem.151

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Howard in the Early 1950s The new decade began with the promotion of Marion Thompson Wright in 1950 to full professor at Howard University. She had been an associate since 1946 and justly deserved her new status, given her publications and ample teaching and counseling work. She continued to shoulder heavy teaching loads in a department that already provided sizable support to the university. In 1951–­1952, she was on the Graduate Council and the following year was acting head of the education department. She was a fierce defender of the department and once lectured Frank Snowden, the famous classicist who, when he served as dean of the Liberal Arts College, disparaged teachers as “a dime a dozen.” Wright, recalled Walter Daniel, gave Snowden “ten cents and he kept it.”152 Wright continued her book review work with the Journal of Negro Education. Wright authored two articles for the JNE. The first, published in the summer of 1950, discussed educational and cultural problems among Black youth. The second, published in the JNE over three issues, strived to understand the personal and social education of Black children.153 Wright renewed her friendship with Merle Curti, who sent her his speech as president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (soon to be renamed the Organization of American Historians). She updated Curti on her own scholarship, including editing the yearbook edition of the Journal of Negro Education and a paper on the Federal Employment Practice Committee; Wright was using the opportunity to update her dissertation.154 Wright sustained her public commitment to speaking on social justice issues in Newark in May 1953; in Washington, D.C., in March and May of 1953; and in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1954. Wright was active in the National Association of College Women and the National Council of Negro Women. She also joined white organizations such as the Association of University Professors and returned for alumnae meetings of Teachers College. When the American Historical Association, then largely segregated, held its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in December 1952, Wright attended. She appeared more often at the Association for Negro Life and History. She took time for student coffee hours and joined the board of directors for the Ionia Whipper Home, the sole refuge in the city for Black teenage unwed mothers.155 Marion Thompson Wright’s personal life received profound changes at this time. As her mother’s health was failing and attempts at rapprochement with her children floundered, Marion Wright finalized her divorce from her husband, Arthur. Completing a process initiated six years earlier in Ohio, the Essex County branch of the Superior Court of New Jersey ordered their marriage dissolved on September 4, 1953. Arthur, however, continued living at the family home at 144 Lincoln Avenue in Montclair. Soon, he was joined by Thelma Moss.156

B rown v . B oard

of

E ducation

of

T opeka

Marion Wright remained a prolific scholar. In 1953–­1954, she published four separate journal articles. The JNH and Journal of Educational Sociology (JES) articles effectively showed how New Jersey had moved toward school integration beginning in 1941, passed a fair employment act in 1945, then put real power into its drive to integration through the establishment of the Division

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Against Discrimination (DAD), headed by Joseph L. Bustard of Roselle, New Jersey, along with veteran Newark activist Harold Lett. The DAD organized conferences and workshops and influenced local councils. All this was preliminary to the enactment of the new state constitution with its emphasis on civil rights enforcement. As new regulations were promulgated, Wright asked what would become of the Negro teachers. Indeed, they were protected under new laws; their numbers actually increased with integration. All this, she argued, happened because of legal enforcement and education, pushed by local activists. Wright acknowledged that much remained to be done, especially in the key area of housing discrimination, thereby identifying an issue that plagues the state to the present day. The JES article pointed out those counties where the greatest resistance to change existed, again anticipating by decades studies that make the same conclusions. Wright published a series of articles on New Jersey’s progress in November 1953 in the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s leading Black newspapers.157 She had plans to travel to Europe, but such unexpected events mandated postponement of any travel plans. Equally occupying her time was Minnie Thompson’s final illness, which required her daughter to leave Howard University for a term and return to their home in Montclair. Minnie Thompson died in November 1953. Her passing affected Marion Wright deeply as Minnie Thompson had always been her greatest champion and influence. Though no mention was made of his passing, Moses Thompson died in Montclair two years earlier.158 Assuaging her orphan status was Marion Wright’s substantial visibility in the field of school desegregation, which likely prompted the principal investigators of a major Supreme Court case to ask for her help. From July to November of 1953, Marion Wright worked for the massive NAACP legal project that became known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.159 Her supervisor was Horace Mann Bond, who assigned her an extensive reading list of books on state histories of education in the northern states. He acknowledged that Wright would be doing most of the work. Caring for her mother and dealing with her estranged husband were difficult tasks; Wright now had extensive responsibilities to help save her people from Jim Crow schools.160 Horace Mann Bond asked Mabel Smythe, the brilliant deputy director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and future diplomat, and Wright to work with him on Fourteenth Amendment cases considered critical to the suit’s argument that segregation was unconstitutional. However, determining the intent of the framers of the amendment toward segregated schools was a tough proposition and not a settled historiographic subject. Bond, Smythe, and Wright set out to prove that the state constitutions forbade segregation as a condition for readmission to the Union. Congress then had to accept or reject the states’ applications as the ultimate arbiter of an intent to have integrated schools. The research team found that, with the exception of Texas, which quickly had to rewrite its application, none of the other ten Confederate states sanctioned segregation or mentioned race in connection with the public school system. For Bond, there could be no better proof of congressional intent about school integration. There were several problems with this interpretation. First, the state governments were controlled not by diehard Confederates at this stage (that would come later with a vengeance) but by loose alliances within the Republican Party. Second, most of the public school systems were more concerned with economic survival than the establishment

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of expensive separate school systems. Moreover, Black legislators were more concerned with free public systems that would serve freed people badly in need of basic learning, more so than mixed schools. Eventually, the NAACP brief famously contended that separate schools inculcated a sense of superiority in whites and induced perceptions of self-­inferiority among Blacks. As Wright had documented in her book and subsequent articles, those sensibilities were enhanced by decidedly unequal facilities. Ultimately, the NAACP used much of the arguments by Bond, Smythe, and Wright in fourteen of two hundred pages in its final brief before the Supreme Court. Wright was named in the final Supreme Court brief as Bond’s assistant.161 Wright, Bond, and Smythe presented a number of their findings early that fall in a discussion panel at an NAACP conference in New York City on September 25, 1953.162 The Supreme Court of the United States determined on May 17, 1954, that the “separate but equal” philosophy governing segregated schools in the American South and elsewhere was inherently unequal. By depriving Black children of equal access to quality education, offending states violated their constitutional rights. Forced integration of public schools proved to be the primary engine of change toward an integrated society. Despite her national reputation, Wright felt underappreciated at Howard University. She served only one term as acting department chair and was vexed about pay inequities. Undeterred, she enrolled in 1954, in a postdoctoral program on guidance and personnel practices at Columbia University and traveled to a number of school sites to observe their procedures. Though she complained long and often to family members about her mistreatment by Howard University, other observers believed she felt great pride and love for the institution. Wright believed that promotion and rank were harder to achieve at Howard University for female professors but still loved the school. When they attended chapel together, Theodora Daniel observed that Wright’s lips would tremble when she sang the school’s anthem. Wright strongly felt that her place at Howard University was to fight for the cause of women. She was quick to let the dean of the Howard University Chapel, where she was a regular, know whether his sermon was good or bad.163 Any sense of satisfaction gained from women’s activism likely suffered from the intellectual salvos coming from Howard professor E. Franklin Frazier. His 1957 book The Black Bourgeoisie, strident and wide-­ranging, attacked the Black middle class as consumers who lived in a world of make-­believe. Frazier contended that Black educators had abandoned their earlier mission to create leaders to become timeservers interested primarily in their salaries. Frazier perceived the Black elite as self-­loathing, propping up material gains with burdensome debt, and only superficially interested in culture. Black women in particular spoiled their children with excessive gifts of toys, clothing, and cars. Such behavior only masked powerful self-­loathing and self-­perceived inferiority. Frazier criticized Black philanthropic and activist groups as fearful of association with communism and accepting of segregation and limited gains. While none of these comments hit Wright squarely, they surely made her feel uncomfortable and less worthy.164 Meanwhile, her son, James Moss, taught for two years at the University of Puerto Rico, then a year at Dillard University in New Orleans. Moss moved to New York City, studying the integration of Blacks and whites for the Department of the Army, and worked at the United Nations, studying housing in various parts of the world. After the U.N. work, Moss spent four years teaching at

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Orange County (N.Y.) Community College, at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in upper Manhattan, and as a lecturer at Queens College, New York.165 James Moss finished his dissertation in 1957. His dissertation is particularly distinguished by lengthy interviews Moss conducted with W. E. B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier, John Hope Franklin, and Kenneth Clarke, four of the most important African American academics of the twentieth century. The interviews were frank and detailed each scholar’s views on the integration of higher education during his era. Moss divided his study by distinct eras: before 1900, when, “in a few exceptional instances, Negroes taught at the faculties of integrated colleges in both the North and the south”; from 1900 to 1940, when Blacks increasingly taught and were administrators at Black colleges but were completely excluded from teaching in predominately white colleges; from 1940 to 1946, when a few Blacks were accepted on an experimental basis into the faculties of some selected white colleges; and the present situation (1957), when Blacks were more fully integrated into permanent positions at nonsegregated institutions but suffered “almost total exclusion from any significant administrative posts.” Moss summarized many of his arguments in an article published in 1958 in the Journal of Negro Education.166 In 1958, Dr. Moss accepted a position as an assistant professor of sociology at Union College in Schenectady as the school’s “first Negro professor.” Moss wanted to teach at a small liberal arts college that had a concern for “the intellectual caliber of students and faculty.” During his interview, Moss noted that his mother was a sociology professor, indicating that he felt comfortable talking about her, from a distance.167 While James taught at Union College, his children were enrolled not far away at the Stockbridge School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. As his son, Jay, proudly explained to “Nana Marion” in a thank you note sent a couple of weeks after Christmas 1960, his school was second only to the United National School as far as having “International kids,” who constituted 45 percent of the student body. Jay exclaimed, “It’s a wonderful school and the head master has wonderful ideas.” He expressed gratitude for money Wright had sent to purchase a parka and ski pants and hoped that she would come “visit us in Schenectady,” signing the note, “your loving grandson, Jay.” Granddaughter Alison kept in touch as well, describing a great Christmas, an upcoming trip to Montreal where she could practice her French, and how “Mommy and Daddy had a very successful New Year’s Party with dancing and everything.” The girl even was allowed to stay up until three o’clock in the morning and slept until one in the afternoon the next day. Even so, she could hardly wait to go back to school. In another note, this time to “Aunt Marion,” she thanked her for letters and money. Her chatty note mentioned skiing, a possible blizzard, and her roommate, who also added a few lines of praise for Alison.168 Not all was well with the Moss parents, however. Juanita Moss, Marion’s daughter-­in-­law, found succor in letters to her mother-­in-­law, Marion Thompson Wright. On March 26, 1961, “Nita” wrote telling Marion Wright about major troubles between James Moss and herself that had spilled over into an argument in front of the children the previous summer. She had been seeing a psychiatrist ever since and “living on Milltown (an anti-­depressant) since September and taking sleeping pills,” which had terrible side effects. A new prescription helped, but still Juanita Moss wanted

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sometimes to “crawl in a hole and die.” James Moss was also suffering; he had an ulcer attack and was hospitalized. Later that year, Juanita was alone in Schenectady and feeling very lonesome. She wrote her mother-­in-­law that “I did so enjoy hearing from you” and how happy she was to come home and find a letter from Wright. As described in the next paragraph, James had left Union and the couple seemed to be enduring a “trial separation.” Even though Juanita Moss loved her job, she realized how much she missed her family. At the end of the three-­page letter, Juanita Moss asked Wright about her plans for Christmas, suggesting that a family gathering might be in order. She signed the letter, “Love, Nita.” Juanita Moss and Marion Wright had much to share. Both were career oriented when such aims were not as acceptable for women as today. Both were very stylish, composed, smart, driven, methodical, and strong women. Both suffered from deep depression stemming from unhappy marriages.169 James Moss and Marion Wright practiced secrecy. Once he came to the capital to interview for a foreign service job; he let his mother know that “I wouldn’t be in her way, wouldn’t reveal our relationship.” There were setbacks. Marion initially promised to support James while he completed his dissertation. James Moss planned to take a semester off from teaching based on Marion’s promise of funds. Citing an unidentified illness, Wright backed out of the agreement, angering Moss and forcing him to borrow money for the project. She did pay for the final typing of the dissertation and was very proud of her son’s accomplishment. James Moss did not, however, acknowledge her part in the completion of his dissertation. He thanked Harold Hyman, chairman of his committee, Kenneth Clark, and John Hope Franklin for critical insights and readings of drafts. In addition to thanking lesser-­known friends and typists, Moss dedicated the study to “My wife, Nita, and my children, Jay and Alison.” The son was able to reciprocate the mother’s chilliness.170 Encouraged by her son, James Allen Moss, Marion Wright deepened her contact with his family and “began coming to be with him at Xmas.” She wrote to his children when they were away at school in Lake Placid, New York. Despite the void between them, Wright was very proud of her son and was always curious about his reputation. Once Moss heard that his mother had been in a taxi; the driver was a student of Moss’s and Wright peppered him with questions about his teaching methods and style.171 Wright made overtures to her daughter, Thelma, now thirty-­three years old. Wright supported Thelma Moss’s pursuit of advanced degrees at New York Technical College and Rutgers University-­ Newark, where she earned a degree in medical technology and joined the faculty at Rutgers University School of Pharmacy. Once they reconciled, mother and daughter routinely attended the movies together when Wright visited her New Jersey home. Much of this contact remained secret from Wright’s Washington circles. Theodora Daniel pondered confronting her with the truth but felt “you did not know if you had the right to ask her about it. There was something in her life that she could not handle.” As a married, mature woman, Marion Wright no longer had to “pass” as an innocent undergraduate, but she remained entangled in the pathology of pretending to be childless. The Daniels, attuned to bureaucratic, gendered power relations at Howard University, would not unveil this dangerous truth about their close friend. Denial of her children was not the only dissemblance Marion Wright undertook.

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In an interview about her with Walter and Theodora Daniel, they both claimed “definitely” that September 13, 1904, was her birthday because they took her out to dinner every year to celebrate, not realizing that Marion Wright adjusted her age as deemed necessary.172 At the same time, friends, especially at Howard, stayed cautious about the subject of Wright’s children. There was always the danger that President Mordecai Johnson might arbitrarily fire Marion Wright for deceit even though any deception was now three decades old. Theodora and Walter Daniel invited Marion Wright over for Christmas dinner, but she demurred, saying she was spending the holiday with a relative, whom they assumed was James. He was also very discreet. At one point, James Moss came to Washington for interviews with members of the Howard German department as part of his dissertation. He stayed with his mother but assured her that she did not need to make introductions “because it would be embarrassing,” but asked her to silently identify people worth approaching. That resolution caused uncertainty for Wright. For his part, James Moss urged her to seek counseling “to unburden herself, therapist or good friends.” Offering succor to their dear friend, the Daniels invited Wright to attend services at their church, Plymouth Congregational, where Walter Daniel was a prominent figure. Wright previously identified herself as a Baptist. Plymouth Congregational Church had provided succor for self-­ emancipated slaves on the Underground Railroad and was the faith home for generations of educated Black Washingtonians. Although Marion Wright attended services regularly with the Daniels, she preferred to be called a “member at large.” Other Sundays she attended chapel on the Howard University Campus. In addition, Marion Wright watched television shows on the Bible with Ruth E. Moore, a professor of microbiology at Howard who lived in the same building as Wright at 1858 California Street, NW, in the Adams-­Morgan District, roughly a mile from Howard University.173 The Daniels were part of Wright’s strong coterie of friends in Washington. Besides the Daniels, Carroll J. Miller, Elias Hicks, and others spent ample time with Wright and worried about her. Theodora Daniel and Wright were especially close. Being an English teacher, Daniel read many of Wright’s manuscripts for sentence structure. They were both members of the Theatre Guild and often went to plays together. They undertook a three-­week railroad trip across the country in 1950 on the Northern Pacific Line. Daniel recalled that Wright “really liked comfort.” On the trip, she got a drawing room big enough for three instead of cheaper berths. They visited Yellowstone Park over two days; the highlight of the trip was the Delta Sigma Theta convention in Berkeley, California. On the trip, Wright described how a guidance counselor had sought her out after she left high school and “was responsible for her coming back.” During this trip, Wright omitted any mention of her children. From a later interview, Theodora Daniel regretted not asking the big questions, “which might have resulted in Marion telling all.”174 Marion Wright believed in living well. Her Washington, D.C., apartment was stuffed with fine furniture and adorned with her prized collection of porcelain horses. She enjoyed embroidering her name on handkerchiefs, a sign of her feminine, middle-class refinement. She owned a long fur coat. Her fingers displayed an eight-­diamond, white gold ring in an art deco style as well as a second white gold and diamond ring, both made for her by a prominent Newark jeweler.175 After her work on Brown v. Board of Education, Marion Thompson embarked on a lengthy trip to Europe,

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where she authored a brief article on the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in Italian in Scuola e Citta (School and City), a distinguished journal devoted to the educational ideas of John Dewey.176 Wright may have gained satisfaction from work. Rayford Logan, the school’s official historian and frequent critic, referred to the 1950s as Howard University’s “Golden Years.” Howard University was expanding, salaries and fringe benefits improved, and promotion became regulated. President Mordecai Johnson defended the school, which was funded by the federal government, from McCarthyism. The physical plant grew with the addition of new buildings and colleges. Creation of honor societies and extensive, annual lecture series enlivened the academic year. There was pressure to retain top faculty. The Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 was the final push for white universities to initiate desegregation in their departments. As senior scholars at Howard became embittered by their ceaseless battles with its president, white schools came calling. To their anger, major scholars such as John Hope Franklin, who decamped for Brooklyn College in 1956, and Abram Harris, who left for the University of Chicago in 1947, learned that Howard University was indifferent to their departure. Marion Thompson Wright, never happy with Howard University’s treatment of her, must have wondered if she would get a call from another school.177 Intellectual pursuits buoyed Wright. Early in her career, Wright had shown interest in pacifism. In the 1950s, she worked in the International League for Peace and Freedom.178 She worked closely with the Ionia R. Whipper Home offering housing and help to pregnant, unwed Black women. The home added a library and vocational counseling. Wright utilized her professional insights and personal interests through raising funds, initiating modern guidance and testing methods, and maintaining good public relations.179 The early 1950s were perhaps the best times of Marion Thompson Wright’s life. Though she had divorced her husband, Arthur Wright, he remained within her family in Montclair. She was making halting, private outreaches to her children, visiting them, sending presents to grandchildren, and watching her son pursue a doctorate at Columbia University and her daughter, Thelma, earn degrees in pharmacology at Rutgers. Her own career was at its zenith, with her publications recognized in public policy in New Jersey and her research constituting significant contributions to one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history. She traveled across the country with Theodora Daniel, went to Europe, and rewarded herself with fine jewelry. Nonetheless, she could not acknowledge her children publicly, likely because she was afraid of losing her job if the truth were known. She could not find a way out.

Final Years In the late 1950s, Marion Wright embarked upon a biography of Lucy Diggs Slowe. Wright focused on the contributions that Slowe made to the fields of “Negro education and student personnel.” Reconstructing the life of her most important mentor might help her understand herself. Wright assiduously wrote Slowe’s surviving students and colleagues to obtain their recollections of the dean. She laboriously wrote a substantial draft in longhand. She had advanced sufficiently in her

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work to convince the Washington Evening Star to award her a faculty research grant of $2,500 to write her biography. She composed an entry on Slowe for the Radcliffe College reference volume Notable American Women, 1607–­1950, which was published a decade later in 1971.180 That entry was her only publication since the brief article published in Italy. Annual reports for 1957–­1960 indicate little or no activities in scholarship or service beyond her work on the Slowe biography. Wright dutifully taught her courses, commonly attracting sizable numbers of students, and continued advising graduate students, but her scholarly publishing output narrowed to production of the manuscript. Marion Wright was showing clear signs of occupational exhaustion. She had done everything at Howard yet felt unfulfilled and was afflicted with self-­loathing over her decision decades earlier to abandon her children. Moreover, she was lonely. She often dropped by the Daniels home to take potluck supper with them. She let them know that she “would rather have a hot dog with you than go home alone.” She informed the couple they were the only people in the city to remember her birthday and to invite her into their home. Fortunately, she was granted a sabbatical scheduled from February 1 to June 30, 1962.181 As his mother settled into her research, during the late 1950s, James Moss conducted his peripatetic lifestyle, moving from school to school, city to city every year or so. His wife accompanied him. The couple decided however that the education of their children, Jay and Alison, would suffer from the incessant moves. To protect them, the parents enrolled Jay first and then Alison in the North Country School, a small private, progressive school in North Elba, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. The school was beautifully situated adjacent to the Adirondack National Forest. It was excellent in teaching and sports, especially horseback riding, and with Jay’s arrival, racially integrated. The children prospered at the school. Parents were encouraged to leave their progeny alone and only visit during designated weekends. Many famous people deposited their offspring at North Country. On one snowy, icy weekend, James and Juanita Moss carefully edged up to a main building. Suddenly, a woman ahead slipped on the sidewalk and fell back into James’s arms. She was Rita Hayworth, there to visit her daughter Yasmin Aga Khan, a classmate of Alison’s who was notorious for stealing clothes. On another occasion, Juanita saw a little boy running around barefoot. She exclaimed to her daughter that the poor child probably could not afford shoes. “Mama, Alison responded, that’s Dickie Rockefeller, a scion of the wealthy family.” Later in his life, when Jay became a draft card-­burning, conscientious objector and legal authorities chased him around the nation, the head of North Country wrote numerous letters in his defense. The children loved North Country.182 While the children stayed at North Country School, James and Juanita Moss lived in Schenectady. James and Juanita Moss were the sole Black couple at Union. In his second year, he was selected to be part of the New York State Committee at the White House Conference on Children and Youth in Washington, D.C. He demonstrated his commitment to peace activism in May 1960 in a protest against nuclear arms and refused to seek shelter during a civil defense drill. James Moss soon took local leadership roles by becoming a trustee at a local nursery program and a member of the board of directors of the local YMCA.183 In December 1960, James Moss was selected to speak on race and minority rights in America at the prestigious Salzburg Seminar in American Studies in Austria the following summer. He remained active in local affairs, heading a study into housing bias in Schenectady and commenting on a speech given on the radio by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.184

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Marion Thompson Wright with unknown Howard University Student, 1961, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives.

Despite her ambitious research agenda, Marion Wright suffered from worsening depression. According to her friends, the Daniels, Marion had become irritable and hypersensitive. There were reports that she told a student in a church class that she wished “she could go to sleep and never wake up.” This comment so alarmed her friends that they suggested Marion undergo psychological therapy. She demurred, talking only about “superficial things, her dresses, etc.” instead of her scholarship or her own feelings. Marion told Theodora Daniel that “I know what I should do,

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Thelma Mae Moss, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepper­dine University Special Collections and University Archives.

but I just can’t bring myself to do it.” This ambiguous statement became clearer following a first attempt at suicide, done via an excessive amount of sleeping pills. Her daughter, Thelma, rushed to the hospital to help. When Marion Wright awoke, she saw her daughter standing over her bedside and asked, “What are you doing here?” This was the first time many people realized that Marion had children. Theodora Daniel, arguably her closest friend, urged Marion Wright to discuss her troubles, “but no, she did not open up.”185 Shocked and worried, James Allen Moss dispatched a six-­page letter to his mother at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. The letter strived to assuage decades of guilt that Marion Thompson might feel toward her children. Expressing emotions long repressed, Moss told his mother what a powerful inspiration she was to him, professionally and personally. He wrote how he admired her

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return to school “after an unsuccessful marriage,” how she worked to put herself through school, and how she managed the “pushes and pulls” he had exerted on her over the years. Moss spoke of a conversation with famous sociologist Robert Staughton Lynd about his own application to the doctoral program at Columbia University. Lynd was impressed by Moss’s degrees from the New School for Social Research, but the clincher was the knowledge that he was Marion Thompson Wright’s son. After that conversation, Moss meditated for a long time at the Alma Mater statue on campus. It was hardly surprising, he told his mother, that he sought a doctorate concentrating on the history of education. He kept a photograph of Marion Thompson Wright in her doctoral graduation gown beside him while writing his own dissertation. Years of psychoanalysis had taught him that Marion Wright was a wonderful mother, “not in a traditional way, but in an meaningful way.” Moss concluded with an anecdote about his son, Jay, who exclaimed just that morning during a ride to school that he wanted to be a college teacher just like his grandmother. Even after such effusions of love and respect, Moss closed the letter “affectionately, Jim for the family.” The son was clearly trying to save his mother’s life. However, even though he was living in New York City, he did not manage to travel to Washington, D.C. to be with her.186 Moss mentioned how proud he was of his sister’s progress. Thelma, meanwhile, graduated in 1959 from Rutgers University with a degree in medical technology. The announcement indicated that she had graduated from Southside High School in Newark and had been active at Rutgers in the NAACP and Sociology Club and received a scholarship from the New Jersey Society of Medical Technologists. She was identified as the daughter of Marion Thompson Wright of Montclair. In addition to her involvement with the NAACP, Thelma Moss followed her mother’s examples in other organizations. The Montclair Council of the National Council of Negro Women gave her an achievement award in 1961 for continuous and unselfish service.187 James Moss, who during these years often took time to attend to his mother, traveled to Africa in August 1962. After his lecture at the Salzburg Institute, he traveled to Africa on a social sciences research grant. Writing from Southern Rhodesia en route to Ghana, he expressed surprise that Africans did not necessarily view him as a kinsman, referring to Moss as “a colored, a European, and a White.” Once identity was clarified, Africans suggested strongly that he leave America for good and “join our brothers in building a new free home.” Moss did have some hopes. There was a visiting chair at the University of Salisbury (Now the University of Zimbabwe in Harare), where E. Franklin Frazier had been offered a position. Moss feared that his own lectures had not gone well and that he lacked Frazier’s reputation. Still, he felt, it would be an honor if it worked out.188 Communication between Marion Wright and her daughter, Thelma, involved more pedestrian matters. Thelma Moss was living in the home at 144 Lincoln Avenue along with her former stepfather-­in-­law, Arthur Wright. Marion Wright’s letters to Thelma discussed painting the house. Wright insisted that Thelma keep all the bills and receipts in one place so they could be retrieved if the house was sold. As she often did with her son, Marion Wright advised her daughter to ensure that she had a “nest egg” saved for “rainy days.” Apparently, Thelma Moss had borrowed from house money to pay for travel. Wright then talked about her busy schedule before signing off, “as ever, MT.” The letter was very business-­like, filled with advice drawn from Thelma’s

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personal errors, and lacked any of the warmth expressed in messages to and from James Moss and his family.189 Despite her depression, Marion Wright made ambitious plans. In addition to working on the manuscript of the biography of Slowe, she was making long-­term, ambitious plans to enlarge her real estate holdings. Wright made a down payment on two unimproved, vacant lots at 24 Meredith Avenue in the Azurest section of Sag Harbor, New York. Wright closed the deal by paying one hundred dollars cash on December 27, 1961, to a lawyer who represented Azurest, Inc. with a promise to pay the remaining sum of one thousand dollars by December 1, 1963. Azurest was one of three elite vacation areas around Sag Harbor designated for African Americans. Blacks had lived in Sag Harbor since the colonial days when it was an important whaling depot and, in the nineteenth century, a stop on the oceanic Underground Railroad. Founded in 1947 as a beachfront property, Blacks built simple vacation homes, spending a year or two to construct them. By the time Wright bought in, prices had gone up, but likely she considered the purchase a great investment. Long before the development of the Long Island Expressway, Sag Harbor was a four-­to-­five-­hour drive from New York City. Nonetheless, Azurest attracted a largely New York City crowd of Black bankers and physicians. It was, as Colson Whitehead described in his novel Sag Harbor about a generation later, where young Blacks could spend summers growing up in a safe, healthy, sportive world. It would be perfect for Wright’s grandchildren or great-­grandchildren. There they could mingle and befriend the children of the nation’s Black elite.190 All this activity merely masked Marion Wright’s worsening depression. On October 26, 1962, her second suicide attempt was successful. Wright asphyxiated herself by connecting a hose from her car’s exhaust pipe into the auto’s cabin while the engine ran in the garage. Her colleagues Walter G. Daniel and Elias Hicks, concerned that she had not shown up for classes, rushed to her home and found her slumped over the steering wheel of the car. The car’s gas tank was empty; a janitor had heard the motor running in the late afternoon. Daniel and Hicks notified the police; later Wright was declared dead at D.C. General Hospital. Her suicide note read “I want my friends to understand that I’ve gone through hell in the past year.” Her physician at Howard Medical College stated that he knew of no medical condition that would account for her suicide. Wright’s note indicated that she must have been severely, clinically depressed. Alvin Poussaint has argued that the rate of Black women committing suicide is lower than Black males or white men and women. While Wright must have believed that her choice of method would be peaceful and not disfiguring, auto-­asphyxiation unnaturally extends the body’s organs. At the funeral, her casket was closed.191 Wright’s family attended the funeral services in Washington, D.C. Her daughter, Thelma, James and Juanita Moss, brother Arnold Thompson, and sister Emma Roots attended the Washing­ ton service. Arthur Wright did not attend. A wide circle of Wright’s friends came to the funeral in Washington, D.C. Marion Wright’s body lay in state, and the funeral was held at the Rankin Memorial Chapel on the Howard campus. There was next a memorial service in Montclair, New Jersey, at the Trinity Presbyterian Church before her internment in Rosedale Cemetery in Newark. Onlookers detected an “alienation” from Wright’s sister, brother, and other relatives. Some attributed this disaffection to resentment over favoritism that Minnie had exhibited toward Marion during childhood, especially in pursuit of education. Theodora Daniel attributed their

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disaffection to Wright’s skin color being lighter than her siblings. Later, James Moss and Thelma Moss both described Wright as a “distant figure” who did not really love them. In contrast, Walter Daniel, writing in his powerful tribute to Marion Thompson Wright, described her “great empathy [that] enabled her to recognize the needs of a widening circle of friends, to give a word of encouragement, to make a constructive suggestion, to contrive an opportunity for relaxation, or to suggest a new perspective on a pressing problem. Time, energy, devotion, and resources were generously shared.” One can hear the words of Lucy Diggs Slowe poured into Marion Thompson’s ears decades before. One can imagine Marion Thompson Wright in her decades as a Howard professor gaining greater wisdom and experience applying those lessons. Sadly, the powerful empathy that Wright had extended toward her students, sorors, and colleagues somehow could not extend to her own family.192 Rayford Logan remembered her in his official history of Howard University published five years after her death. Though not a formal description of Wright’s time at Howard, Logan did point out her graduation from Howard, doctorate at Columbia, and credited her with thirty years of teaching at Howard. He noted her incomplete project on Lucy Diggs Slowe.193 Friends and family struggled to understand how such a warm, dedicated scholar/teacher could end her own life. As one colleague put it, “There was something in her life she could not handle.”194 Speaking years later at a conference in Wright’s honor, James Moss commented that “had she held on a little longer, she would have been justly proud of her children and their accomplishments.” Moss, who was also a psychoanalyst as well as a social scientist, recalled that his mother had started promising major gifts to his sister and him, a sign that Wright was considering ending her life. Moss remembered that Thelma Moss was to get the Montclair home while he would “have the Sag Harbor house. I told her it was ok that I really did not need all that.”195 Marion Thompson Wright provided her own epitaph in a letter to Howard president Mordecai Johnson. After receiving recognition for her university activities, she wrote, “It has been my aim to reflect credit on my institution and to have some situation or some person happier as a result of my effort or influence. In other words—­‘It is my desire to do some good thing every day.’”196 Later scholars blamed her death on the hardships of being a Black and female scholar. Quoting John Hope Franklin’s observation that Black academe was “indescribably lonely,” Margaret Crocco regards Wright as an alienated outsider, “even by members of her own race.” Worsened by her depression stemming from her deceit about her private life, Crocco comments that Howard’s institutional sexism and the racism of the larger society made “her own ability of perseverance . . not as tenacious.” Doubtless, Wright had labored long and hard for Howard University, for her profession, and for Black people in general. As a woman, she did not receive the accolades that her male counterparts enjoyed. Taken together, Wright simply tired of life and could see no alternative.197 Following Marion Wright’s death, her survivors struggled over the designation of executor and beneficiary. There were battles over executing the will, her small TIAA annuity, and the contents of the Washington apartment and the Montclair home. Marion Wright had not updated her will since 1947 when she was still married to Arthur Wright, allowing him claim in the estate. Siding with Arthur Wright was Thelma Moss.198 Eventually, an independent arbitrator had to settle the

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estate, thereby incurring more costs. During this time, James and Juanita Moss separated, leading to a divorce a few years later.199 James Moss commented that had his mother “hung in there a little longer, she might have been able to enjoy her family and her achievements more.” Her old nemesis and secret terror, Mordecai Johnson, retired as president of Howard University in 1960. Given her long, faithful, and fulsome contribution to the school, it’s unlikely that Marion Wright would have been forced out had the truth about her children become known. But that is hindsight. The “hell” that she had gone through in the last year of her life indicates how her disease of depression had taken over her spirit. Her friends, her work, her family, church, sorority, and other organizations could not save her. She did have a legacy, at first embittered, but later to grow in strength and significance. Thelma Moss and her former stepfather, Arthur M. Wright, continued to live together in the home at 144 Lincoln Avenue in Montclair, New Jersey. Arthur M. Wright died on May 15, 1969, just two weeks before his eighty-­fourth birthday.200 James intended to claim his cash share of the home in Montclair and asked what Thelma planned to do, in part to avoid paying rent on James’s partial ownership.201 Thelma Moss stayed in the Montclair home for two more years while continuing to teach in the pharmacy school at Rutgers-­Newark. She continued to be very active in the Essex County Girl Scouts, was chairperson of the New Jersey Society of Medical Technologists, and was a member of the American Society of Microbiologists. She was a founding member of the Central New Jersey branch of the Delta Theta Sigma Sorority. When the school moved to the University Heights campus in Piscataway, Thelma Moss moved to nearby Metuchen. Two years later, she was appointed to serve as a member of the Metuchen Board of Education. She continued her studies, earning a certificate at Medgar Evers College in community programs.202 Thelma Moss worked at Rutgers until her retirement in 1982. She lived in Metuchen and served on its Board of Education until her death on August 20, 1984. At her funeral, brother James Moss eulogized her as a devoted daughter who was rarely out of touch with her father, Pop Moss. Other testimonials came from the borough of Metuchen for her many years of service. Over fifty members of the Central Jersey Delta Sigma Theta sorority held a special service with Delta prayers and songs at the funeral home for Thelma Moss.203 James Moss taught at Union for two years before taking a post as director of research at the Southern Regional Council, an Atlanta-­based, leading public policy institute specializing in race relations and active since 1919. Over the next two years, Moss supervised reports on Black employment in three major southern cities: Houston, Atlanta, and Chattanooga. The findings were depressingly similar. Educated Blacks could rarely find suitable jobs; regardless of experience, talent, or perseverance, they were the last hired and the first to be fired. Unskilled or lesser-­educated Blacks could not even get in the doors of employers, regardless of government job training. Moss must have felt as his mother did when working with the unemployed of New Jersey in the Great Depression. One major difference, of course, was that Moss’s surveys occurred in the midst of a national economic boom.204 By 1967, James Moss moved again, this time taking a post as professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Soon he became the associate dean for international studies

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Juanita Wright Moss, James Allen Moss, and Alison Moss, 1960s, courtesy of Marion Thompson Wright Collection 0177, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives.

and spent ample efforts getting students to study abroad. Moss made headlines locally when he charged the American government with conducting a racist foreign policy. America, he argued, had to recognize its past diplomatic racism in order to avoid future problems.205 As an ombudsman between Buffalo University and Black students and faculty, Moss became a defender of students’ demands to be decision-­planners and makers of campus policy; he disputed political descriptions of student demands as “unrest.” Moss was also involved in university outreach to the city’s Black community. Moss was successful in attracting artistic talent to the university, sponsoring the hiring of saxophonist Archie Shepp in 1968. Shepp stayed at Buffalo for two years before departing for an illustrious career at the University of Massachusetts.206 James Moss had a visible publishing profile. Generally, Moss published in academic and smaller, liberal magazines. He became close to Paul Kurtz, founder and editor of The Humanist Magazine. This was and remains the journal of the Humanist Society, a membership organization initiated first in 1927 by professors and seminarians at the University of Chicago and then incorporated

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in 1941. The society’s credo “applies humanism—­a natural and democratic outlook informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion—­to broad areas of social and personal concern.” The Humanist, then and now, strives for “insightful ethical critique and commentary.”207 Kurtz and Moss had worked together at the University of Buffalo. Moss was then working on a book on race relations. Kurtz asked Moss in 1969 to edit a book entitled The Black Man in America, which Dell Publishers issued two years later. Moss, who had published in the journal earlier, was able to tap its supply of backlist articles by such luminaries as Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, Julian Bond, Carl Stokes, Eldridge Cleaver, and Brown v. Board of Education lawyer Robert L. Carter. Moss convinced Bayard Rustin, Dick Gregory, Howard Zinn, and Charles V. Hamilton to lend contributions published elsewhere. In addition, Moss commissioned articles by Nathan Wright Jr., Whitney M. Young, and the sole woman in the group, Anne Forester Holloway, who operated an important Black Power bookstore in Washington, D.C., and later, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, became the first Black female American ambassador, serving in Mali from 1978 to 1981. In addition to writing the introduction, Moss wrote a chapter entitled “In Defense of Black Studies.”208 While all the articles in the compilation are interesting, Moss’s introduction and chapter are among his most fully developed arguments about Black Power. In his introduction, Moss affirms that “the struggle of Negroes for full citizenship revolved around the potentiality for achieving a just equilibrium between Black powerless and white power.” Moss contended that the threat to America was less from Black Power and more from white resistance to social change. In a clear departure from his mother’s hopes and dreams, Moss argued that “integration without power is a sham; it is vacuous and meaningless.” Whereas Marion Wright and her generation largely sought integration, Moss was far more interested in autonomous power. Moss surveyed key moments in Black American history leading up to the 1960s. Moss emphasized that integration, while a principal focus of freedom struggles over the previous decades (including his mother’s life efforts), had produced only a small Black presence in white institutions. Rather, the social context of 1970 indicated, in contrast to multiple waves of immigrant groups, the nonassimilation of American Blacks. The denial of the American dream, Moss felt, “has forced them, in the interest of their own survival, to look outside the society for psychic support and positive role models.” Few Blacks are accepted members of American society and “few of us really believe that we will be.”209 In later years, while teaching and administering at Adelphi College, James Moss continued his interests in Black unemployment. A 1982 article in Social Work detailed manpower programs aimed at hard-­core, unemployed Black youths and contended that all too often the programs failed their policy objectives. Moss discussed major on-­the-­job training programs, neighborhood youth corps programs, business sector training plans, and work incentive programs since 1962. Moss promoted direct grants from the federal government to private firms.210 Late in his life, James Moss wrote a number of book reviews for the New York Times on new publications in race relations.211 Moss’s last publication occurred in 1990 when he coauthored with George R. Lockhart, also a professor at Adelphi, a book chapter entitled “The Impact of Underemployment on the Quality of Black Family Life” in an anthology about social work practice with Black families. Their article was a historically sensitive piece demonstrating the long-­historical effects of under and unemployment. They blamed the late 1980s economic policies of the Reagan

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James Allen Moss, courtesy of Adelphi College Archives.

administration for extending persistent cultural forces such as racism and job discrimination. The results of such policies were minimal futures for Black infants and depression for parents, who were often too young to overcome the burdens of unemployment and family. Social workers, they argued, must take practical means to help the unemployed. Social workers needed to be sensitive to a “variety of coping measures and to be attuned and empathetic to deep psychological hurts in their clients.”212 In his last year, James Moss retired from Adelphi, set up a private psychoanalytic practice in New York City, and codirected the Association for Inter-­Ethnic Studies.213 James Moss died on June 20, 1990.214 His father, William H. Moss died a year later on October 4, 1991.215 Juanita Moss died on February 14, 1998.216 Outside of her scholarship, Marion Thompson Wright’s most enduring legacy is the eponymous lecture series at Rutgers University-­Newark. In the late 1970s, a group of history graduate students at Rutgers-­New Brunswick formed the Marion Thompson Wright Study Club, thereby memorializing Wright’s name and extending her scholarship about New Jersey’s African American people. Among the first members of the club were Clement Price, a historian at Rutgers-­Newark, Giles Wright of the New Jersey Historical Commission, Professor Larry Greene of Seton Hall, Jeanette L. Cascone, a historian of African Americans, Lenworth Gunter of Essex County College, and Sarah Sabin, an educational consultant.217 By 1981, the Marion Thompson Wright Study Club founded a lecture series in her name. Sterling Stuckey, a distinguished scholar of slave culture and literature, was the first keynote speaker, giving

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a speech on Black studies through the “Prism of Paul Robeson.” In succeeding years, numerous scholars offered keynote speeches including John Blassingame, Vincent Harding, Arnold Rampersad, Nell Irvin Painter, Eric Foner, David Levering Lewis, James Oliver Horton, Deborah Gray White, and Thomas J. Sugrue. Invitations were not restricted to academics. In 1982, Max Roach, the famed percussionist and educator, spoke. The series proved to be immensely popular with audiences routinely over one thousand. Attending the event became a must for political figures. As the event grew more popular, it hosted an entire day of panels, talks, and book sales. Among the innumerable luminaries who served as ancillary speakers were novelist John A. Williams, playwright and poet Amiri Baraka, scholars Robert Ferris Thompsons, Brenda Stevenson, Paula Giddings, Earl Lewis, and dozens more. Under the indefatigable leadership of Clement Price, the lectureship flourished. When Price died in 2014, after a lifetime of service to New Jersey Black history, his estate endowed the lectureship, and it became an essential part of the Clement A. Price Institute of Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience.218 One of the most poignant evenings came in 1989 when James A. Moss delivered a keynote lecture on “Marion Thompson Wright and the Writing of New Jersey Afro-­American History.” James Moss and his sister, Thelma, had attended several of the events over the years, until her death in 1984.219 Other members of the extended family had passed away earlier. Arnold Thompson died in June 1964. Gladys Ruth (Root), Marion Wright’s sister, died on November 22, 1969. Nellie Thompson died in Warsaw, Virginia, on March 9, 1987. Over the next decades, Port Royal, the family home, had undergone sizable demographic changes. Only an hour from Washington, D.C., and linked by the immense Interstate Highway 95, the town’s white population burgeoned. Still, Caroline County had achieved a substantial number of African American “firsts.” Commemorated on a monument in 2002 are a lengthy list of Black village clerks, school board members, and attorneys whose achievements matched those in New Jersey at the time.220 In their authoritative 1985 study of the evolution of Black history, August Meier and Elliott Rudwick singled out Wright’s scholarship for its excellence: All of [Marion Thompson Wright’s] these works were the product of painstaking research in scattered sources. In her combination of thorough scholarship and faith in the promise of a democratic society, Wright exemplified the perspective of those engaged in the finest work being done in Afro-­American history at the time. The final chapter of her book, ‘Implications for Education,’ fused the moral view underlying the work of Black historians with the Instrumentalism of Columbia Teachers College’s John Dewey; if as, Dewey maintained, education should prepare youth for participation in a democratic society, elimination of the discriminatory practices in the American educational system was imperative.221

Marion Thompson Wright’s pioneering accomplishment inspired Deborah Gray White to dedicate her anthology of the experiences of Black female historians in the American academy to Wright, along with Anna Julia Cooper, who was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in the discipline of history. Cooper achieved her doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, in 1925, fifteen years before Wright finished at Teachers College.222

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Most of the Black female historians who reflected upon their careers taught in predominately white universities and colleges. They, too, experienced isolation, though it was worsened by racism. Those who taught at predominately Black institutions added sexism to their roster of occupational hazards. Marion Thompson Wright spent her entire academic career at Howard and had several close friends and supporters in her department. The Daniels, in particular, were deep friends; Walter Daniel and another colleague went to Wright’s home to discover her body after her suicide. Surely, Wright experienced a degree of sexism though much of it seemed to emanate from President Mordecai Johnson, who was roundly hated by most of the faculty, male and female. By contrast, many of the Black female professors at integrated schools later experienced a mix of racism and sexism as if their job had only to do with Affirmative Action and not because of sterling intellectual qualities. Nell Painter, one of the scholars included in White’s anthology, demolished this prejudicial argument in a famous 1993 essay in Perspectives on History, the Magazine of the American Historical Association.223 Lately, Marion Thompson’s work has regained attention beyond her eponymous lectureship. In the 2017 lecture, Thomas Sugrue, a noted scholar of the civil rights movement in the northern states, gave the annual lecture. In his introductory remarks, Sugrue hailed Wright for her inspiring insights into northern Jim Crow education and her use of excellent scholarship to push New Jersey politics toward greater integration. Gradually, the need to archive her extant papers and books has become apparent. In 2017, Pepperdine University acquired a sizable portion of her personal library, including signed copies of Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, and a full collection of her own work. Black scholars are rediscovering Marion Thompson Wright as an early feminist icon.224 Marion Thompson Wright’s life was riven by race, gender, and perhaps most powerfully, class. As a Black woman living and working in a Jim Crow society, she matured within the constraints and bonds of African American life. Her education and career were spent largely at Howard University, the capstone of Black education, at a time when the school’s excellence rivaled most white institutions. Wright, like all women at Howard, felt devalued by Howard University’s patriarchal structure, personified by the autocratic president, Mordecai Johnson. Wright did not suffer Johnson’s oppressive methods as much as did her mentor, Lucy Diggs Slowe, yet Wright felt underappreciated at the school. Keeping her children a secret caused Wright the deepest emotional sorrow and the depression that ended her life. Wright had chosen a career over motherhood. All the organizations she joined and led, her impressive scholarship, and her counseling work at Howard University could not overcome her despair over her choice to abandon her children. Intellectual forces such as the scholarship of E. Franklin Frazier and social mores such as the beatification of the heteronormative, nuclear family in the 1950s worsened her dilemma and induced her suicide. Wright’s death cancelled any hopes to resolve her personal dilemma. James Allen Moss lamented in his 1989 speech: “Indeed, my sister and I in many ways tried to mirror those qualities and values that sustained and enriched and validated my mother’s life.” While Marion Thompson Wright’s tragic end revealed those swirling powers that tortured her life, her legacy, in family and history, remain intact.225

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notes 1. Justin Driver, The School House Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind (New York: Pantheon, 2018), 10–­13. 2. Farah Jasmin Griffin, Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics during World War II (New York: Civitas, 2013); Rosalind Rosenberg, Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Pauli Murray, Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage, ed. Patricia Bell-­Scott (New York: Liveright, 2018); Barbara Savage, “Professor Merze Tate: Diplomatic Historian, Cosmopolitan Woman,” in Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women, ed. Mia Bay, Farah J. Griffin, Martha Jones, and Barbara D. Savage (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 252–­272; Linda M. Perkins, “Merze Tate and the Quest for Gender Equity at Howard University: 1942–­1977,” History of Education Quarterly 54, no. 4 (November 2014): 516–­551. 3. Walter G. Daniel, “A Tribute to Marion Thompson Wright: A Valedictory Note,” Journal of Negro Education 32, no. 3 (1963): 308–­310; Margaret Smith Crocco, “The Price of an Activist Life: Elizabeth Almira Allen and Marion Thompson Wright,” in Pedagogies of Resistance: Women Educator Activists, 1880–­1960, ed. Margaret Smith Crocco, Petro Munro, and Kathleen Weiler (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999), 47–­82; Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education: Mary Ritter Beard and Marion Thompson Wright,” in Bending the Future to Their Will: Civic Women, Social Education, and Democracy, ed. Margaret Smith Crocco and O. L. Davis Jr. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 93–­124. 4. Zachery R. Williams, In Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Public Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race, 1926–­1970 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2009). 5. Deborah Gray White, Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–­1994 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 66; James A. Moss, “A Personal Perspective on My Mother, Dr. Marion Thompson Wright,” Typescript, February 26, 1989, James A. Moss Papers, manuscript collection 0187, Special Collections and University Archives, Pepperdine University. 6. Quoted in Veronica Chambers, “Freedom Is What Is Claimed,” New York Times, June 19, 2020, https://​www​ .nytimes​.com/​interactive/​2020/​06/​18/​style/​juneteenth​-celebration​.html​?searchResultPosition​=​6. 7. Marion Thompson, Certificate of Live Birth, September 13, 1902, New Jersey State Archives (Trenton, N.J.), 23424; Thomas Holmes and Mary Holmes, “Register of Colored Persons of Caroline County State of Virginia, Cohabitating Together and Husband and Wife,” A Domain of One’s Own, February 27, 1866, p. 41, line 9, http://​ resources​.umwhisp​.org/​freedmen/​CarolineAf​-Ammarried1​.htm; U.S. Census 1880 (Port Royal, Caroline, Va.), roll 1359, p. 396D, enumeration district 023; and U.S. Census 1900 (West Orange, Essex, N.J.), p. 23, enumeration district 0185, FHL microfilm 1240968. On women and the early migration, see Carol Marks, Farewell—­We’re Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 45–­50. 8. U.S. Census 1880 (Marshall, Richmond, Va.), roll 1386, p. 415D, enumeration district 097; Moses H. Thompson, Virginia Births and Christenings, 1584–­1917, https://​virginiagenealogy​.org/​vital; Moss, “Personal Perspective.” On Richmond, see Peter Rachleff, Black Labor in Richmond, 1865–­1890 (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1984). 9. “Marion Manola,” People, Internet Broadway Database, accessed June 7, 2021, https://​www​.ibdb​.com/​ broadway​-cast​-staff/​marion​-manola​-422428. For family, see Thirteenth Census of the United States 1901 (Newark, Essex County, N.J.) ward 2, district 14, p. 14; and City Directories for Newark (East Orange and Orange, N.J.), 1902–­1909. For Mason and Manola, see “John B. Mason,” Wikipedia, last modified January 15, 2021, https://​en​ .wikipedia​.org/​wiki/​John​_B.​_Mason. 10. New Jersey State Census 1915 (New Jersey), pp. 10 and 12a.; Newark City Directory, 1916 (Newark, N.J.), p. 1441. For Arnold and James Holmes, see New Jersey State Archives, Marriage Indexes, index type: bride, year range: 1910–­1914, surname range: R–­S (Trenton, N.J.); U.S. Federal Census 1930 (Cranbury, Middlesex, N.J.) p. 1B, enumeration district 0009, FHL microfilm 2341101; and Jonetta Rose Barras, Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl: The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women (New York: Ballantine, 2000), 67–­75. 11. For death of Thomas Holmes, see Virginia Department of Health, Virginia Deaths, 1912–­2014 (Richmond, Va.). 12. Marion Wright, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey (New York: Teachers College Press, 1941), 3. 13. William Henry Moss, New York Marriage Records, 1829–­1940 (New York, N.Y.), reference film CN 117, GS film 1643247. 14. Clement Alexander Price, “The Afro-­American Community of Newark, 1917–­1947: A Social History” (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 1975), 22, 31–­36. 15. Thelma Moss, Social Security Application and Claims Index, 1936–­2007 (January 2, 1919); James Allen Moss (March 27, 1920); William H. Moss v. Marion Moss, New Jersey State Archives, Index to Divorce Cases (1924), 56:591.

b i o g r a p h i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n 65 16. John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York: Pantheon, 1988), 346–­349; Sydney Nathans, To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012); Harriet Jacobs [Linda Brent, pseud.], Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, ed. Lydia Maria Child (Boston: Published for the Author, 1861). I am grateful to Nell Painter for the term “iron rod of ambition.” 17. Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, 1923, 1939, Marion Thompson Wright Papers, collection no. 0177, Special Collections and University Archives, Pepperdine University Library; Marion Thompson file, Barringer High School Archives. 18. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 93–­125; Treva B. Lindsey, Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 37–­38. 19. Moss v. Moss. 20. Stephanie J. Shaw, What a Woman Ought to Be and to Do: Black Professional Women Workers during the Jim Crow Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 131. 21. Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019). 22. Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, ca. 1939; Johnitha Watkins Johnson, “‘All I Want to Do Is Win . . . No Matter What’: Low-­Income, African-­American Single Mothers and Their Collegiate Daughters’ Unrelenting Academic Achievement,” Journal of Negro Education 83, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 156–­171. 23. Shaw, What a Woman Ought to Be, 128–­131. 24. Nella Larsen, Passing, ed. Carla Kaplan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007). 25. Quoted in Walter G. Daniel, “Tribute,” 308–­310. For Holmes, see Valerie Boyd, “Zora Neale Hurston: The Howard University Years,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 39 (Spring 2003): 104–­108. 26. Carroll L. L. Miller and Anne S. Pruitt-­Logan, Faithful to the Task at Hand: The Life of Lucy Diggs Slowe (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), 110–­111. For the fullest account of the unrest about Durkee, see Raymond Wolters, The New Negro on Campus: Black Rebellions on Campus of the 1920s (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975): 70–­136. 27. Williams, Talented Tenth, 23–­33. 28. Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, ca. 1940, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 29. Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 109–­110. 30. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 107–­108; Lindsey, Colored No More, 33–­42. 31. Lindsey, Colored No More, 16–­17, 25–­52. 32. “Convocation Date Set at Howard U,” Evening Star, (Washington, D.C.), October 26, 1924; “Howard University Meets Visitors Today: Third Annual Honors Day,” November 1, 1925, Chicago Defender. 33. “Howard Women Meet at Evening Fest,” Evening Star, (Washington, D.C.), November 21, 1926; Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 141–­143. 34. “Kappa Mu Initiates Star Howard Students,” Evening Star, (Washington, D.C.), May 23, 1926; Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 248–­249, 253–­261. 35. Paula Giddings, In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement (New York: William Morrow, 1988), 6–­7, 39; Lindsey, Colored No More, 105; Mary Elizabeth Vroman, Shaped to Its Purpose: Delta Theta Sigma—­the First Fifty Years, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1993), 32, 84–­88. 36. Jonathan Scott Holloway, Confronting the Veil: Abraham Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919–­1941 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 37–­44; Blair A. Rubles, Washington’s U Street: A Biography (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 62–­67, 73; Willard B. Gatewood Jr., Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–­1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 39–­68. 37. Lorenzo J. Greene and Myra Colson Callis, The Employment of Negroes in the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1931). 38. “Social Notes,” Afro-­American (Baltimore), December 6, 1924; “Social News,” Pittsburgh Courier (Newark), April 26, 1924; “Social and Personal Happenings,” July 12, 1924; Julia Goens, “Atlantic City,” Inter-­State Tatter (New York, Atlantic City), August 10, 1928; “Orange, New Jersey,” New York Amsterdam News, October 10, 1928; “Social Notes,” Chicago Defender (New York), September 11, 1928. 39. “Howard Student’s Election Wrecks World Court Meet,” Chicago Defender, December 19, 1925. For a full discussion of the Women’s League, see Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 140–­142. 40. A Small Collection from the Library of Marion Thompson Wright (1902–­1962) (Sherman Oaks, Calif.: B and L Rootenberg, 2016). Now part of the Marion Thompson Wright Collection, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives. 41. Lindsey, Colored No More, 20–­22, 71–­74; Charles S. Johnson, The Negro College Graduate (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938), 25–­26. 42. White, Too Heavy a Load, 66–­70, 111–­130.

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43. White, 76. 44. Walter Daniel, unpublished oral history transcript of the interview with James A. Moss, Women’s Project of New Jersey Papers, Alexander Library, Rutgers University Special Collections, 1982, New Brunswick, N.J. For other visits, see Philadelphia Tribune, July 14, 1932; and Crocco, “Activist Life,” 74. On Walter and Theodora Daniel, see James Edward Newby, “Walter Green Daniel: Advancing Knowledge through Benevolence,” Journal of Negro Education 76, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 503–­512. 45. The Bison, the yearbook of Howard University (1927), 81; Frederick D. Wilkinson, Directory of Graduates, Howard University, 1870–­1963 (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1965), 367. 46. Adam Fairclough, A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007); Johnson, Negro College Graduate, 58–­60; Marion Cuthbert, “Education and Marginality: A Study of the Negro Woman College Graduate” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1942), 140–­141; Horace Mann Bond, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order (New York: Prentice-­Hall, 1934), 243, 263–­283; Lisa Krissof Boehm, Making a Way out of No Way: African American Women and the Second Great Migration (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 212–­213. 47. “Fellowship,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), October 2, 1927; “266 Get Degrees at Howard University,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), June 9, 1928, 4; “Under the Capital Dome,” Chicago Defender, October 27, 1928, A7 (society); Wilkinson, Directory, 367; Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 108; Crocco, “Activist Life,” 65; Williams, Talented Tenth, 60. On Charles Thompson, see Louis Ray, Charles H. Thompson: Policy Entrepreneur of the Civil Rights Movement, 1932–­1954 (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012), 19. 48. Ray, Charles H. Thompson, 59–­60. 49. Marion Manola Thompson, “A Comparative Study of the Efficiency of the Public White and Colored State School System in Sixteen States” (MA thesis, Howard University, 1928). Copy in Moorland-­Spingarn Research Center. 50. Thompson, 11. 51. Thompson, 14–­15, 22, 54, 63, 64, 67. 52. Cuthbert, “Negro Woman College Graduate.” 53. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 79–­81; Cuthbert, “Negro Woman College Graduate.” 54. Daniel, interview with James A. Moss; Richard I. McKinney, Mordecai, the Man and His Message: The Story of Mordecai Wyatt Johnson (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997), 188–­201. 55. Afro-­American (Baltimore), August 31, 1929, A3. 56. Marion Manola Thompson and Arthur Wright, marriage license (Virginia), April 3, 1931, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. For first appearance, see New York Age, October 8, 1928. 57. Price, “Afro-­American Community of Newark,” 109–­135. 58. New Jersey, Report on 10,000 Relief Cases in New Jersey, 3 parts (Trenton, N.J.: Emergency Relief Administration, 1936), http://​hdl​.handle​.net/​10929/​40531; New Jersey Conference of Social Work, Interracial Committee, The Negro in New Jersey: The Report of a Survey, Department of Institutions and Agencies (Newark: New Jersey Conference of Social Work, 1932); Egerton Hall, The Negro Wage Earner in New Jersey (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1935). 59. Afro-­American (Baltimore), December 21, 1935. 60. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 67; Rayford W. Logan, Howard University: The First Hundred Years, 1867–­1967 (New York: New York University Press, 1969), 283, 357, 362, 562; Williams, Talented Tenth, 60; Ray, Charles H. Thompson, 35–­37. 61. Ray, Charles H. Thompson, 62, 67, 78–­80, 89–­96. 62. Saul Bernstein, The New York School of Social Work, 1898–­1941 (New York: Institute of Welfare Research, Community Service Society of New York, 1942), 26–­39, 65–­82; Elizabeth G. Meier, A History of the New York School of Social Work (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), 43, 60, 71, 73, 79–­94, 116. 63. Jacob Fisher, The Rank and File Movement in Social Work, 1931–­1936 (New York: New York School of Social Work, 1936), 25. 64. Felix L. Armfield, Eugene Kinckle Jones: The National Urban League and Black Social Work, 1910–­1940 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 24–­26. 65. “Negro Graduates” memo, October 13, 1939, School of Social Work Records, series VIII, University Archives, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library; Marion Thompson Wright, Certificate of Academic Record, Office of the Registrar, Columbia University, 1938; Bernstein, New York School, 133. 66. Afro-­American (Baltimore), January 30, 1932; Daniel, “Tribute,” 308–­310; Hettie V. Williams, “The Garden of Opportunity and the Struggle for Equality in New Jersey, 1912–­1949” (PhD diss., Drew University, 2017), 188–­189; Meier, A History, 83. On educational sociology, see Crocco, “Activist Life,” 65. 67. Wright’s notes on Slowe, quoted in Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 110.

b i o g r a p h i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n 67 68. On Johnson’s battles with male scholars, see Logan, First Hundred Years, 284–­304; and Williams, Talented Tenth, 63–­66. 69. Lindsey, Colored No More, 45–­46; Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 145–­150, 155–­158, 183–­184, 195; Clifford Langdon Muse Jr., “An Educational Stepchild: Howard University during the New Deal, 1933–­1945” (PhD diss., Howard University, 1989), 350–­356. 70. Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, Task at Hand, 231–­233. 71. Wright’s notes, quoted and discussed in Miller and Pruitt-­Logan, 232, 235, 335; Moss, “Personal Perspective.” 72. Marion Thompson Wright to Lucy Diggs Slowe, September 16, 1936, Slowe Papers, Moorland-­Spingarn Center, Howard University. 73. Newark City Directory, 1934, 1935. 74. Montclair City Directory, 1939, 1940–­1967. 75. F. R. Hayes (post office inspector) to Arthur M. Wright, March 17, 1936; Arthur M. Wright to F. R. Hayes, March 19, 1936; Charles C. Harris (president, National Alliance of Postal Workers-­Newark Branch) to Superintendent of Market Street Station, March 19, 1936, all in Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 76. New Jersey Herald News, March 1, 1941. On the National Alliance, see Philip F. Rubio, There’s Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). 77. For discussion of Black middle-­class marriages at this time, see Anastasia C. Curwood, Stormy Weather: Middle-­Class African American Marriages between the World Wars (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Discussions with family descendants indicate that Arthur Wright likely did lose his position, if not immediately, then soon after. 78. Census of the United States 1940 (Port Royal, Caroline, Va.), roll m-t0627, p. 3A; Arnold Thompson to Thelma Moss, July 23, 1958, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 79. Census of the United States 1930 (Newark, Essex County), 3rd ward, block 203, p. 4A; Census of the United States 1940 (Newark, Essex County), 2nd ward, block 11, sheet 4B. 80. Marion Wright to James Moss, ca. 1939, Marion Thompson Wright Papers; James Moss, “Personal Perspective.” 81. Marion Wright to James Moss, August 16, 1939, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 82. E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), 288–­299. See the insightful discussion of Frazier’s view of urban Black women in Ruth Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930–­1965 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 29–­32. 83. Lorenzo J. Greene, Working with Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History: A Diary, 1928–­1930, ed. Arvarh E. Strickland (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989); Greene and Callis, Employment of Negroes. 84. New Jersey Herald News, June 9, 1938. 85. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–­1980 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 105–­106. 86. Marion Thompson to Merle Curti, May 23, 1938, Merle Curti Papers, MSS 24, box 46, folder 19, Wisconsin Historical Society. 87. Thompson to Curti, January 8, 1939, Curti Papers. 88. On Black female distrust of whites, see White, Too Heavy a Load, 98. 89. Marion Thompson Wright to Curti, September 18, 1941, Curti Papers; Ellis O. Knox, “The Negro as a Subject of University Research in 1940,” Journal of Negro Education 10, no. 2 (April 1941): 250, 254–­255. 90. Stephanie Y. Evans, Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–­1954 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2007), 126–­130. 91. Wright to Curti, September 23, 1939, Curti Papers. 92. Wright to Curti, September 18, 1941, Curti Papers; American Historical Society, “Program of the Fifty-­Fifth Annual Meeting, Held in New York City, December 27–­­30, 1940,” in Annual Report of the American Historical Society for the Year 1940 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941), 15; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 113–­114. 93. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 88–­90; John Hope Franklin, “The Dilemma of the American Negro Scholar,” in his Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938–­1988 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 305–­306. 94. Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, ca. 1941, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. For university conservatism and woman’s expulsion, see Ray, Charles H. Thompson, 15. 95. Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, ca. 1940, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 96. Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, ca. 1946, Marion Thompson Wright Papers.

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97. Howard Dyson, Howard University: The Capstone of Negro Education: A History, 1867–­1940 (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Graduate School, 1941), 177; “1940–­41: Catalog of the Officers and Students of Howard University,” 1940, Marion T. Wright Personnel File, Moorland-­Spingarn Center, Howard University. For summer school, see “Howard University Summer School Faculty,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk), May 10, 1941. 98. James Allen Moss, “The Utilization of Negro Teachers in the Colleges of New York State” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1957), 146–­149, 154–­162. 99. Logan, First Hundred Years, 386–­390, 415–­419. 100. Howard University, Annual Reports of the Faculty of Liberal Arts (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Dean, 1941, 1942), 51, 73, 76, 94, 98–­103. 101. Evans, Ivory Tower, 109–­118. 102. John Hope Franklin, Mirror to America: The Autobiography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 138–­139; Williams, Talented Tenth, 60–­61, 89–­93; Moss, “Utilization,” 157; Kenneth Robert Janken, Rayford Logan the Dilemma of the African-­American Intellectual (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 204–­208. 103. Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, “Black Women Historians from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Dawning of the Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of African American History 89, no. 3 (Summer 2004): 252–­253. 104. Martha S. Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Won the Vote and Insisted upon Equality for All (New York: Basic Books, 2020), 244. 105. Williams, Talented Tenth, 60, 96. 106. Williams, 90–­92. Paintings are now in the possession of Rootenberg Books in California. B. L. Rootenberg, email with attachments to author, July 23, 2018. 107. Wright to Curti, May 24, 1943, Curti Papers; Franklin, Mirror to America, 109. For ASU, see Jelani M. Favors, Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019), 101–­132, esp. 110; and Leila Mae Barlow, Across the Years: Memoirs (Montgomery, Ala.: Paragon, 1959), 45. 108. Clement Price, Freedom Not Far Distant: A Documentary History of Afro-­Americans in New Jersey (Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1982); Giles Wright, Afro-­Americans in New Jersey (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1987); Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Black New Jersey from 1664 to the Present Day (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2018). 109. Wright, Education of Negroes, vi. 110. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 109–­110; Wright, Education of Negroes, 90, quoting Curti, Social Ideas of American Educators (New York: Scribner’s, 1935). 111. Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-­Education of the Negro (Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1933), 7–­8. 112. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 110; Crocco, “Activist Life,” 70; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 105. 113. Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). 114. Horace Mann Bond, Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel (Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1939); Bond, American Social Order. 115. Horace Mann Bond, “It’s All Happened Before,” Journal of Negro Education 11, no. 1 (January 1942): 64–­65. 116. Charles S. Johnson, “The Education of Negroes in New Jersey, by Marion Thompson Wright,” American Journal of Sociology 48, no. 6 (May 1943): 772; Thomas E. Drake, “The Education of Negroes in New Jersey,” Bulletin of the Friends Historical Association 31, no. 1 (Spring 1942): 34–­35. 117. Holloway, Confronting the Veil; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 102. 118. Marion T. Wright, “Negro Youth and the Federal Emergency Programs: CCC and NYA,” Journal of Negro Education, July 1940, 397–­407. 119. Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnson Greene (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 83–­109, esp. 84; Dagbovie, Carter G. Woodson in Washington, D.C.: The Father of Black History (Charleston, S.C.: History Press, 2014). 120. Julie Des Jardins, Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Memory, 1880–­1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 118–­144. 121. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944), 1180, 1368. 122. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 110–­111. 123. “Mr. Baxter’s School,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 59 (April 1941): 116–­132; “The Quakers as Social Workers among the Negroes of New Jersey from 1763–­1804,” Bulletin of Friends Historical Association 30, no. 2 (Autumn 1941): 79–­88; “Have You Met the Social Worker?,” School and Society, February 1942, 55, 239–­241; Frank J. Klingberg, “An Appraisal of the Negro in Colonial South Carolina,” Journal of Negro History 27, no. 2 (April 1942): 222–­224.

b i o g r a p h i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n 69 124. “New Jersey Laws and the Negro,” Journal of Negro History 28, no. 2 (April 1943): 156–­199; Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); James W. Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-­Century United States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974); Edgar J. McManus, A History of Negro Slavery in the New York (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1968); Edgar J. McManus, Black Bondage in the North (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1973). 125. Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1961). 126. People’s Voice (New York), November 13, 1943; New Jersey Herald News, November 20, 1943. 127. “National Conference of Negro Women and the School,” Aframerican Woman’s Journal 2, no. 9 (Summer 1944): 12–­13; “Challenge of Juvenile Delinquency,” Aframerican Woman’s Journal 3, no. 4 (1944): 15–­17; Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 113. 128. Ray, Charles H. Thompson, 33, 43–­44, 68–­69. 129. Marion Thompson Wright to W. E. B. Du Bois, November 23, 1942; Du Bois to Wright, December 29, 1942; Wright to Du Bois, March 10, 1943; Du Bois to Wright, March 29, 1943; Wright to Du Bois, April 5, 1943; all in W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. 130. New York Age, April 13, 1944 (panel); New Jersey Herald News, September 15, 1944 (Kappa Sigma), and May 11, 1946 (guidance); all others listed in Marion Thompson Wright, “Education, Experience and Contributions, 1941–­1946,” Marion Thompson Wright File, Moorland-­Spingarn Center, Howard University. 131. The Negro Motorist Green Book: 1941 (New York: Victor H. Green, 1941) at NYPL Digital Collections; Gretchen Sorin, Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020). 132. Wright, “Education, Experience and Contributions.” 133. For significant works on Black women’s organizations, see Shaw, What a Woman Ought to Be; Paula Giddings, Where and When I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: William Morrow, 1984); Giddings, In Search of Sisterhood; Des Jardins, Historical Enterprise in America; and Evans, Ivory Tower. 134. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 74; Daniel, “Tribute,” 310; Interview with Dr. Walter Daniel G. Daniel and Mrs. Theodora Daniel, 1987, Rutgers University Archives; Logan, First Hundred Years, 491; Reports of the Dean of Faculty of the Liberal Arts, 1947, 10–­12, 63–­92; Annual Report for 1950, 135. The manuscripts on teaching have not survived. 135. Wright, “Education, Experience and Contributions”; Wright, “Contributions and Activities, 1946–­1955,” Marion Thompson Wright File. 136. Wright, “Contributions and Activities”; Giddings, In Search of Sisterhood, 182–­185, 218; Vroman, Shaped to Its Purpose, 43; on the National Council of Negro Women, see Rebecca Tuuri, Strategic Sisterhood: The National Council of Negro Women in the Black Freedom Struggles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). 137. Wright, “Contributions and Activities”; Giddings, In Search of Sisterhood, 122–­127, 160–­161, 209–­223; Vroman, Shaped to Its Purpose, 39–­53. 138. For full list, see bibliography. 139. “Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–­1875,” Journal of Negro History 33, no. 2 (April 1948): 184–­223. Other publications in 1948 include “Negro Higher and Professional Education in Delaware,” Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 3 (Summer 1948): 265–­271; “Guidance—­the Weak Link in the Educational Chain,” Midwest Journal, December 1948, 32–­44. 140. Newark New Jersey Herald News, September 20, 1947. 141. New Jersey Herald News, November 1, 1947, and October 29, 1948; New York Age, November 6, 1948. 142. Wright, “Contributions and Activities.” 143. Marion T. Wright v. Arthur W. Wright, Court of Common Pleas, State of Ohio, Cuyahoga County, docket 570659, February 19, 1947; Carroll J. Miller (Acting Dean) to William C. Darden, July 29, 1963, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 144. Marion Wright to Lorenzo Greene, October 21, 1947, Lorenzo Greene Papers, Library of Congress. Talley and Greene had perhaps met when she published a highly laudatory account of his career in Negro History Bulletin, November 1, 1942. 145. Marion Wright to Lorenzo Greene, December 18, 1947; Greene to Wright, January 26, 1948, Greene Papers. 146. Marion Wright to Lorenzo Greene, January 1948, Greene Papers; Lorenzo J. Greene, “From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin,” Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 2 (Spring 1948): 154–­156; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 120–­122.

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147. Lorenzo Greene to Marion Wright, March 13, 1948; Marion Wright to Lorenzo Greene, March 30, 1948, Greene Papers. 148. Marion Wright to Lorenzo Greene, May 11, 1948; Greene to Wright, May 18, 1948, and March 9, 1950, Greene Papers; Marion Thompson Wright, “Guidance: The Weak Link in the Educational Chain,” Midwest Journal, December 1948, 32–­44; Marion Thompson Wright, review of You Can’t Build a Chimney from the Top, by Joseph Holley, Midwest Journal, Summer 1949, 110–­111. 149. James Allen Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, 1941, Marion Thompson Wright Papers; Marion Thompson Wright to James Allen Moss, 1941, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. For the Wheatley House, see H. J. Karger, “Phyllis Wheatley House: A History of the Minneapolis Black Settlement House, 1924 to 1940,” Phylon, 47:1 (1986) 79–90. 150. Faculty Archives at Adelphia University; New Jersey Herald News, January 13, 1944; U.S. World War II Enlistment Records, Records of National Archives and Record Group Administration, RG 64, National Archives. For William Henry Moss, see Newark City Directories, 1940–­1951. On Moss and Bruce Wright, see Bruce Wright, Black Judge in a White World: A Memoir (New York: Barricade, 1996), 57, 59. 151. “Higher Degrees in Sociology Conferred in 1949,” American Journal of Sociology 56, no. 1 (July 1950): 67. For liquor store, see New York Age, April 2, 1949; and Wright, Black Judge, 110–­114. 152. Annual Report of the College of Liberal Arts, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Dean, 1950), 1:9; Annual Report of the College of Liberal Arts, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Dean, 1952), 2:28; “Contributions and Achievements of Marion T. Wright, 1946–­1955,” Marion Thompson Wright File; Moss, interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel. 153. College of Liberal Arts, 1952, 2:26. 154. Marion T. Wright to Merle Curti, September 3, 1952, Curti Papers. 155. Wright, “Contributions and Activities”; Paul E. Sluby Jr., The Ionia Whipper Home (Washington, D.C.: Columbian Harmony Society, 1954). 156. Marion L. Wright v. Arthur V. Wright, September 4, 1953, Superior Court of New Jersey, M-4029–­52. 157. “Extending Civil Rights in New Jersey through the Division against Discrimination,” Journal of Negro History 38, no. 1 (January 1953): 91–­107; “New Jersey Leads in the Struggle for Educational Integration,” Journal of Educational Sociology 26, no. 9 (May 1953): 401–­417; “Racial Integration in the Public Schools of New Jersey,” in “Next Steps in Racial Desegregation in Education,” special issue, Journal of Negro Education 23, no. 3 (Summer 1954): 282–­289; “La Corte Supreme Si Ricrede (The Supreme Court Reverses Itself),” Scuola e Citta 6 (May 1955): 167–­171; “Parents Improve Human Relations in Education,” Journal of Human Relations 1, no. 4 (Spring 1953): 20–­30; and “Integration Is Working in New Jersey,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 7, 14, 21, 28, 1953. For later problems, see summaries in my Black New Jersey from 1664 to the Present Day. 158. For Moses Thompson, see New Jersey, Death Notices, 1904–­2000, year range 1951, surname range L–­Z; and for Minnie Thompson, see New Jersey, Death Notices, 1904–­2000, year range 1953, surname range, L–­Z, both on ancestry​.com; Moss, “Personal Perspective.” 159. Wright, “Contributions and Activities.” 160. John Hurlburt to Horace Mann Bond, July 1, 1953; Horace Mann Bond to Robert Lee Carter, July 8, 1953; Mabel N. Smythe to Marion Thompson Wright, July 9, 1953; all in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), May 28, 1952–­July  9, 1953 Collection, Horace Mann Bond Papers (MS 411), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts-­Amherst Libraries. 161. Legal Defense and Educational Fund report, including cases on education, housing, and recreation, June 15, 1953–­September  15, 1953, folder 001410-­002-­0534, p. 4; The Supreme Court of the United States of America, October term, 1953, Oliver Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al., Brief for Appellants . . . in papers of the NAACP, part 03: The Campaign for Educational Equality, series C: Legal Department and Central Office Records, 1951–­1955, folder 001513-­022-­0330, see also folder 001513-­021-­0190; Wayne J. Urban, Black Scholar: Horace Mann Bond, 1904–­1972 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 170–­174; Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Knopf, 1976), 621–­624; Crocco, “Activist Life,” 72–­73; Mark Tushnet, The NAACP’s Legal Strategy against Segregated Education, 1925–­1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 119. 162. Papers of the NAACP, part 03: The Campaign for Educational Equality, series C: Legal Department and Central Office Records, 1951–­1955, series group II, series B, legal file, schools folder 001513-­018-­0134. 163. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 73–­74; Daniel, “Tribute,” 310; Moss, interview. 164. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class (New York: Free Press, 1957); Feldstein, Motherhood, 118–­119; Giddings, When I Enter, 252–­256. 165. “Dr. James Moss: An Interview,” Concordiensis, October 17, 1958; Dillard University Catalog 1950–­1951, University Publications Collection, Will W. Alexander Library.

b i o g r a p h i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n 71 166. Moss, “Utilization,” ch. 3; James Allen Moss, “Negro Teachers in Predominately White Colleges,” Journal of Negro Education 27, no. 4 (Autumn 1958): 451–­462. Moss furthered his arguments in “Case Studies in the Changing Roles and Statuses of College Teachers,” Journal of Educational Research 56, no. 1 (September 1962): 41–­44. 167. Concordiensis, April 10, 1959. 168. Jay Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, January 1961; Alison Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, January 6, 1960, and January 25, 1961, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 169. Juanita Wright Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, March 26, 1961, and November 21, 1961, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 170. Last two paragraphs are drawn from Moss notes from interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel; acknowledgments are in James Allen Moss, “The Utilization of Negro Teachers in the Colleges of New York State” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1957). 171. Moss, interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel. 172. Moss, interview. 173. For Baptist faith, see Information Sheet, Publicity Department, 1952, Office of the Secretary, Howard University, Marion Thompson Wright File. For Plymouth Church, see “Home,” Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, accessed June 7, 2021, http://​www​.plymouth​-ucc​.org; and Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ (Washington, D.C.) records, 1896–­1982, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library. For chapel and member at large, see Moss, interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel, October 1, 1982; and for Bible shows, see Doris B. Armstrong, interview with Ruth E. Moore, October 1, 1987, Women’s Project, Rutgers University. 174. Moss, interview. 175. In possession of Gabriel Bacchus. On embroidery see Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (New York: Random House, 2021), 256 176. Moss, interview; Wright, “La Corte Supreme,” 167–­171. 177. Williams, Talented Tenth, 64; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 126–­130; Logan, First Hundred Years, 407–­451. 178. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 113. 179. Paul E. Sluby Sr., comp., Ionia R. Whipper Home (Washington, D.C.: Columbia Harmony Society, 1984); Daniel, “Tribute.” 180. Daniel, “Tribute,” 310; Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 113; Marion Thompson Wright, “Lucy Diggs Slowe,” in Edward T. James et al., Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 3:299–­300. 181. Annual Reports of the Dean of Faculty of the College of Liberal Arts (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1957–­1960); Doris B. Armstrong, interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel, October 1, 1987, Women’s Project Archives, Rutgers University. 182. Gabrielle Bacchus, email to author, October 16, 2018. 183. Albany Times-­Union, July 24, 1958, and September 19, 1958; Amsterdam Evening Recorder, July 24, 1958; Schenectady Gazette, November 1, 4, 1958, December 12, 1958, May 23, 1959, and February 18, 1961. For other talks, see Schenectady Gazette, November 23, 1959, May 5, 1960, September 14, 1960, November 2, 1960, January 7, 1961, February 6, 25, 28, 1961, and March 4, 13, 31, 1961. For conference, see Albany Times-­Union, February 13, 1960; for activism, see May 4, 1960. 184. For Salzburg Seminar, see Schenectady Gazette, December 3, 1960; for study, see Albany Times-­Union, January 11, 1961; for King, see Schenectady Gazette, January 19, 1961; and for RPI, see Knickerbocker News (Albany), February 18, 1961. 185. Moss notes, interview; Armstrong, interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel, both from the Women’s Project Archives. 186. James Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, March 22, 1958, Moss Papers. 187. Montclair Times, June 4, 1959; New Jersey Afro-­American, June 6, 1959, both in the Clipping Collection, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 188. James Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, late 1961; James Moss to Marion Thompson Wright, August 5, 1962, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. See also Schenectady Gazette, August 11, 1962. 189. Marion Thompson Wright to Thelma Moss, ca. 1961, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 190. Agreement between Marion T. Wright and Azurest, Inc., December 27, 1961, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. On Azurest, see Lawrence Otis Graham, Our Kind of People: Inside Black America’s Upper Class (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 168–­175; and Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor (New York: Doubleday, 2009). 191. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 74; Doris B. Armstrong, interview with Walter and Theodora Daniel, October 1, 1987, Women’s Project, Rutgers University; Alvin F. Poussaint and Amy Alexander, Lay My Burden Down: Unraveling Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis among African-­Americans (Boston: Beacon, 2000), 46.

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192. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 74–­75; Daniel, “Tribute,” 310; “Car and Automobile Lists for Funeral Services, Washington, DC and Montclair, New Jersey,” October 1962, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 193. Logan, First Hundred Years, 491. 194. Crocco, “Shaping Inclusive Education,” 113. 195. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 74–­75; Moss notes, interview. 196. Quoted in Daniel, “Tribute,” 310. 197. Crocco, “Activist Life,” 115. 198. There are over one hundred messages back and forth in the Marion Thompson Wright Papers, collection no. 0177 at Pepperdine University Library. See in particular William Beasley Harris to Martha C. Belle, November 28, 1962, for a clear indication of the problems with executorship. See also Martha C. Belle to David B. Weiner, Surrogate, Hall of Records, New Jersey, December 3, 1962, stating that the will had not been updated since 1946. 199. James Moss to Thelma Moss, March 18, 1964; Thelma Moss to James Moss, March 16, 1964; Martha C. Belle to Maurice Strickland, September 9, 1963, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. James and Juanita Moss divorced in the late 1970s. 200. U.S. Social Security Death Index, May 15, 1969. Bruce Wright to Martha C. Belle, June 15, 1969, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 201. James Moss to Thelma Moss, March 16, 1968, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 202. Recorder (New Brunswick, N.J.) July 11, 1973, Thelma Moss Memorial folder, Marion Thompson Wright Papers. 203. Thelma Moss Memorial folder, Marion Thompson Wright Papers, 1984. 204. Art Gallaher Jr., The Negro and Employment Opportunities in the South: Houston (Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, 1961). 205. Buffalo Courier-­Express, February 23, 1968. 206. Buffalo Courier-­Express, April 4, 9, 20, 1968, April 9, 1969; Niagara Falls Gazette, December 29, 1969; Buffalo Courier-­Express, December 31, 1969. 207. “About the Humanist Magazine,” Humanist, accessed July 9, 2021, https://​thehumanist​.com/​about​-the​ -magazine/. 208. James A. Moss, ed., The Black Man in America: Integration and Separation (New York: Dell, 1971). On Holloway, see Joyceann Gray, “Anne Forrester Holloway (1941–­2006),” BlackPast, https://​Blackpast​.org/​aah/​ holloway​-anne​-forrester​-1941​-2006. On Kurtz and Moss, see Niagara Falls Gazette, April 26, 1968. On other book, see Buffalo Courier-­Express, April 28, 1968; the book on race relations never appeared. 209. Moss, Black Man in America, xiii, xviii, 121. 210. James A. Moss, “Unemployment among Black Youths: A Policy Dilemma,” Social Work 27, no. 1 (January 1982): 47–­52. 211. New York Times, January 4, 1990, and July 15, 1990. 212. James A. Moss and George R. Lockhart, “The Impact of Underemployment and Unemployment on the Quality of Black Family Life,” in Social Work Practice with Black Families, ed. Sadye M. L. Logan, Edith M. Freeman, and Ruth G. McRoy (New York: Longman, 1990), 193–­203; James Moss, “Hurling Oppression: Overcoming Anomie and Self-­Hatred,” in Black Male Adolescents: Parenting and Education in Community Context, ed. Benjamin P. Bowser (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991), 282–­297; Moss, “Brashler’s ‘Black Middle Class’: A Rebuttal,” Crisis 86, no. 7 (August/September 1979): 307–­308. 213. Benjamin P. Bowser, “Conclusions,” in Moss, Black Male Adolescents, 319–­331, 333. 214. U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–­2007, accessed June 17, 2021, https://​ search ​ . ancestrylibrary ​ . com/ ​ c gi ​ - bin/ ​ s se ​ . dll ​ ? indiv ​ = ​ 1 ​ & ​ d bid ​ = ​ 3 693 ​ & ​ h ​ = ​ 4 3997956 ​ & ​ t id ​ = ​ & ​ p id ​ = ​ & ​ q ueryId ​ = ​ 029953400bc0059c94d5731e01bfd0d0​&​usePUB​=​true​&​_phsrc​=​JYZ1​&​_phstart​=​successSource. 215. Death Indexes, New Jersey State Archives, accessed June 16, 2021, https://​search​.ancestrylibrary​.com/​cgi​ -bin/​sse​.dll​?indiv​=​1​&​dbid​=​61260​&​h​=​4474318​&​tid​=​&​pid​=​&​queryId​=​32026b30095561b39829382ca6f2653b​&​ usePUB​=​true​&​_phsrc​=​JYZ3​&​_phstart​=​successSource. 216. U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–­2007, accessed June 17, 2021, https://​ search ​ . ancestrylibrary ​ . com/ ​ c gi ​ - bin/ ​ s se ​ . dll ​ ? indiv ​ = ​ 1 ​ & ​ d bid ​ = ​ 3 693 ​ & ​ h ​ = ​ 4 3999696 ​ & ​ t id ​ = ​ & ​ p id ​ = ​ & ​ q ueryId ​ = ​ e591aa40f5f2f97ddbe2da4ec1683067​&​usePUB​=​true​&​_phsrc​=​JYZ8​&​_phstart​=​successSource. 217. Author conversation with Professor Larry Greene, July 2018; “Program for 1996 Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series,” Clement A. Price Institute of Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience, Rutgers-­Newark University. 218. Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Files, Price Institute. 219. For Moss lecture, see New York Times, February 26, 1989. Thelma Moss owned a signed copy of Clement Price’s documentary history of Blacks in New Jersey. 220. For Arnold Thompson, see U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–­2007.

b i o g r a p h i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n 73 For Gladys Roots, see Commonwealth of Virginia, medical records certificate 69 033833 (Tappahhannock, Va.). For Nellie Thompson, see Virginia Department of Health, Virginia Deaths, 1912–­2014 (Richmond, Va.). For monument, see Dell Upton, What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2020), 214. 221. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 104–­105. 222. Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Woman Historians in the Ivory Tower (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 2. 223. Nell Irvin Painter, “The Academic Marketplace and Affirmative Action,” Perspectives on History, December 1, 1993, https://w ​ ww​.historians​.org/​publications​-and​-directories/p ​ erspectives-​ on-​ history/d ​ ecember-​ 1993/t​ he​ -academic​-marketplace​-and​-affirmative​-action. 224. For Segrue, see Clement A. Price Institute, “The 37th Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series—­Part 2,” March 10, 2017, YouTube video, 1:02:34, https://w ​ ww.​ youtube.​ com/w ​ atch?​ v= ​ B ​ G9LAwNiAtY. For Pepperdine, see Kelsey Knox, “The Finding Aid of the Marion Thompson Wright Papers 0177,” Online Archive of California, January 2021, https://​oac​.cdlib​.org/​findaid/​ark:​/​13030/​c89s1z97/​entire​_text/. For feminism, see Tondra L. Loder-­Jackson, Lois McFadyen Christensen, and Hilton Kelly, “Unearthing and Bequeathing Black Feminist Legacies of Brown to a New Generation of Women and Girls,” Journal of Negro Education 85, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 199–­211. 225. Moss, “Personal Perspective.”

The Education of Negroes in New Jersey Marion Manola (Thompson) Wright

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in the faculty of philosophy columbia university

bureau of publications teachers college, columbia university new york • 1941

To my mother Minnie Holmes Thompson

Contents

Foreword   81 Part I

I. Introduction   87 II. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts    90 III. The Society of Friends    95 IV. Slaves and Free Negroes, 1776–­1804   110 V. The Societies for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery    123 VI. A Period of Transition, 1804–­1830   129 VII. Sunday Schools   135 VIII. The African School   141 Part II

IX. Rise of Negro Leadership    157 X. Extension of Democracy, 1844–­1865   170 XI. Reconstruction Period   194 XII. The Law of 1881   201 Part III

XIII. Recent Investigations   217 XIV. Summary and Conclusions    225 XV. Implications for Education    230 Bibliography   237

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Foreword

Interest in a study of the background out of which evolved the educational opportunities provided for the Negroes of New Jersey was provoked by the realization that in this state almost every conceivable practice governing the education of Negro children could be found. These practices vary from the complete segregation of these children in the elementary schools in some of the southern counties of the state to situations in certain of the northern counties where there is a complete integration of the Negro children in the regular schools, which are staffed with teachers appointed according to merit and without regard to their racial identity. Between these two extremes there exist varying combinations of segregation and integration, such as: separate elementary schools and mixed junior and senior high schools; separate elementary and junior high schools and mixed high schools; divided building, one-­half for whites and one-­half for Negroes; separate classes and teachers for each race within the same building; separate elementary schools for each race on the same school site; separate elementary schools joined by a common auditorium. In some instances the Negro children are taught by Negro teachers in the regular subjects and by white teachers in the special subjects. Strangely enough in the case of one school system, with an otherwise segregated setup in the elementary schools, a colored teacher is teaching white and colored classes in a special subject. Trenton, the capital of the state, is one of the very few places where segregation is carried into the secondary level, for there separate housing is provided as far as the ninth grade. Added to the provocative situations noted above is the pertinent fact that the state legislature in 1881 enacted a statute which prohibited the exclusion of any child from any public school on account of nationality, religion, or race. Yet there are at present in the state at least seventy separate schools for Negro children. This represents an increase of eighteen such schools within the last two decades. That the tendency is away from rather than toward the democratic ideal in education is clearly evident. If the aim of educational leaders is to bring about a greater realization of the ideals of democracy in the schools of this country, then the searchlight of inquiry needs to be focused upon those areas where conditions are such as to threaten the negation of efforts in that direction. Inasmuch as the present can only be understood in terms of what has gone before, it is essential that the historical backgrounds of the problems studied be investigated. To understand the genesis and development 81

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of customs and institutions is to lay the foundation for their revision or change, if such is required by the demands of present social living or the ideals of American education. In view of the fact that more or less recent studies have described the conditions under which Negroes are educated in New Jersey at the present time, a duplication of effort along these lines seems unnecessary. Consequently the scope of this study embraces the period marking the beginning of the history of Negroes in New Jersey up to the year 1900, when the placing of the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown under the administration of the State Board of Education set a pattern of education for Negroes in New Jersey which has continued to the present time. But, since within the last fifteen years several investigations have been made that throw light upon the conditions under which the Negro children of New Jersey are now receiving their education, an examination of these studies has been made to determine in what respects the present conditions are similar to or different from those which obtained at the end of the nineteenth century. It was felt that such a procedure would throw into a clearer focus the implications for present-­day education. In the prosecution of this study data were secured from the minutes and reports of religious bodies and other organizations interested in the welfare and education of Negroes in New Jersey; from reports of both the State Department of Public Instruction and the local boards of education; from the proceedings of the legislative bodies of the state; and from reports of the United States Supreme Court. In addition, supplementary materials in the form of accounts from local histories; contemporary newspapers, journals and magazines; biographical writings; observations of contemporary travelers; and personal interviews which were deemed to have some historical value were used. In instances where original sources or additional witnesses could not be obtained, secondary materials with citations were used in the hope that subsequent research might provide a corroboration or rejection of such data. Because so many of the first-­hand materials are not readily accessible, quotations from these sources have been freely used in the study. Use has also been made of the contributions of other students of history in order to provide a background for the development of the educational opportunities for the Negroes of New Jersey and to show the relationships of that development to the larger social forces and movements of the various periods. The writer is indebted to many persons for assistance in making this research possible. It is impossible to thank individually all those who have been kind enough to give aid in the carrying forward of this work. The writer is indebted to Dr. Charles H. Thompson for suggesting this subject as a field of investigation; to Dr. Dwight O. W. Holmes for professional encouragement and stimulation; and especially to Dr. Merle Curti, her advisor, whose faith, invaluable suggestions, criticisms, and unselfish aid have contributed in an unmeasurable degree to the prosecution of this study. Gratitude is due Miss Genevieve Grork for helpful criticisms of the manuscript and Dr. Edward H. Reisner for assistance at a critical period. The writer wishes also to express appreciation to Miss Julia Sabin and Miss Helen De Vito of the Newark Public Library; Mrs. Maude Green, Miss Mary Daugherty, and Miss Elizabeth Wegelin of the New Jersey Historical Society; Mr. Arthur Schomburg, Mrs. Catherine Latimore, and Miss Marie Neal of the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library; Mr. Henry Bartlett and Mrs. Eleanor Nelson of the Department of Records of the Society of Friends of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting; Miss E. Virginia Walker of the Friends Library at Swarthmore

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College; Dr. Thomas Drake, Miss Anna Hewitt, and Miss Amy Post of Haverford College; The Reverend Dr. Robert H. Nichols, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Synod of New York; Mr. George Osborne, Librarian of Rutgers University; Professor Walter Daniel and Mrs. Dorothy Porter of the Howard University Library; Mr. Guy Klett of the Presbyterian Historical Society; Dr. Nelson R. Burr, author of The Development of Education in New Jersey to 1871, which is to be published by Princeton University; Mr. Robert M. Burkett, student in the Law School of Howard University; Miss Dorothy Lucas of the New Jersey State Library at Trenton; Mr. Martin King of the City Clerk’s Office, Newark; Miss Grace Gardner Griffin and Mr. Edwin H. Pewett in the manuscript division of the Library of Congress; and Mrs. Florence M. Bates, for valuable aid rendered throughout the period of the study; and to Mrs. Anna M. Price and Mrs. Viola Carraway for assistance in preparing the manuscript.

PART I

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I

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Introduction In East Jersey, the town-­meeting was the political factor to be reckoned with and the town the unit of activity. In West Jersey, the county was the unit, and the resemblance between the western province and Virginia is as clear as that between East Jersey and the Puritan home whence came its people. rufus jones

Important for the history of the Negroes of New Jersey were the facts that the original concessions of the English proprietors insured freedom of worship; that the Quinpartite Deed of 1676 divided the colony into East Jersey and West Jersey; that the Dutch were among the earliest settlers of the colony; that the supply of white servants and apprentices was insufficient to meet the economic and industrial needs of the inhabitants; and that Great Britain encouraged the slave trade to promote the commercial interests of that dominion.1 The religious toleration which attracted diversified sects to the province precluded unanimity of opinions and attitudes on important social problems such as slavery and publicly supported school systems. The disciples of Calvin, who saw very little wrong with the institution of slavery, interested themselves in the salvation of the souls of the Negroes. They viewed the practice of slavery as a possible blessing, since it brought within the pale of Christianity thousands of persons who might otherwise have remained in pagan darkness. The Reformed Dutch Church and the Church of England instructed the slaves in the Catechism as a means of preparing them for admission into the Church. The Society of Friends, through the persistent endeavors of some of its leaders, not only sought the spiritual emancipation of the blacks but labored to secure their freedom from physical bondage. Religious, ethical, civic, and utilitarian motives dominated the efforts of this sect to bring enlightenment to the minds of the slaves and free Negroes. Not only did religious toleration make for differences of opinions in respect to the slaves, but it rendered impossible united action in the matter of common schools. This gave rise to the development of a laissez-­faire policy which resulted either in a neglect to provide for education or in the development of parallel systems of parochial

1. For early accounts of beginnings of New Jersey, see Samuel Smith, History of New Jersey (Burlington, 1765); Frances Lee, New Jersey as a Colony and as a State (New York, 1902); Irving Kull, ed., New Jersey—­A History (New York, 1930). An extensive history of New Jersey is under preparation at Princeton University.

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schools. It took two centuries for New Jersey to approach the attainments of Massachusetts in the field of common school training. Another factor which accentuated the differences between population groups in New Jersey was the Quinpartite Deed of July 1, 1676.2 This provided for a line of division running straight north from the east side of Little Egg Harbor to the most northern branch of the Delaware River. East Jersey then lay to the east and north of this line, and West Jersey lay to the west and south. The New Englanders who settled in East Jersey brought with them their traditions of theocracy, puritanical codes of morals, and public support of common schools. For these people New York was the commercial center and the sphere of influence in matters of social habit and custom. West Jersey, with its southern portion in a direct line with the northern parts of Maryland and Virginia, developed a pattern of living closely resembling the plantation life of those two colonies. Philadelphia, situated on the opposite bank of the river, played an important role in shaping the ideals and practices of the people in both the southern and the western sections. When Friends who had settled chiefly in West Jersey followed the lead of Philadelphia in seeking the eradication of the institution of slavery, they met their strongest opposition in the eastern counties of Bergen, Somerset, and Monmouth, where the Dutch had settled. In the beginning the Dutch had resisted the introduction of the slave trade, but the inadequate supply of cheap and plentiful labor finally convinced them that slavery was the most practical solution to a pressing economic problem.3 Once established, slavery continued to flourish until New Jersey had earned the distinction of having the largest slave population of any northern state, with the exception of New York.4 In 1726, in a total population of 32,422, the Negroes numbered 2,581.5 By 1800 there were 12,422 Negroes in a population of 211,149.6 Great Britain contributed definitely to this growth in the black population by her persistent opposition to the imposition of import duties which were calculated to restrict the slave trade. The efforts of the Society of Friends to abolish slavery paralleled this increase. Their patient struggles, and the assistance of members of other sects who were inspired by their ideals, culminated in the law of 1804, which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in New Jersey. Following the passage of this act, the social forces influencing the lives of Negroes during the years covered by this study appear to divide themselves into four distinct periods: 1804 to 1830, 1830 to 1844, 1844 to 1865, and 1865 to 1900. The first period marked an increase in opportunities for the mental improvement of Negroes, bond and free. The Society of Friends continued their previous efforts in this direction, while members of other denominational groups, following the lead of Robert Raikes of England, established Sunday schools where they instructed the indigent poor of both races in the rudiments of learning. 2. Smith, op. cit., 80. See New Jersey Archives, Vol. I, 205–­219. 3. William Stuart, “White Servitude in New York and New Jersey,” Americana, Vol XV, 19–­37; William Stuart, “Negro Slavery in New Jersey and New York,” Americana, Vol. XVI, 347–­367. It is not known when Negroes were first brought into New Jersey, but an instance is recorded of slaves on Colonel Richard Morris’ Plantation in 1689. See Abraham Messler, First Things in Old Somerset (Somerville, 1899), 56. 4. Lee, op. cit., Vol. IV, 40. 5. Andrew Mellick, Story of an Old Farm (Somerville, 1899), 227. 6. United States Census Report, 1800, 48.

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In 1816 the Reverend Robert Finley, a Presbyterian minister, initiated a movement which provided for the training of Negroes on a still higher level. Convinced that prejudices in America would never permit Negroes to live on a basis of equality, he promoted the organization of the American Colonization Society to assist free Negroes in establishing a colony in Africa. Realizing the necessity for training leaders for the new colony, the Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey founded the African School at Parsippany, New Jersey, to train preachers and teachers for service in this country and in Liberia. This undertaking, which lasted only ten years, was significant because it marked the first attempt in this country to train Negroes on a professional level, and because of the prominence of the men it enlisted in the affairs of the descendants of Africans. The year 1830 ushered in a period of greater activity on the part of free Negroes themselves. These men organized annual conventions to counteract the activities of the colonization society, whose acts they interpreted as being inimical to the Negroes’ best interests. They endeavored also to combat the negative propaganda which antagonists of the race were circulating throughout the country against freedmen. Following the recommendations of these national conventions, Negroes in New Jersey associated themselves with anti-­slavery, anti-­colonization, educational, literary, and temperance societies to insure their protection against expatriation and to promote their mental and moral development. In 1844 the friends of public education won a victory in their uphill battle for a state system of schools when the new state constitution stipulated that annual appropriations should be made for the support of public schools for the equal benefit of all the people of the state. The year 1865, which closed this period, witnessed a further extension of the ideals of democracy in the complete emancipation of all slaves from involuntary servitude. The political conflicts which characterized the Civil War period continued into the Reconstruction era when the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were approved, rescinded, or rejected in accordance with the political complexion of the party in control of the legislature. In the midst of this agitation Negroes, philanthropists, and school officials provided for the education of colored children in either separate or mixed schools. At the same time boards of education in northern cities abolished some of the schools for the exclusive use of colored children in response either to requests from Negroes themselves or to desires to effect economies in school finances. In 1881 a situation developed in Monmouth County which provoked the legislature to pass a law prohibiting the exclusion of any child from any school in the state because of nationality, religion, or color. This measure resulted in the elimination of the remaining separate schools in the northern counties, but it failed to effect any change in the practices of the school officials in the southern counties. In 1900 the legislature placed under the administration of the State Department of Public Instruction the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown, which had been founded by Negroes. This act set the general outlines of the pattern of education for the Negroes of New Jersey. The purpose of this study is to explain in detail the development of this chapter in the history of American education and of the Negro in this country.

II

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The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts The church charity schools of this society furnished the nearest approach to a free school system found in the Anglican colonies before the Revolution. They were, though, only for a class, being usually open only to the children of the poorer communicants in the Anglican Church. ellwood cubberley

The early churches of the colonial period did not attempt to interfere with slavery as an institution but directed their efforts toward effecting the spiritual salvation of the slaves. The Church Discipline, which required that candidates be able to read the Catechism as a prerequisite to baptism, proved an open Sesame to knowledge for many black people who might otherwise have remained in complete intellectual darkness. The Reformed Dutch Church and the Church of England instructed their ministers to prepare Negroes for admission to their respective churches. But it was the Church of England which made the first organized attempts to give training in the fundamentals of learning in accordance with Christian principles through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The operations of this Society in America never reached the proportions attained in other colonies, but they gave to some Negroes their only opportunities for mental enlightenment. Rowland Ellis held what appears to have been the first school in this province for their benefit, while several of the ministers christened Negro infants and instructed Negro adults in preparation for church membership. This work, which began in 1701 and reached its height during the years from 1744 to 1774, came to an end with the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Early Manifestations of Interest in Slaves According to Charles Corwin,1 Dutch ministers were known to have refused to perform the baptismal rite in the cases of Negroes because of the ignorance of the parents. In 1660 the Classis of Amsterdam resolved that adult Negroes must be instructed and confess their faith before being

1. Charles Corwin, “The Church and the Negroes in Colonial Days,” Tercentenary Studies, 1928 (Published by the Reformed Church in America, 1928), 399–­400. Cf. New York State, Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York (New York, 1902), Vol. IV, 3109–­3110.

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admitted to baptism. Negro children were not to be baptized unless their parents had become Christians. In 1747 the Classis formulated a plan which provided for a regular order of catechists to instruct Negroes twice a week under the direction of the pastors. Books in simple language were provided for the use of the slaves. Corwin points out that this scheme may have been more ideal than practical, but it showed the degree of interest manifested by the Dutch Christians of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in the welfare of their slaves. The first organized attempt in the direction of preparing the slaves for admission into the Church was made by the Church of England. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts sent out in the period from 1701 to 1783 schoolmasters, catechists, and ministers to promote the conversion of the inhabitants. In 1701 Colonel Robert Morris2 complained to the Society that the young people in the province of East Jersey were very debauched, ignorant, and lacking in respect for the Sabbath. In West Jersey the Quakers were the only ones who had places of worship, but the youths there appeared no better in their morals than those of the eastern province. The following year the Society, resolving to send three missionaries to New Jersey “with all convenient speed,” commissioned George Keith and John Talbot to go over as their first missionaries to that colony. Discussing the state of religion in New Jersey, the first report of the Society in 1704 called attention to the fact that the New Jersey Assembly had not established a single church or school for any of the inhabitants of the province. There was an immediate need for ministers in Shrewsbury, Amboy, Hopewell, Burlington, Crosswicks, and Monmouth County.3 While the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was getting under way in New Jersey, the Society sent instructions to the schoolmasters already in its service. They were to teach the children to read the Catechism distinctly. They were then to have them commit it to memory, after which they were to develop comprehension of the content with the aid of expositions sent out by the Society.4 David Humphreys,5 secretary to the Society, pointed out there were thousands of Negroes of both sexes and all ages who were capable of receiving instruction, for grown persons brought from Guinea had quickly learned enough English to develop a facility in the practical use of the language. The Society looked upon the instruction and conversion of these Negroes as a principal objective of their efforts, considering it a reproach to the Christian name for so many thousands of persons to continue under a Christian government and in Christian families in the same state of pagan darkness in which they had lived in heathen countries. In an “Address to Serious Christians among Ourselves, to Assist the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in Carrying on the Work of Instructing the Negroes in Our Plantations Abroad,” the Society complained that many masters were unable or unwilling to provide for the instruction of their slaves. Expressing regret that the lack of funds made it impossible

2. C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of S. P. G., 1700–­1900 (London, 1901), 52–­53. 3. S. P. G., An Account of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1704), 12. 4. S. P. G., A Collection of Papers Printed by Order of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1706), 33. 5. David Humphreys, An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1730), 232–­233.

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to provide persons whose sole business it would be to instruct the Negroes, the Society called upon pious and well-­disposed Christians to make contributions to this end.6 In 1727 the Bishop of London addressed a letter to the masters and mistresses in the English plantations abroad exhorting them to encourage and promote the instruction of their Negroes in the Christian faith.7 In another letter to the missionaries, the Bishop urged them to give their assistance in stimulating the instruction of the Negroes in their several parishes in the principles of Christianity. This high churchman made an especial plea to those missionaries who possessed slaves of their own because of the examples they would set. He also voiced the hope that the schoolmasters in the parishes would contribute toward the advancement of this work during their leisure time while the clergy were engaged in performing their regular duties.8

The Work among Negroes in New Jersey In catechizing the Negroes the missionaries encountered an obstacle in the contention that if Negroes were baptized they would cease to be slaves. The Society insisted there was nothing in the laws or the Gospel to authorize any such opinion, and pointed out that both the French and the Spaniards had baptized slaves without any change in their servile status. Following the recommendation of Elias Neau, catechist to the Negroes and Indians of New York, the Society sponsored a bill in Parliament “for the more effectual conversion of the Negroes and other servants in the Plantations.”9 In 1704, to encourage the christianizing of Negroes and Indians, New Jersey decreed that baptizing a slave did not set him free as some believed. The legislature declared that this belief was groundless and prejudicial to the inhabitants of the province.10 Five years after the passing of this law missionaries were asking the Society to send schoolmasters to New Jersey. In 1709 John Bass11 made a plea for a free school for poor children. Three weeks later John Talbot,12 who had been one of the first missionaries to come to the colony, petitioned the Society for a schoolmaster, since there was not an efficient one in the whole province. In 1712 Rowland Ellis13 arrived in Burlington to serve there as the Society’s first schoolmaster. The reports sent to the Society from New Jersey indicated that the education or instruction given to the Negroes was wholly on an opportunistic basis. The Society sent no special agents to this province for the express purpose of instructing Negroes, as it did in New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, Virginia, or Newport, Rhode Island.14 During the whole period of its activity the society sent schoolmasters to only three places, Burlington, Shrewsbury, and Second River (Belleville). In

6. Ibid., 250–­253. 7. Ibid., 257. 8. Ibid., 274–­275. 9. S. P. G., An Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1706), 61. 10. New Jersey Laws, 1709, p. 8. 11. John Bass to S. P. G., September 2, 1709, Correspondence of the Society, series A, Vol. V, 107–­108. 12. John Talbot to S. P. G., September 27, 1709, ibid., 102. 13. Rowland Ellis to S. P. G., February 28, 1712, ibid., Vol. VIII, 159–­160. 14. William Kemp, The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1913), 255–­256.

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1712 the Reverend Thomas Haliday,15 of Perth Amboy, commending a Mr. Gordon for presenting his children and slaves for examination in the Church Catechism, said that his example had had a good effect upon the people around him. Three years later Rowland Ellis reported his intention of holding an evening school for Negroes and such others as would attend during the coming winter. In the previous year he had instructed sixteen night school scholars.16 In the following year the Society commended Messrs. Neau, Dennis, Cleator, Gildersleeve, Taylor, Huddlestone, Marsdon, Ellis of New Jersey, and Glover, catechists and schoolmasters, for the fidelity and diligence with which they had discharged the trusts resposed on them, and especially for the care extended to the children of the heathens. They declared that such children had been the “more immediate Charge of the Society in its primary Institution.”17 The correspondence and annual reports of other missionaries mentioned many instances of the christening of Negro infants and the baptizing of Negro adults in New Brunswick, Newark, Perth Amboy, Sussex, Elizabethtown, Burlington, and the northern frontiers of the province. Since adults had to be prepared for admission to the Church, there is a strong likelihood that missionaries gave religious instruction to slaves even where no specific statement was made of such training. Several of the ministers, however, have left records of their labors in this field. In 1726 the Reverend Thomas Thompson,18 who worked in Monmouth County, said that he had made a beginning with the Negroes, having taught some of them the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. He planned, when they had become well versed in the Christian principles, to take them into the Church. In another account of his activities he stated that he had not been unconcerned for the poor Negroes, who wanted enlightenment more than any others. He had spoken to the masters and mistresses “to be at pains to teach them the Catechism. And,” said he, “this was taken good Care of in some pious Families and I catechized them in the Church on certain Sundays, and sometimes at Home and after due Instruction, those whom I had good Assurances of I received to Baptism, and such as afterwards behaved well I admitted to the Communion.” On another occasion, when he had baptized two brothers, they attempted to express their gratitude by offering him a Spanish dollar each. He felt they would have been much happier if he had not refused their presents.19 The Reverend Nathaniel Horwood20 revealed that most of the inhabitants of Burlington kept white servants, while those who did keep Negroes seldom had more than one to a family. He persuaded those families that possessed slaves to send them to church on Sundays, so that he could instruct them in the Church Catechism. He hoped that in time they might all embrace Christianity. In 1744 the Reverend John Pierson21 of Salem County stated that he had endeavored to instruct Negroes and servants by catechizing them on Sunday afternoons but had found that he could 15. S. P. G., Annual Report, 1714, 43. 16. Rowland Ellis to S. P. G., October 8, 1715, Correspondence of the Society, series A, Vol. XI, 118. 17. S. P. G., Annual Report, 1716, 10–­11. 18. Thomas Thompson, An Account of Two Missionary Voyages by the Appointment of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1758), 11. 19. Ibid., 18. 20. George Hills, History of the Church in Burlington (1876), 214. Horwood’s letter is dated April 22, 1728. 21. John Pierson to S. P. G., October 30, 1744, Correspondence of the Society, series B, Vol. V, 94.

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expect only meager results until masters could be brought to a sense of their responsibilities toward their slaves. Since few of the masters belonged to the Church, he appeared pessimistic concerning the possibility of exerting much influence in that direction. In 1772 the Reverend Abraham Beach22 of New Brunswick said that he read to a large number of Negroes at his house every Sunday evening. The Reverend Samuel Cooke,23 who succeeded the Reverend Mr. Thompson in Monmouth County, reported on one occasion that he had baptized four black children and two adults. The latter had first been given “proper instructions.” The Revolutionary War halted the work of the S. P. G. in the colonies. The annual report of 1779 mentioned the school at Second River24 but said there had been no “particular accounts” from the missionaries of New Jersey.25 For over three quarters of a century the Society had sent missionaries to New Jersey, where they had christened Negro infants and instructed the slaves in the Catechism in preparation for their admission into the Church. It is very probable that Rowland Ellis gave training in the tools of learning to the pupils who attended his night school classes, but it is difficult to determine whether the ministers actually taught the slaves to read or write or whether they simply taught them to memorize the Catechism. Although they did not attempt to discourage the traffic in human beings, they did endeavor to bring some of the slaves within the pale of Christianity.

22. S. P. G., Annual Report, 1772, 29. 23. Ibid., 1762, 69–­70. 24. Ibid., 1779, 40. 25. Ibid., 56.

III

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The Society of Friends Let your light shine among the Indians, the Blacks, and the Whites; that ye may answer the truth in them, and bring them to the standard and ensign, that God hath set up, Christ Jesus . . . And, Friends be not negligent but keep up your Negroes’ meetings and your family meetings; and have meetings with the Indian kings, and their councils and subjects everywhere, and with others. Bring them all to the baptizing and circumcising Sprit, by which they may know God and serve and worship Him. george fox

While the Reformed Dutch Church and the Church of England concerned themselves with the salvation of the souls of the slaves, the Society of Friends gathered momentum in their efforts to effect their physical emancipation as well as their spiritual liberation. For one hundred years the leaders sought to purge the Society of the inhuman traffic which slavery involved.1 As the numbers of slaves among them decreased they turned their attention to holding religious meetings for the blacks; to educating the children of those still in bondage; to supervising the temporal affairs of the freedmen; and to ameliorating the condition of the slaves held by members of other sects. Committees raised funds to be used in schooling poor white and black children. Friends in Philadelphia organized an association to promote instruction of colored adults and stimulated Friends in New Jersey to devote themselves to a similar task.

The Abolition of Slavery among Friends In 1688 a small group of Friends in Germantown, Pennsylvania, initiated the crusade which was to play such an important part in the lives of the slaves in New Jersey during the eighteenth century. Accepting as their philosophy the ethical principle of “doing unto others as you would have others do unto you,” this sincere band of men formulated their objections to the trade in the bodies of men in what might be considered a proclamation of emancipation. They asked:

1. For the story of this struggle see Thomas Drake, Northern Quakers and Slavery (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1933); Ezra Michener, A Retrospect of Early Quakerism (Philadelphia, 1860); Nathan Kite, A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends Against Slavery and the Slave Trade (Philadelphia, 1843).

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the education of negroes in new jersey Is there any that would be done or handled at this manner, vz to be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life? How fearful and faint-­hearted are many on sea, when they see a strange vessel,—­being afraid it should be a Turk, and they should be taken, and sold for slaves into Turkey. Now what is this better done, as Turks doe? Yea, rather is it worse for them, which say they are Christians for we hear the most part of such negers are brought hither against their will and consent, and that many of them are stolen. Now, tho they are black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves as it is to have other white ones. There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves, making no difference of what generation, descent or color they are.2

It was near the close of the eighteenth century before the Society of Friends consummated the ideals expressed in the Germantown Protest. Haltingly and hesitatingly did they approach the business of clearing themselves first of the practices of importing, buying, and selling Negroes, and, later, of holding mankind in slavery. They handled the subsequent protests from subordinate meetings with extreme caution until Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia and John Woolman of Mount Holly, New Jersey, made their influence felt through their prolific writings and prayerful exhortations. These leaders finally led the members of their Society to a realization that the institution was inconsistent with the ethical principle stated in the Golden Rule and the revelations of the Inner Light. The interest of John Woolman in the pathetic condition of the enslaved Africans was aroused in 1743 when, at the age of twenty-­three, he was called upon in the course of his duties as a clerk to draw up a bill of sale for a slave woman. Woolman recorded in his journal the following experience that deepened his interest in helping the slaves: The thing was Sudden, and though the thoughts of writing an Instrument of Slavery for one of my fellow creatures felt uneasie, yet I remembered I was hired by the year, and that it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an Elderly man, a member of our society who bought her, so through weakness I gave way, and wrote it, but at the Executing it I was so afflicted in my mind, that I said before my Master and the friend, that I believed slavekeeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian Religion: this in some degree abated my uneasiness, yet as often as I reflected seriously upon it I thought I should have been clearer, if I had desired to be Excused from it, as a thing against my conscience, for such it was.3

When another member of the Society asked Woolman to write a similar “Instrument of Slavery” he begged to be excused from the task, explaining his “uneasiness concerning the practice.”4 These experiences marked the beginning of the consecration of the life of this Quaker minister to the 2. Germantown Protest Against Slavery (Original deposited in the Department of Records of the Society of Friends, Philadelphia); copy in Allan C. Thomas, “The Attitude of the Society of Friends towards Slavery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Particularly in Relation to Its Own Members,” American Society of Church History, Vol. VIII, 295–­297. 3. John Woolman, Journal of John Woolman; ed. by Amelia Gummere (New York, 1922), 161. 4. Ibid., 161–­162.

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cause of Negro freedom. His journal reveals how this humble Christian servant, year in and year out, traveled up and down the Atlantic Coast pleading the cause of these oppressed people; refusing to accept the hospitality of those who kept slaves; refraining from using the products of slave labor; and going from house to house urging slave holders to emancipate those they held in bondage. While John Woolman engaged in these benevolent acts, Anthony Benezet, one of the greatest humanitarians of all times, pleaded for the slaves before the people of America and the crowned heads of Europe. In an effort to make the advices and judgments of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting more public, because it had been observed that the number of slaves had been increasing among Friends, Anthony Benezet, looking forward to more definite action in the matter of slaveholding, drew up an epistle concerning the practice which was sanctioned by the Yearly Meeting in 1754.5 It was printed and distributed among the members of the Society. In stirring language he pleads with Friends: Now dear Friends if we continually bear in mind the royal law, of doing to others, as we would be done by, we shall never think of bereaving our Fellow-­Creatures of that valuable Blessing Liberty; nor endure to grow rich by their Bondage. To live in Ease and Plenty by the Toil of those whom Violence and Cruelty have put in our power, is neither consistent with Christianity, nor common justice.6

Beseeching them to remember the Blessed Redeemer’s positive command “to do unto others, as we would have them do unto us” and warning that “with what Measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again,” Anthony Benezet implores those Friends who possess slaves to watch over them for good, to instruct them in the fear of God and the knowledge of the Gospel of Christ: And so train them up, that if you should come to behold their unhappy Situation in the same light that many worthy Men who are at rest have done, and many of your brethren now do, and should think it your Duty to set them free, they may be the more capable to make a proper use of their Liberty.7

In conclusion Friends were entreated: In the Bowels of Gospel Love, seriously to weigh the Cause of detaining them in Bondage: If it be for your own private gain, or any other motive than their Good, it’s much to be feared that the Love of God, and the Influence of the Holy Spirit is not the prevailing Principle in you, and that your Hearts are not sufficiently redeemed from the World, which that you, with ourselves may more and more come to witness, through the Cleansing Virtue of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, is our earnest Desire.8

5. Minutes Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1754, 51–­53. Cf. Michener, op. cit., 342–­345. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid.

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This moving plea caused the Yearly Meeting to charge subordinate Meetings to proceed to treat with those who transgressed the rule of refraining from the practice of importing or buying slaves. To check upon their activities the superior body formulated the eleventh query to read: Are Friends clear of importing or buying Negroes and do they use those well which they are possessed of by Inheritance, or otherwise, endeavoring to train them up in the Principles of the Christian religion?9

Rufus Jones sees the culmination of John Woolman’s earlier efforts in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting which was held in 1758, four years after the publication of Anthony Benezet’s appeal. At this meeting, which was held in Burlington, New Jersey, Jones says that John Woolman sat in silence, unmindful of other important matters which claimed the attention of Friends, until finally the subject of slavery was introduced, and advice was given to “wait,” that eventually a “way would be opened,” and procrastination and delay were the order of the hour. When it almost seemed to the “agonized servant of the Lord the Meeting was engaged in a justification of slavery,” he rose and spoke these solemn words: My mind is often led to consider the purity of the Divine Being, and the Justice of his judgments and herein my Soul is covered with awfulness. I cannot omit to hint of some cases, where people have not been treated with the purity of justice, and the event hath been lamentable. Many slaves on this continent are oppressed, and their cries have reached the ears of the Most High! Such are the purity and certainty of his judgments, that he cannot be partial toward any. In infinite love and goodness he hath opened our understandings from time to time respecting our duty toward this people, and it is not a time for delay. Should we not be sensible of what he requires of us, and through a respect to the outward interest of some persons, through a regard to some friendships which do not stand on the immutable foundation, neglect to do our duty in firmness & constancy, still waiting for some extraordinary means to bring about their freedom, it may be that by Terrible things in Righteousness God may answer us in this matter.10

This earnest appeal moved the Yearly Meeting to action. Imploring Friends “to do unto others as we would they should do unto us,” the Meeting urged its members who had slaves “to set them at liberty and to make a Christian provision for them.” No longer temporizing with this momentous issue, the Meeting definitely clarified the Minute of 1755 in which it had been declared that: The Consideration of the inconsistency of the practice of being concerned in importing or buying Slaves with our Christian Principles, being revived, and impressed by very suitable advices and Cautions given on the Occasion, It is the Sense and Judgment of this Meeting, that where any Trangress this Rule of our Discipline, the Overseers ought speedily to inform the Monthly Meeting of such Transgressors, in order that the meeting may proceed to treat further with them, as they may be directed in the wisdom of Truth.11

9. Minutes Yearly Meeting, 1755, 72. 10. Rufus Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies (Philadelphia, 1923), 396–­397. Cf. Woolman, op. cit., 216–­217. 11. Minutes Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1755, 73.

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Heretofore the advice had been that Friends should refrain from the importation and buying of slaves. Now the injunction is extended to the keeping of those slaves already in possession: If after the Sense and Judgment of this Meeting now given against every Branch of this Practice any professing with us, Should Persist to Vindicate it, and be concerned in Importing, Selling or Purchasing Slaves, the Respective Monthly Meetings to which they belong, Should manifest their Disunion with Such Persons, by Refusing to permit them to Sit in Meetings for Discipline or to be imployed (sic) in the affairs of Truth, or to receive from them any Contributions towards the relief of the Poor, or other Services of the meeting: but if any cases of Exe, (sic) or Guardians, Trustees, or any others Should happen which may subject any friends to the Necessity of being Concerned with such slaves, & they are Nevertheless willing to proceed according to the advice of the Monthly Meetings they belong to, where Such Cases happen the Monthly Meetings are left to Judge of the same in the Wisdom of Truth, & if Necessary to take the advice of the Quarterly Meeting therein.12

During the next three decades, while the Friends of New Jersey were purging slavery from their ranks, they were also attempting to prepare the slaves for constructive lives as freedmen through religious meetings held for their special benefit13 and through instruction in the common tools of learning.

The Evolving Interest in the Education of Negroes When Anthony Benezet pleaded with Friends to give some school training to their Negroes so that if the time should come when the Friends could see their way clear to emancipate them, they would be better prepared to enjoy their freedom, he had already started a school for Negro children. In 1750, after he discovered that they were denied the privileges of even a meager learning, he began teaching them in his home in the evenings. For twenty years he brought enlightenment to children who but for him would undoubtedly have remained in ignorance. George Brookes,14 who has written an exhaustive biography of Benezet, in telling of his work in behalf of these children says: Never did a man render greater service in the education of the Negro race than Friend Anthony Benezet! For twenty years, night after night, he carried light into the darkness left over from past centuries, until the proficiency of the pupils under his teaching and his personal testimony of their inherent worth recommended their cause to people everywhere. Attempts to prove that a sable skin cannot possess a rational mind were then fashionable, but the striking testimony of Anthony Benezet is doubtless supported by the important place occupied today by the Negro in literature and art, in song and speech.

12. Ibid., 1758, 5. 13. Minutes Salem Monthly Meeting, 26/X/1767, 30/XI/1778, Minutes Burlington Quarterly Meeting 30/VIII/l 779, and the Minutes of the subordinate Meetings between the years 1780 and 1806. 14. George Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet (Philadelphia, 1937), 46.

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Brookes insisted there was nothing spineless in the utterance of Benezet, when, with twenty years’ experience to support his contention, he maintained: I can with truth and sincerity declare, that I have found amongst the negroes as great variety of talents as amongst a like number of whites; and I am bold to assert, that the notion entertained by some, that the blacks are inferior in their capacities, is a vulgar prejudice, founded on the pride or ignorance of their lordly masters, who have kept their slaves at such a distance, as to be unable to form a right judgment of them.15

Through Benezet’s efforts a school for Negro children was erected in 1770 in Philadelphia. When prejudice made it difficult to secure teachers for the institution, he resigned his position as teacher of the Girl’s School in Philadelphia and gave the last two years of his life to the education of these poor, neglected, and despised children.16 Evidence of the influence of Benezet is seen in the Minutes of Burlington Quarter, which reported that it was clear of buying or importing Negroes and that some of the members had taught their slaves to read and had brought them to Meetings. “But,” they said, “others are too careless in these respects.”17 In 1770 the Yearly Meeting encouraged the instruction of slaves when it urged Friends not only to instruct Negroes in “Reading and other useful Learning while they are young, but so to conduct towards these poor People, that Equity may take place, notwithstanding their different Colour and Circumstance, throughout our Borders,” and requested an account of their activities in the Friends’ next reports.18 Four years later the Yearly Meeting advised that the masters or guardians of families in which there were children or others of suitable age give them “Sufficient Instruction and Learning, in order to Qualify them for the Enjoyment of the Liberty intended, and that they be instructed by themselves, or placed out to such Masters, and Mistresses, who will be careful of their religious Education, to serve for such time and no longer as is proscribed by Law and Custom for white People.”19 In 1776 the Meeting revised the annual query to read: Are Friends clear of importing, purchasing, disposing of, or holding Mankind as Slaves; And do they use those well who are set free, and are necessarily under their Care and not in Circumstances, through Nonage or Incapacity to minister to their own Necessities? And are they careful to educate and encourage them in a Religious and Virtuous Life?20

It recommended further that Friends of judgment and experience be selected to advise and assist the Negroes on all occasions, “particularly in promoting their Instruction in the principles of Christian religion, and the pious Education of their Children, and also to advise them in respect

15. Ibid., 46–­47. 16. Ibid., 47–­48. 17. Minutes Burlington Quarterly Meeting, 27/VIII/1759. 18. Minutes Yearly Meeting, 1770, 270. 19. Ibid., 1774, 314. 20. Ibid., 1776, 355.

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to their Engagements in worldly concern as occasion offers.” It was given as the “solid sense of this Meeting that we of the present Generation are under strong Obligations to manifest our concern and care for the Offspring of those People, who, by their Labor, have greatly Contributed towards the Cultivation of these Colonies, under the afflicting disadvantage of enduring a hard Bondage, and many among us are enjoying the benefit of their toil.”21 The Committee of Salem Quarter, pointing out that the Society was in great measure relieved of the necessity of securing the freedom of the slaves, suggested that Friends turn their attention toward the large number of children of freed slaves in order that such children might receive proper education and be released when they reached adulthood.22 In 1780 the committee reported that care had been extended to freed Negroes and that money had been raised at two Monthly Meetings for schooling their children.23 In 1776 Burlington Quarter complained about the lack of attention to the education of Negroes. But Burlington Monthly Meeting sounded an encouraging note by the report that a considerable number of those who held slaves had promised to manumit them immediately or when the slaves became of age, “signifying an intention to take care in the meantime of their Education.”24 In 1779 Chesterfield Monthly Meeting said that members had visited the free Negroes and their children and expressed the hope that there would be an increasing inclination on the part of their members who had young Negroes to be more attentive toward their religious and secular education.25 Two years later Burlington Quarterly Meeting, admitting little progress in carrying out the desires of the Yearly Meeting, mentioned for the “encouragement of the concern” that several Negro families among the Burlington Friends had maintained themselves “with reputation” and that some of them had attended to their children’s education.26 For the purpose of giving some idea of the situations which confronted the members of the committees in their efforts to free the Society of the opprobrium of holding slaves, the following report is given in full as it appears in the minutes: We the Committee appointed to draw up the state of the Negroes belonging to Friends within the Verge of Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting (that comes under the Notice and Censure of the Yearly Meeting) have unanimously agreed to make the following Report viz. We find Nine of our Members possessed of Twenty four Negroes, thirteen of which exceeds the age appointed and fixed by the Yearly Meeting for freedom Eleven under the age (in the same families) the four of the above friends has twelve 6 under age and 6 of age, and no disposition to give them learning or their Duty therein. One other friend we find has three woman about thirty years of age with two Children—­proposes to free the Woman if he can—­we did not fix to any time, he says he expects to give the Children Learning, and free them at Suitable age if in his power One other friend has five Negroes one a Man about 28 Years of Age proposes freeing 21. Ibid., 1778, 404. 22. Minutes Salem Quarterly Meeting, 19/XI/1775. 23. Ibid., 22/IX/1780. 24. Minutes Burlington Quarterly Meeting, 26/VIII/1776. 25. Ibid., 30/VIII/1779. 26. Ibid., 26/VIII/1782.

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him this fall, and making him some Restitution for his Labour also, one Woman 23 Years old expects to free her this fall—­the other three Children he expects to give them Learning (has made considerable progress therein) and free them at Suitable age. One other has two a man and the other a Woman about 22 Years Old and Misbehaved by having a melatto Child, proposes freeing her before Expiration of a Year if she behaves well—­the Man about 23 Years of age proposes freeing him in about 4 Years time (both of the last have learning) the last friend freed one Woman 24 Years Old last fall, which has learning also—­Another friend has a Man left him when young to live with him till 23 years of age the time will be expired in the second Month—­don’t propose freeing him until his time is out—­at the Expiration of which he is to return into the Service of one not a friend 2 years longer, Another friend has a Negro Man who he hires, about 23 years of age his master not a friend—­tho ’as engaged under his hand he shall have his freedom if he pays him £110 with the interest, which sum he gave for him a few Months ago the friend has ingaged to loose one half of the purchase money if the Man never Earns it or in proportion of what is unpaid—­he says if he can do better [than] with him he may go any time in any mans Service (he pleases) he gives him £20 per year and a pair of shoes.27

Up to this time the instruction given to Negroes had occurred on a more or less opportunistic basis, but now Friends were beginning to organize their activities through regular school committees or through committees which had already been organized to supervise the affairs of the free Negroes.

Subscriptions and School Funds In the decade between 1780 and 1790 Friends manifested an intensified interest in the education of Negro children through the opening of subscriptions and the establishing of permanent school funds to finance the provision of educational facilities. In 1780 Evesham Monthly Meeting agreed to raise twelve pounds to further this objective. The Meeting requested the Committee in Charge of Negro Affairs to expedite the instruction of black children as soon as “conveniency” would permit.28 The committee appointed in 1785 by Woodbury Monthly Meeting to assist the “African race” in their “Spiritual and Temporal Concerns as way may open and they may be enabled”29 reported a year later that they “had attended to the service and obtained monies rais’d by-­subscription for the purpose of schooling children.”30 Two years later Haddonfield Monthly Meeting opened a subscription and raised three pounds, which was applied to the education of Negro children in “cooperation with the advice of the Yearly Meeting.”31 To encourage attention to the instruction of the young, the Burlington Quarterly Meeting authorized the Committee on the Care of the Negroes to purchase at the expense of the Society such schoolbooks as would be useful to them in their work.32 27. Minutes Shrewsbury Quarter, 7/VIII/1775. 28. Minutes Evesham Monthly Meeting, 7/XII/1780. 29. Minutes Woodbury Monthly Meeting, 15/III/1785. 30. Ibid., 12/IX/1786. 31. Minutes Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, 9/VI/1788. 32. Minutes Burlington Quarterly Meeting, 30/XI/1789.

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Entries from Haddonfield School Account Book 8/III/1792

£

s.

d.

for Jerry son of Isaac

1 Quarter

12

10

Kings son of Stinson

1 Quarter

12

6

Said Stevensons and Cubits Daughter

1 Quarter

12

6

7

11

2

4

1 Quarter

1

10

1

6

1

By cash paid Peter Thompson for schooling the following black children

23/VIII/1792 By cash paid Thomas Thorne a Balance due to him for schooling black children 30/XI/1792 By cash paid Patrick Downing for schooling the following black children to wit one of Julius Murrays, one of James Stills and two of Sam Gongo 14/III/1796 By Cash paid to Joshua Evans for Black Jacob for schooling his children 4/VI/1801 By Cash paid Samuel Clement Senior for schooling Black children 16/XII/1801 By Cash paid Patrick Tamil for schooling Black Wayman’s child

10

20/III/1809 By Cash paid Richard Stafford by the hands of Thom Redman Jun.

1

17

8

28

20

55

24

70

21

37

for schooling Patience Gongo, a black girl 26/III/1813 By Cash paid Sam Ellis Tuition etc. 2 Black Boys, wood, Ink, Quills etc 29/VII/1811 By Cash paid George Winslow for Tuition, Deleplain Grant, and 7 Black Children to wit Joseph Brown, James Hudson, Henry, Ann, David, Robert and Hannah Brown 1/I/1816 Tuition by Joseph Brown, Black boy 1 quarter Ditto Henry Brown 1 Quarter, Quill, Ink, paper, fire wood etc. 12/V/1819 Susan Miller, a Black Woman, and others

Consonant with advices sent from the Yearly Meeting to guide Friends in formulating plans for the education of their own children and the children of others, several subordinate Meetings of Friends drew up a uniform plan for raising school funds in which

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The Interest Money arising on the Fund, or so much thereof as will be necessary, shall be applied by the Trustees from Time to Time for the schooling of the Children of Poor Friends and those of the black People whose Condition give them a claim to this benefit, agreeable to the Advices which have or may be sent down from the Yearly Meeting, in as equitable a manner as may be at the different schools within the Compass of the Monthly Meetings, that all parts may receive a proportionate share of the Benefit, and in case the Fund shall become so enlarged, as that the interest thereof will be more than sufficient to school the Children of Poor Friends and those of the black People as aforesaid, the Monthly Meetings may direct such Overplus to be applied to the schooling other poor Children, the enlarging the Teachers’ Salaries, or such other purpose for the promotion of Schools, as to any such Meeting may appear expedient.33

Salem Quarterly Meeting34 and Haddonfield Monthly Meeting35 reported the application of the income from such funds to the schooling of poor white and black children. In 1803 a teacher, who was a Friend, and her assistant were instructing eighty children in the school at Haddonfield. The school committee was convinced that this school had increased in “Solidity” and was “growing in reputation as a seminary in useful learning wherein the English Grammar, the Mathematics, Geography, and the Latin and French languages are, or may be taught.”36 In addition to subscriptions and school funds, Friends provided money for the education of colored children through testamentary provisions. In 1792 Isabel Hartshorne willed two hundred pounds to promote the instruction of poor children, particularly those of the blacks. When the trustees received the money in 1844 they established a school for colored children in Rahway.37 In 1799 Joseph Sloan bequeathed fifty pounds for schooling poor children of any color.38 In 1803 Burlington Quarter pointed out the need for even more attention to the religious and secular education of the black people.39 Friends were unable to meet adequately the training needs of this class, but they continued to provide some opportunities for learning until the latter half of the nineteenth century. After 1806 the Yearly Meeting discontinued the “Query” on Negroes, an act which precluded the possibility of tracing the subsequent development of most of the school opportunities offered by Friends. Scattered references in minutes and annual school reports give the chief clues to continued activities in this field of endeavor.

Instruction of Adult Colored Persons Friends in Philadelphia not only interested themselves in the preparation of Negro children for adulthood, but they organized associations to assist adults in acquiring facility in the use of the

33. Minutes Salem and Gloucester Quarterly Meeting, 17/V/1790; Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, 13/XII/1790; Evesham Monthly Meeting, 10/XII/1790. 34. Minutes Salem Quarterly Meetings, 23/IX/1791. 35. Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, 12/IX/1791. 36. Ibid., 14/III/1803. 37. Thomas Woody, Quaker Education in the Colony and State of New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1923), 281. 38. Minutes Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, 14/X/1799. 39. Minutes Burlington Quarterly Meeting, 1/III/1803.

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tools of learning needed in everyday experiences. Taking as its motto “Withhold not Good from Them to Whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine Hand to do it,”40 the “Society for the Free Instruction of Orderly Blacks and People of Colour” drew up in 1789 a constitution with the following introduction: In consideration of the Disadvantages which many well-­disposed Blacks and People of colour labour under from not being able to read write or cast accounts which would qualify them to act for themselves, or provide for their Families; We whose names are subscribed agree to undertake their tuition, and bind ourselves by the following regulations for Said purpose.41

Anyone wishing to join the Society could, with the concurrence of two or more members, be proposed at any stated meeting for consideration, but the application was not to be decided upon before the next meeting. A fine was to be imposed for absence without sufficient cause. When necessary, the members were to make voluntary contributions to defray the expenses of the Society. It was agreed that to preserve the order, credit, and usefulness of the group “endeavors” would be made to avoid unnecessary disputes and each individual “engaged” to submit to the judgment of the Society, if the exclusion of any one of them became necessary for its “quiet or reputation.”42 The Society for the Free Introduction of Orderly Blacks is of interest here because it represents one of the pioneer efforts in the field of adult education designed to facilitate adjustments to the problems of social living and because of the similar societies which it stimulated in New Jersey. A few months after its organization, persons who had undertaken to instruct Negroes in Trenton expressed a desire to have a copy of its constitution, and the Society requested John Biddle, Joseph Sansom, and Thomas Bartram to furnish copies of the regulations. The people in Trenton responded with a “satisfactory account of their proceedings, and the progress of the Blacks under their care; of which they mention some remarkable instances.”43 In 1790, not wishing to witness a diminution in the interest in this benevolent activity, the members decided to write to well-­disposed persons at Trenton, and Providence, Rhode Island, who would possibly be willing to hold schools for the benefit of Negroes during the ensuing winter. Jacob Tomkins, Benjamin Chamberlain, and Thomas Bartram were requested to prepare suitable letters, “recommending and encouraging them thereto.”44 In the same year a group of Friends in Burlington requested a copy of the constitution of this Society for Free Instruction. The Philadelphia Society forwarded a copy of its constitution with the assurance that, although most of them were personally strangers, they felt themselves united with the Friends of the Burlington Society in their “friendly design of instructing the oppressed Blacks in necessary learning.” For the encouragement of the Burlington Friends in the undertaking, the Philadelphians related the great satisfaction which had been theirs in the course of the Society’s endeavors to instruct and improve these “poor People,” both from the “good advances” made by 40. Minutes of the School Society, 5/IX/1789. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 4/X/1790. 44. Ibid., 11/IX/1790.

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some of the pupils under supervision and from the “conscientiousness attending that our time is so far well employed.” The Philadelphia group extended an invitation to the members of the sister Society to attend its meetings any time any of them should be in Philadelphia.45 The next month the band in Burlington reported that the task so far had seemed easier than had been expected. There were twenty-­six scholars whose conduct and attention to learning induced the sponsors to hope that the gains would be sufficient compensation for their labors. The members extended a return invitation to the Friends in Philadelphia to attend its meetings in Burlington.46 In 1792 the Burlington Society broke a silence of two years. It expressed regret at this lapse, since correspondence between associations divided by distance but engaged in the same activity tended to strengthen the hands of both and to keep alive the spirit of the undertaking. This association, considering itself a branch of the one in Philadelphia, mentioned the encouragement which would have resulted from such a correspondence. However, they had satisfactorily kept up their school during the winter. There had been an average attendance of about fourteen scholars, many of whom had made considerable improvement in arithmetic and writing. The Burlington Society enclosed a sample of the writing of one of the pupils, Tenah Lewis, to show the progress she had made during a period of four months.47 But the group expressed the fear that a First-­Day School which it had held during the past summer could not be continued during the ensuing winter because of a reduction in the number of teachers. The decrease of available teachers had precipitated such a hardship upon those remaining that at times they had become discouraged enough to drop the classes. The Society had been sustained, however, by a desire “to promote so good a work” and the assurance that its labors had been of service.48 The Philadelphia Society rejoiced that the Friends in Burlington had continued their evening school in spite of so many difficulties, since the copy of writing which they had forwarded manifested the advantages derived by those who had attended the classes. It desired that their hands remain strong “and that every right exertion to discharge the obligation which lays upon the white inhabitants of this Country towards the Blacks, as well as those efforts to become as eyes to the blind and feet to the Lame dictated by Christianity, may be made.” The Philadelphians expressed the hope that the First-­Day School would not have to be relinquished, if it was at all possible or practicable to maintain it. Sundry discouragements had also threatened the existence of their school, but the proof of its benefits and the hope of future usefulness had induced them to decide upon reopening it the following month. They suggested that the Burlington Society might profitably increase the number of workers if it could prevail upon some of the young men in the community to assist in the project.49

45. Ibid., 9/X/1790, Appendix IV. 46. Correspondence Addressed to the Society, Nos. 2, 4 (In Papers Relating to School for Adult Colored Persons deposited for Joseph W. Lippincott in the Department of Records, Society of Friends, Philadelphia). Letter dated 20/XI/1790. 47. Ibid., letter dated 3/III/1792. 48. Ibid. 49. Minutes of the School Society, Appendix VI.

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A note of real hope ran through the letter written to Philadelphia from Burlington in 1793. There had been an increase in the number of teachers and several of the scholars had manifested “considerable thirst for improvement,” which had been accompanied by a decided progress. Joseph Scattergood, a member of the Philadelphia Society, had ably assisted the Burlington Friends in the management of the school that winter. They were sure the members of his Society would be pleased to learn that he had so profitably used his time during the few months he had visited in Burlington.50 The members of the New Jersey group had found that this undertaking had created within them a concern not only for Negroes under their immediate care but for Negroes in general, and To enlarge in us that disposition, which dispelling the mists of prejudice, embraces all mankind as Bretheren and herein we can, with satisfaction with pleasure, see the approach of that happy period, when the distinctions of Colour shall have no weight in forming an estimate of real Worth, but vice alone shall be held in degredation: And perhaps there is no means that can be used, which will be more effectual to eradicate ill founded prejudices than throw off the Yoke of Slavery from the injured Africans, than by enlarging their ideas with literary and moral Knowledge. We therefore feel at this time a lively desire that these endeavors which we are making, in conjunction with you, to remove the vail of ignorance from their minds, and to instill into them a love for improvement, may not be suffer’d suddenly to relax; but the success of our Labours may excite more to unite in a work, which we can measurably testify produceth its own reward.51

The Friends on the other side of the river received this letter with great satisfaction. They were particularly interested in the effect of the labors of the Burlington Society in eradicating those deeply rooted prejudices of custom and education which caused the Negroes, on account of their black skins, to be looked upon as inferior to the whites. The Philadelphians confessed that since they had undertaken to remove the “vail of ignorance from their minds,” by which the Negroes had been kept “in a depressed condition,” they had seemed more like brothers.52 After recounting the successes of the pupils who through their efforts were being taught to read and write “so as to be able to move with a degree of propriety in their respective spheres,” the Philadelphia Friends anticipated the day which they believed to be advancing, “when right reason shall illuminate the mind & man shall be esteemed only for his real worth; when a reputable black man shall be held in as great estimation as a reputable white; when Righteousness alone shall exalt a nation & sin only be the reproach of any people.” Then they humbly concluded: These prospects Friends, ought to animate us in so good a work—­We have noticed great natural capacities in some of our scholars; and who knows but some of them may fill up some valuable station in religious or civic Society—­Let us dear Friends strive to go on cheerfully in a work which carries its own reward, and may in a future day, when our gray hairs & tottering limbs 50. Correspondence . . . , 2/II/1793. 51. Ibid. 52. Minutes of the School Society, Appendix IX.

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bespeak a speedy disolution, be a comfortable source of reflection, that we have been employed in good works in acts of benevolence towards our fellow men, and after we have done all we can, we are but unprofitable servants; for it is not by works of righteousness but by Grace that we are saved—­We conclude with desires that you and we may so faithfully follow that which leads us to do good, that in the end we may receive the joyful sentence of well done &.53

But a letter addressed to the Philadelphia Society in 1794 indicated that all had not gone well with the work in Burlington. Their numbers had decreased to such “discouraging proportions” that the members of the Society were contemplating an appeal for aid to the New Jersey Society for the Abolition of Slavery.54 The Philadelphia Society encouraged them to make this move and expressed the hope that their application would meet with success.55 The reply to this missive enlarged upon the intention to place the problem before the Abolition Society at its next meeting. Although for the time being the Burlington Friends had suspended activities, they assured their fellow laborers that they had not grown negligent or indifferent, but were holding themselves in readiness to “improve every opportunity of promoting the object” of the association.56 The Philadelphians, feeling keenly the seriousness of the situation in Burlington, appointed Peter Barker and Joseph Scattergood as a committee of two to make an investigation concerning it.57 These two men later assured the body that the situation was substantially as pictured in the most recent communication received from Burlington. Adding Joseph Sansom to the committee, the Society requested that the Burlington group be encouraged to persevere in the venture.58 A conference with the clerk of the Burlington Society led the committee to conclude that there was nothing to be gained by continued activity on its part.59 The minutes of the meeting of the Abolition Society, which was held April 29, 1794, disclose that Robert Smith presented an “Address from the Burlington Society for the Free Instruction of the Black People,” which, after being read and approved, was referred to a committee for consideration. Robert Smith, clerk of the Burlington school society and member of the Abolition Society, was appointed to this committee.60 The committee reported at a later meeting but without indication of much success.61 In October, 1795, the Abolition Society discharged the committee on the ground of not having accomplished the purpose of its appointment.62 Three years elapsed before another communication passed between the two societies. In 1797 the New Jersey group wrote that a few weeks before, the remaining few who made up their little association had been called together. Several others who appeared well disposed toward the work had joined them. Thus encouraged, they had discussed the feasibility of reopening the evening 53. Ibid. 54. Correspondence . . . , 1/III/1794. 55. Ibid., 11/I/1794. Cf. Minutes of the School Society, Appendix X. 56. Ibid., 1/III/1794. 57. Minutes of the School Society, 13/XII/1794. 58. Ibid., 14/III/1795. 59. Ibid., 12/IX/1795. 60. Minutes New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Burlington Branch, 29/IV/1794. 61. Ibid., 28/IV/1795. 62. Ibid., 6/X/1795.

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school and had decided to enter again upon the project. During these few weeks the work was carried on with the twelve to twenty male scholars who had been in attendance. The managers of the school had formerly been “sensible of inconvenience and hurt, from the admission of both sexes into an Evening School, especially as a large proportion of the Scholars were advanced to Men and Women estate.” They were about to be faced again with the same difficulty, when several young women volunteered to open a separate school for the females.63 The account which the Burlington Friends gave of the steps taken to revive the school—­ “particularly the separation [sic] of the sexes” had the full approbation of the Society in Philadelphia. It was “much pleased to learn that the worthy young women” of Burlington had seen it “right to undertake part of the labour peculiarly proper for them” and hoped that their action might prove “a stimulus to us of the other sex not to be distanced by them in the race exciting to a persevering industry and an exertion of the faculties bestowed on us for such useful purposes.” A similar plan had been adopted by its own group in Philadelphia with very good results. Its school had been unusually large that season and the conduct of the scholars satisfactory. For the encouragement of the other Friends, the Society mentioned that it had found an increasing disposition among the younger Friends and others to join in the enterprise. This letter, which appears to have marked the end of the correspondence between these two associations, closes with the Philadelphians expressing the hope that “the concern will continue to prosper in our hands, for the lasting benefit of our oppressed and degraded Fellow Creatures according to the good pleasure of our common Father & Benefactor to whom be the praise.”64 The work of the Society in New Jersey was discontinued, but the Society in Philadelphia carried on its work in the City of Brotherly Love until the last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1860 the Friends of Philadelphia answered the call of Negroes in Camden, New Jersey, to establish a class among them. For two or three years they held out the torch of knowledge to another group that was interested in improving its intellectual status.

63. Correspondence . . . , 10/XII/1797. 64. Ibid., 10/II/1798.

IV

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Slaves and Free Negroes, 1776–­1804 Nevertheless it may, with truth, be said that amongst those who have obtained their freedom, as well as those who remain in Servitude, some have manifested as much sagacity and uprightness of Heart as could have been expected from the Whites under the like Circumstances. anthony benezet

The closing years of the struggle of the Society of Friends to purge their ranks of the iniquitous practice of slaveholding were contemporaneous with the years in which the American colonies were winning their fight for complete independence from Great Britain. It was a time when the social atmosphere was permeated with the concepts of equality, liberty, and fraternity. Samuel Stanhope Smith was defending the thesis of the common origin of mankind. John Witherspoon was attracting to the College of New Jersey a group of students heterogeneous in respect to nationality and race. The Presbyterian Synod was advocating the instruction and emancipation of the slaves. Jean Pierre Brissot was proclaiming the rights of Negroes to the blessings of liberty. During this period the colonists were using the male slaves to further their interests chiefly in agricultural, mining, lumbering, and nautical pursuits. They were using the female slaves in household duties. On the one hand, the servile position of the Negro in the industrial economy was reflected in the differential treatment accorded him by the laws and the courts. On the other hand, in 1788, through the efforts of Friends, the legislature of New Jersey attempted to advance the intellectual status of the laboring classes through an enactment which decreed that all slaves and servants under twenty-­one should be taught to read. Free Negroes in New Jersey occupied an intermediate social position between the slaves and the white inhabitants. They enjoyed physical freedom and the right to their wages. But laws circumscribed their movements and imposed discriminatory penalties in the courts. Prejudices hindered their social and intellectual advancement. The state which encouraged parochialism and the laissez-­ faire policy in education had enacted laws which provided for the compulsory education only of orphans and dependent children who had been placed in the custody of overseers of the poor. Denominational groups and abolition societies were the chief agencies interesting themselves in the best adjustment of the freedmen to the demands of constructive social and civic living.

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Eighteenth Century Liberalism The spirit which motivated the demands for liberty caused some of the people to pause and ponder over the condition of the enslaved Negroes in their midst. In 1775 a writer signing himself as Benevolus, in an address to the members of the general assembly, made a passionate plea for the freedom of Negroes, maintaining it was inconsistent to declare that freedom was their own inalienable right while the same freedom was being denied to so many Africans.1 Evesham Monthly Meeting had found reason to be encouraged with the results of its labors in behalf of the black people: In this service we have discovered an openness in those who are not Members of the Society, which affords encouragement to labour with such as may appear; and we feel a desire that Friends may treat the black people as Brethren and Sisters, Children of one Father, and neglect no opportunity to do our part, by Education and advice, to fit them for usefulness here, and engage their Minds to seek after a state of immortal Happiness.2

John Witherspoon, fifth president of the College of New Jersey and an active participant in state and national affairs, gave an indication of his position on the question of slavery when he concurred in a resolution adopted by the Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia and New York to which New Jersey belonged. The Committee of Overtures had brought in a resolution stating that: The Creator of the world having made of one flesh all the children of men. . . . the Synod recommended, in the warmest terms, to every member of their body to do everything in their power consistent with the rights of civil society to promote the abolition of slavery, and the instruction of Negroes, whether bond or free.3

A resolution embodying these same ideas passed unanimously the following Monday. Declaring that it highly approved the interest which many states had taken in promoting the abolition of slavery, this Synod maintained that, inasmuch as men introduced from a servile state to a participation in all the privileges of civil society, without a proper education and without previous habits of industry, might in many respects be dangerous to the community, it earnestly recommended that all the members give those who were being held in servitude such an education as would prepare them for a better enjoyment of freedom. It further recommended that masters encourage their slaves’ aspirations for freedom and use the most prudent measures to procure eventually the final abolition of slavery in America.4 This position of the Synod in 1787 was decidedly in advance of that taken by the Presbyterians after the waning of Revolutionary ideals. Toward the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century they had developed an attitude of tolerance toward the institution and were advocating the colonization of free Negroes in Africa because it was impossible for freedmen ever to make a

1. New Jersey Archives, Vol. XXXI, 26–­31. 2. Minutes Evesham Monthly Meeting, 6/VI/1788. 3. David W. Woods, John Witherspoon (New York, 1906), 177–­178. 4. Ibid., 178–­179.

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proper adjustment to American society. But at this time, they were lending their support to efforts aiming at emancipation. This Synod, along with the Society of Friends, was pinning its faith to an educational utilitarianism as a means of regenerating the Negroes in this country a half century before Herbert Spencer advocated the same philosophy. In this same year Samuel Stanhope Smith, who succeeded John Witherspoon in the presidency of the College of New Jersey, delivered an address before the American Philosophical Society on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure of the human species.5 Supporting the thesis of the common origin of mankind, Samuel Smith painstakingly presented an array of evidence designed to show how the variations apparent among the races resulted from the impingement upon their bodies and minds of the physical and social forces of the environments to which they had been or were being subjected: Every permanent and characteristical variety in human nature, is effected by slow and almost imperceptible gradations. Great and sudden changes are too violent for the delicate constitution of man, and always tend to destroy the system. But changes that become incorporated, and that form the character of a climate of nation, are progressively carried on through several generations, till the causes that produce them attain their utmost operation. In this way, the minutest causes, acting constantly and long continued, will necessarily create great and conspicuous differences among mankind.6

After defending the hypothesis that savage communities lack sufficient stimuli for developing the potential capacities of individuals, Dr. Smith made a statement which is pregnant with wide ramifications and deep import for the educational philosophy and practices of the present day: It may be thought that I have attributed too much to the influence of principles that are so slow in their operation and imperceptible in their progress. But, on this subject, it deserves to be remembered, that the minutest causes, by acting constantly, are often productive of the greatest consequences. The incessant drop wears a cavity at length in the hardest rock. The impressions of education which singly taken are scarcely discernible, ultimately produce the greatest differences between men in society.7 How slow the progress of civilization, which the influence of two thousand years hath, as yet, hardly ripened in the nations of Europe? How minute and imperceptible the operation of each particular cause that has contributed to the final result? And, yet, how immense the difference between the manners of Europe barbarous, and of Europe civilized? There is surely not a greater difference between the figure and aspect of any two nations on the globe. The pliant nature of man is susceptible of change from the minutest causes, and these 5. John Rodgers said that this essay distinguished Dr. Smith in the estimation of the literati, both in Europe and America. “As soon as the essay made its appearance it was read with avidity—­it shortly passed into more editions than one in Great Britain—­it was translated into the French language, and published with great eclat, at Paris, and has been since translated into the German language, and published with annotations, by a professor of moral philosophy, in one of the universities of that empire.” John Rodgers, The Faithful Servant Rewarded (New York, 1795), 36. 6. Samuel Stanhope Smith, An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species (Philadelphia, 1787), 12. 7. Italics the writer’s.

s l a v e s a n d f r e e n e g r o e s , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 0 4 113 changes habitually repeated, create at length conspicuous distinctions. The effect proceeds increasing from one generation to another, till it arrives at that point where the constitution can yield no further to the power of the operating cause. Here it assumes a permanent form and becomes the character of the climate or the nation.8

While Samuel Smith was promulgating these views, John Witherspoon was admitting to the College of New Jersey Indians, Negroes, and students from the West Indies and France. A missionary society of Newport, Rhode Island, sent to the college two free Negroes, Bristol Yamma and John Quamine, for approximately two years in preparation for service in Africa. John Chavis, who was sent to the college as an experiment to determine if a Negro could profit from higher education, became famous in North Carolina as a schoolmaster and preacher.9 Another liberal of this period was Jean Pierre Brissot. Brissot, described as a “sober, indefatigable defender of the rights of mankind,” came to America in 1788 in the interests of Les Amis des Noirs, a society organized by him in Paris for the purpose of promoting the anti-­slavery cause. He wanted to make a study of the Negroes and the progress of the laws for their emancipation.10 When an author of a magazine article whom he did not know dared to speak in a contemptuous manner of Benezet and the Quakers he demanded: Where is the man in all Europe, of whatever rank or birth, who is equal to Benezet? Who is not obliged to respect him? How long will authors suffer themselves to be shackled by the prejudices of society? Will they never perceive that Nature has created all men equal—­that wisdom and virtue are the only criterion of superiority? Who was more virtuous than Benezet? Who more useful to Society, to Mankind? What author, what great man, will ever be followed to his grave by four hundred Negroes, snatched, by his own assiduity, his own generosity, from ignorance, wretchedness, and slavery? Who, then, has a right to speak haughtily of this benefactor of men?11

A discussion of the ideals in the above paragraphs tends to raise provocative questions concerning the relative status of the slaves, free Negroes, and white inhabitants of New Jersey. An attempt will now be made to throw some light upon such questions.

Condition of the Slaves In 1790 there were 11,423 slaves in the state. Of this number 2,301 were in Bergen County, 1,810 in Somerset, 1,596 in Monmouth, 1,318 in Middlesex, 1,301 in Hunterdon, and 1,171 in Essex. The counties of Bergen, Somerset, Monmouth, Middlesex, Hunterdon, and Essex contributed a total of 9,497, or 83 per cent, to the slave population of the state.12

8. Smith, op. cit., 133–­134. 9. Varnum Collins, John Witherspoon (Princeton, 1925), 217. Cf. G. C. Shaw, John Chavis (Binghamton, 1831), 8. 10. Jean Pierre Brissot, New Travels in the United States of America (London, 1794). 11. George Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet, 461–­462. 12. United States Census, 1790, 1800 (Washington, 1802), 38–­40.

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Contemporary observers of eighteenth-­century New Jersey are agreed that the institution of slavery took on a mild form there. John Witherspoon described the slaves as being exceedingly well used. They were fed and clothed as well as any free persons who lived by daily labor.13 The Dutch used their slaves with great humanity, often “not scrupling white and blacks to eat together.”14 Ashbel Green,15 eighth president of the College of New Jersey, pointed out that the number of slaves was not great in the east and that their condition constituted a mild servitude. The master often worked and sometimes ate at the same table with his slaves. The occupations of the slaves centered mainly in farming, mining, lumbering, and nautical pursuits. Theophile Cazenove, who incidentally did not seem to have been very favorably impressed by either the Negroes or the white people whom he saw in Morris and Sussex Counties, said that: There (as everywhere in Jersey) all the servants are black slaves; a good dependable negro, 18 to 25 years old cost £100, or £250; a good dependable negro woman, 18 to 25 years old, £70. You have to pay 5 shillings for a days work by a white workman at harvest time; 3 or 4 shillings in the Spring; wages of a white farmer, £30 to £40 per year, and you must also treat him politely. . . .

The lack of neatness and of furniture in the farmhouses, the lack of gardens and improvements . . . delapidated state of vineyards which are, however large and productive, comes from the lack of taste and sensibility on the part of the farmers. The wives have the care of the house, and besides they have a number of children, 5, 6, 7, 8, with no help, except one or two old and dispirited colored women.16

Advertisements for runaway slaves in contemporary newspapers described them as blacksmiths, millers, carters, farmers, house-­carpenters, miners, lumbermen, shoemakers, coopers, bakers, millwrights, tanners, barbers, cooks, and waiters. One of these runaways could bleed and draw teeth, while another was said to have been a preacher.17 The women were chiefly engaged in domestic duties such as spinning, caring for children, washing and ironing, making dairy products, and rendering personal service.18 There were slaves who had opportunities for earning money for their own use. Andrew Mellick,19 in The Story of an Old Farm, relates how slaves sold root beer and cookies on General Training Day to collect money to cover incidental expenses. The Society of Friends testified against the hiring of slaves by members of their Society unless the money was to be allowed the

13. Miscellaneous Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon; ed. by William Woodward (Philadelphia, 1803), 306. 14. Ibid., 307. 15. Ashbel Green, The Life of Ashbel Green (New York, 1849), 37. 16. Theophile Cazenove, Cazenove Journal; ed. by Rayner W. Kelsey (Haverford, 1922), 3. 17. New Jersey Archives, Vol. XII, 51. 18. For advertisements see New Jersey Archives, Vols. II, III, XI, XII, XIX, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXXI. Cf. Charles Boyer, Early Forges and Furnaces in New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1931), 7, 31, 77, 166, 167, 239. Cf. Henry Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey (Baltimore, 1896), 55. 19. Andrew Mellick, Story of an Old Farm, 607.

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slave for the purchase of his liberty.20 Other slaves used such earnings to secure the rudiments of an education.21 The laws concerning slaves and their treatment in the courts reflected their inferior position in the industrial economy. They could be witnesses only against each other. It was this provision which led Anthony Benezet to point out the inadequacy of the laws designed to protect Negroes from inhuman treatment. Since a slave’s testimony was invalid, the prosecution of a master guilty of murder would have to depend in most cases upon the testimony of an overseer, who would hardly testify against his employer unless he had a grievance against him.22 Liancourt De La Rochefoucault,23 writing of his travels in the United States in the years 1795 to 1797, remarked that there was no law in New Jersey to hinder the inhabitants from beating or otherwise cruelly using their Negro slaves. If a master mutilated his slave the courts of justice might condemn the master to temporary imprisonment, but they had no power either to set the slave free or to order him to be sold to a different master. He was convinced it was not probable that even a tyrannical master could be deterred by such careless regulations. To La Rochefoucault, such a situation would have seemed shocking in any country, but above all, in a free republican state. In the beginning all the inhabitants of the colony had been tried in the same courts. Special courts for Negroes had been set up in the reign of Queen Anne, but were abolished in 1768 because they proved to be too inconvenient.24 Slaves convicted of minor offenses were generally whipped. Since they had very little property, they could not be fined; if they had been imprisoned their masters would have been deprived of their services. When they committed crimes for which the death penalty was imposed, the masters were reimbursed for the value of the slaves.25 Brissot questioned the stipulation that a slave could not be witness against a freeman. Said he, You either suppose him less true than the freeman, or you suppose him to be differently organized. The last supposition is absurd; the other, if true, is against yourselves; for why are they less conscientious, more corrupted, and more wicked?—­it is because they are slaves; The crime falls on the head of the master; and the slave is thus degraded and punished for the vice of the master.

And then he asks, Why do you ordain that the master shall be reimbursed from the public treasury the price of the slave who may suffer death for crimes? If, as is easy to prove, the crimes of slaves are almost universally the fruit of their slavery, and all in proportion to the severity of their treatment, is it not absurd to recompense the master for his tyranny? When we recollect that these masters have hitherto been accustomed to consider their slaves as a species of cattle, and that the laws make

20. Minutes Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1824, 395. 21. Edward Griffin, A Plea for Africa (New York, 1817), 70. 22. Brooks, op. cit., 285–­286. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, 1703–­1713, Bradford, 28; Henry Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey (Baltimore, 1896), 52. 23. Liancourt De La Rochefoucault, Travels Through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois and Upper Canada in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797 (London, 1799), Vol. II, 543–­544. 24. Laws of New Jersey, 1768, Parker, 37. 25. Ibid., 1703–­1713, Bradford, 29.

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the master responsible for the damages done by his cattle, does it not appear contradictory to reverse the law relative to these black cattle, when they do a mischief for which society thinks it necessary to extirpate them? In this case the real author of the crime, instead of paying damages, receives a reward.26

Looking forward to the day when such inequalities would be ended by the abolition of slavery, the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings persuaded the New Jersey legislature to provide for the mental elevation of the slaves through the enactment of a law in 1788 requiring that slaves and servants under twenty-­one be taught to read.27 Consequently Mellick could tell of a bill found among the effects of the old farm in Somerset County for the schooling of the Negro boy Joe for sixty-­one days. The bill was for the sum of one dollar and thirty-­nine cents, but, says Mellick, “the village schoolmaster of eighty years ago was not an expensive institution, nor were such low charges for tuition confined to colored scholars.” Another bill for one of the white children was four dollars and sixteen cents for 159 days of schooling.28 The Reverend John Cornelison, pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church in Bergen from 1792 to 1828, did much in his pastorate for the children and youth, many of whom were slaves. Feeling deeply for the colored people, he opened a special service for them in his own house, formed them into classes, and taught several of them to read.29

Status of Free Negroes In 1790 there were 2,762 free persons of color in New Jersey. Of this number, 598 were in Burlington County, 374 in Salem, 353 in Monmouth, and 342 in Gloucester.30 Sixty per cent of the free Negroes lived in these counties, where members of the Society of Friends exerted considerable strength. When La Rochefoucault visited America during the years 1795–­1797, he found slavery still “countenanced” in New Jersey, but the number of slaves was not so great as to obviate the necessity of employing whites and free Negroes. The latter who hired themselves out received the same wages as did the other laborers, fifty cents a day and board.31 Theophile Cazenove, a French traveler, reported there were many Negroes who worked out by the month in summer for three pounds, and by the day for three shillings; free Negro women received four shillings a week. He described the free Negroes as quarrelsome, intemperate, lazy, and dishonest. He found their children to be without restraint or education. Not one out of a hundred was making good use of his freedom. They owned neither horses nor cows, nor could they make a comfortable living. They did not aspire to anything and, according to Cazenove, were worse off than when they had been slaves.32 If merit is allowed his criticism, the wisdom of the supervision of the Friends over the temporal affairs of freed Negroes becomes even more apparent. 26. Brissot, op. cit., 235–­236. 27. Minutes Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, 16/X/1788, 18/XII/1788. Laws of New Jersey, 1788, 488. 28. Mellick, op. cit., 608. 29. Benjamin C. Taylor, Annals of the Classis of Bergen of the Reformed Dutch Church (New York, 1857), 132. 30. United States Census, 1790, 1800 (Washington, 1802), 38–­40. 31. La Rochefoucault, op. cit., Vol. II, 418. 32. Cazenove, op. cit., 8.

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On the other hand, the Abolition Society of New Jersey believed that, in a comparison of the blacks with the poorer class of whites, the balance was rather in favor of the blacks. As domestic servants, waiters, and coachmen the preference was decidedly given to Negroes. As laborers they constituted a valuable part of the community. A few were mechanics. They were paying increasing attention to the apprenticing of their children so they could acquire trades.33 Shrewsbury Quarterly Meeting called attention to the fact that consideration was being given to the school learning of Negro children within the limits of the members’ jurisdiction, except those children who had been placed with people who were not members of the Society.34 The law of 1804 provided for the binding out of the children of slaves born after July 1, 1804, who were otherwise to be free from birth.35 These instances indicate that the apprenticeship system was the chief means of acquiring vocational training. Of course those who had been slaves had the advantage of the skills which they had learned as bondsmen. Brissot, in speaking of the work activities of free Negroes, gives also an idea of the social position they occupied: The free Blacks in the Eastern States are either hired servants, or they keep little shops, or they cultivate the land. You will see some of them on board of coasting vessels. They dare not venture themselves on long voyages, for fear of being transported and sold in the islands. As to their physical character, the Blacks are vigorous, of a strong constitution, capable of the most painful labour, and generally active. As servants they are sober and faithful. Those who keep shops live moderately, and never augment their affairs beyond a certain point. The reason is obvious; the Whites though they treat them with humanity, like not to give them credit to enable them to undertake any extensive commerce, nor even to give them means of a common education, by receiving them into their counting-­houses. If, then, the Blacks are confined to the retails of trade, let us not accuse their capacity, but prejudices of the Whites, which lay obstacles in their way.36

The New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery insisted that it could enumerate a number of instances “of blacks who in their respective neighborhoods exhibited examples of sobriety, industry, economy, and uprightness, well worthy of imitation, regulating their families well, and respected by the white inhabitants, some of them hold real estate, free and disincumbered, and a considerable number support themselves comfortably.” Interested groups had also given some attention to the Negroes’ moral and religious improvement.37 The intermediate position of these people in the economic life of the colony and state accompanied a like position in the treatment accorded them by the courts. Manumitted slaves, convicted on any charges of felony or convicted of petit larceny more than twice within one month, had to

33. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Seventh Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies . . . (Philadelphia, 1801), 12. 34. Minutes Shrewsbury Quarterly Meeting, 18/VIII/1783. 35. Laws of New Jersey, 1804, 253. 36. Brissot, op. cit., 238–­239. 37. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Seventh Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies, 12.

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leave the state after their release from imprisonment. They had to remain in exile for life or for a term of years determined by the court. No Negro manumitted in any other state was permitted to travel or reside in New Jersey, while no Negro manumitted in this state was to go out of his own county, where he was freed, without a certificate from two justices of the peace of the county in which he was manumitted.38 In the matter of the franchise, the Constitution of 1776 enabled Negroes to vote for several years. This instrument provided as follows: All inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county, in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in council and assembly; and also for all other public officers that shall be elected by the people of the county at large.39

This article of the constitution soon gave rise to a variety of practices throughout the state, since its literal construction extended the franchise to all persons, such as Negroes, women, and foreigners who could meet the requirements specifically stated. But the position was taken by some that the framers had no intention of thus extending the franchise. It was an election concerning a courthouse that eventuated in a law which clarified this matter. The revised election law of 1807 stated that: Whereas, doubts have been raised and great diversities in practice obtained throughout the state in regard to the admission of aliens, females, and persons of color, or negroes to vote in elections, and also in regard to the mode of ascertaining the qualifications of voters in respect to estate. And whereas, it is highly necessary to the safety, quiet, good order and dignity of the state, to clear up the said doubts by an act of the representatives of the people, declaratory of the true sense and meaning of the constitution, and to ensure its just execution in these particulars, according to the intent of the framers thereof. . . .

The law then provided that no person could vote unless he be a free white male citizen of the state, twenty-­one years of age and worth fifty pounds proclamation money.40 According to Lucius Elmer,41 election officers occasionally disregarded this law, holding it to be unconstitutional and void, so far as it prevented aliens, females, and colored persons from voting. Passing to a consideration of the educational opportunities open to free Negroes, one finds that the educational policy of the state was such as to evoke unfavorable comment on the part of contemporary writers. There was no widespread provision for education, since the conditions

38. Laws of New Jersey, 1886, 242. 39. Minutes of the Provincial Congress and Council of Safety, 1775–­1776, 552. 40. Laws of New Jersey, 1807, 14. 41. Lucius Elmer, The Constitution and Government of the Province and State of New Jersey (Newark, 1872), 48. Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey (Northampton, 1916), Smith College Studies in History, 165–­187; Mary Philbrook, “Woman’s Suffrage in New Jersey Prior to 1807,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, Vol. LVII, No. 2, 87–­97.

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under which the province was settled made it difficult for the inhabitants to agree upon a united policy. The variety of religious sects and the predominating tendency of the churches to control the management of schools delayed the possibility of a state system of public schools until well into the early part of the nineteenth century. Dr. Nelson Burr42 describes the early schools of New Jersey: The Period before the “Great Awakening” about 1740 set the character of New Jersey against the early development of a general public school system. . . . Hollanders, Germans Swedes, English, Scotch, Irish, and the French were mingled, and religion showed all phases of Christianity from Rome to Geneva, from the high-­and-­dry Anglican to the indescribable “Banter.” These barriers of race, language, and religion long made it impossible to have a universal system, supervised by the state and supported by general taxation. Therefore several school provisions, which by courtesy may be called systems, grew up side by side.

The proprietary government granted charters permitting townships to set aside school lands. Burr attributes to the New England influence the law passed in 1693 by East Jersey whereby townships were allowed to levy school rates and to collect them. But there was no law compelling the maintenance of schools, such as was passed in Massachusetts in 1647. For generations, he points out, there was established an educational voluntarism which was overcome only by persistent efforts. New Jersey was a stronghold of the attitude that education should be a concern of private and denominational interests.43 La Rochefoucault declared there could be no place where less attention was paid to education than in New Jersey. The legislature of the state had never taken the matter into consideration. Some schools had been kept in certain townships at the expense of such inhabitants as were disposed to contribute to them. Poor salaries were paid to the schoolmasters who were ignorant and negligent. Consequently he found no people in the United States who were more ignorant than the inhabitants of New Jersey. Although the state had a good college at “Prince Town” and some of the inhabitants were men of “merit and understanding,” the proportion of persons of education was much less there than in any other state.44 Another foreign visitor, the Reverend William Winterbotham,45 found comparatively few men of learning in the state during the last decade of the eighteenth century. He said that the people were generally industrious, frugal, and hospitable but had “little taste for the sciences.” Although the poorer classes were inattentive to the education of their children, he did find a number of “gentlemen of the first rank in abilities and learning in the civil offices of the state, and in the several learned professions.”

42. Nelson Burr, “The Development of Education in New Jersey to 1871,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, Vol. LI, 253. Cf. Nelson Burr, The History of Education in the State of New Jersey from Earliest Times to 1870 (Ph.D. dissertation to be published by Princeton University). 43. Ibid., 254. 44. La Rochefoucault, op. cit., Vol. II, 433. 45. William Winterbotham, An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States and of the European Settlements in America and the West Indies (Newark, 1795), 380.

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The Reverend Mr. Winterbotham mentioned a number of good academies at Freehold, Trenton, Hackensack, Orangedale, Elizabethtown, Burlington, and Newark. There were grammar schools at Springfield, Morristown, Bordentown, and Amboy. But he described the situation pertaining to the common schools in the following words: There are no regular establishments for common schools in the State. The usual mode of education is for the inhabitants of a village or neighborhood to join in affording a temporary support for a schoolmaster, upon such terms as are mutually agreeable. But the encouragement which these occasional teachers meet with, is generally in proportion to the pay of the teacher. It is therefore much to be regretted that the legislature do not take up this subject, and adopt such method of supporting public schools as had been practiced upon with visible good success in some of the New England States.46

It was only in the case of dependent children that the state had passed mandatory legislation for the education of free inhabitants. A law passed in 1784 provided for the education of orphans whose parents died intestate.47 Overseers of the poor, with the assistance and approbation of two justices of the peace, were authorized to bind out any poor child or children who had no parents, or whose parents had applied to these overseers for relief, or the children of poor parents who were bringing up their children in “Sloth, Idleness and Ignorance.” The law stipulated that every indenture should include the following clause: That every such Master and Mistress to whom such poor Child shall be bound as aforesaid, shall cause every such Child and Children to be taught and instructed to read and write.48

It could not be expected that serious attention would be paid to the education of Negroes when so little was being done for the other children of New Jersey. Still there were some blacks who managed to master the rudiments of learning through the efforts of philanthropic persons. Others learned to read or write while they were slaves. The New Jersey Archives contain numerous advertisements of runaway slaves who could read or forge their own passes. As early as 1738 there was a slave who could read.49 Some of them could play the fiddle, and others were conversant with two or more languages. One slave was able to speak English, Dutch, Spanish, and Danish, in addition to being “very artful and cunning.”50 Another spoke good English, understood all sorts of farmer’s work, and “Something of the sea,” and could write any pass he needed.51 Still another could play the violin, sing, read, write, and cypher, and would “undoubtedly write himself a pass.”52 In 1801 the New Jersey Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery wrote:

46. Ibid., 384–­385. 47. Laws of New Jersey, 1784, 138. 48. Laws of New Jersey, 1758, Nevill, 228. 49. New Jersey Archives, Vol. XI, 541. 50. Ibid., Vol. XXVI, 333–­334. 51. Ibid., Vol. XXIV, 400. 52. Ibid., Vol. XXV, 267.

s l a v e s a n d f r e e n e g r o e s , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 0 4 121 The schooling of the black children does not in general appear to obtain that attention which its importance requires, yet it is believed there is a growing care in this respect. We do not know of any schools at present among us, exclusively for them, but in most parts of the state, and very commonly in the western division, they are incorporated with the white children in the various small schools scattered over the county. In the city of Burlington there is a Free-­school, for the education of poor children, supported by the profits of an estate left for that particular purpose, which school is open for the reception of black, equally with white children. The account from Gloucester on this head states, that in several parts of that county, there are funds established for the schooling of poor children, white and black, without distinction, in the whole about 1,000; and many of the black children, being placed by their parents under the care of white masters, receive at least as good a moral, and school education, as the lower class of whites.53

Brissot felt there was much room for improvement in the treatment to which Negroes were being subjected. There existed too great an “interval between them and the Whites, especially in the public opinion.” He saw this humiliating difference as preventing “those efforts which they might make to raise themselves.” The black children were admitted to the “public” schools but they were denied admission to the colleges. Although free, they were always accustomed to consider themselves as beneath the whites. He consequently concluded that it was unfair to judge the capacities of the Negroes by the examples which the blacks presented. Citing an instance of a Negro in Philadelphia who had become a physician and that of another who could calculate with surprising facility and answer any question in arithmetic with a promptness which had no equal, Brissot contended that: These instances prove, without doubt, that the capacity of the negroes may be extended to any thing; that they have need of instruction and liberty. The difference between those who are free and instructed, and those who are not, is still more visible in their industry. The lands inhabited by the whites and free blacks, are better cultivated, produce more abundantly, and offer everywhere the images of ease and happiness.54

The Reverend Theophilus Steward and William Steward,55 authors of Gouldtown, which tells the story of a settlement in Cumberland County composed almost wholly of Negroes, indicate that before 1777 there were sources for acquiring education, since some of the Gould children could read and write. The Presbyterians connected with the Old Stone Church in Fairfield took an active interest in the schooling of these children. A number of the Goulds attended the Academy in Bridgeton, while a young lawyer who had come from Salem in 1809 found “leisure to teach school” in the Lummis School. This discussion of the status of free Negroes in New Jersey shows that they occupied an intermediate position between the slaves and the whites. They could no longer be reduced to the position of chattels. They were free to hire themselves out and receive a reward for their labor. They could 53. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Seventh Convention of Delegates from Abolition Societies, 13. 54. Brissot, op. cit., 241–­243. 55. William Steward and Reverend Theophilus Steward, Gouldtown (Philadelphia, 1913), 84.

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acquire and possess property. They could in some measure direct the lives of themselves and their children. But custom, or the inexorable law of prejudice, circumscribed their efforts to achieve full citizenship status. Anthony Benezet, observing these handicaps, explained that: They are constantly employed in servile Labour, and the abject Condition in which we see them, from our Childhood, has a natural Tendency to create in us an Idea of a Superiority and induces many to look upon them as an ignorant and contemptible Part of Mankind; add to this, that they have but little Opportunity of Freely conversing with such of the Whites as might impart Instruction to them, the endeavoring of which would indeed, by most, be accounted Folly, is not Presumption.56

56. Anthony Benezet, A Short Account of That Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes (Philadelphia, 1762), 65.

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The Societies for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery When you hear of a law for abolishing slavery in each of the American States such as was passed in Pennsylvania in the year 1780; when you hear of the Kings and Queens of Europe, publishing edicts for abolishing the trade in human souls; and lastly, when you hear of schools and churches, with all the arts of civilized life, being established among the nations of Africa; then remember and record, that this resolution in favour of human happiness, was the effect of the labours, the publications, the private letters, and the prayers of Anthony Benezet. benjamin rush

As Friends succeeded in securing the manumission of slaves held by members of their own sect, they turned their attention to the formation of societies to promote the general abolition of slavery. In 1773 the organization of the first abolition society developed from a situation involving an Indian female slave in Philadelphia. This slave lost her bid for freedom, but her plight stimulated the founding of an agency which aimed to promote the welfare of those who were being held in involuntary servitude; to supervise the social, economic, and educational affairs of those who had been freed; and to advance the cause of abolition. In 1792 the parent society in Philadelphia succeeded in effecting the institution of a similar group in Burlington, New Jersey. In the years between 1792 and 1802 Gloucester, Middlesex, and Essex Counties, and Trenton established other societies which aimed to further the objectives of the original body. In the year 1804 the abolitionists realized a substantial consummation of their efforts when the New Jersey legislature enacted a law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery.

Rise of Abolition Societies In 1773 a slaveholder from New Jersey tarried in Philadelphia while on his way south. While there, his Indian slave declared that she and her children were free. Citizens rallied to her assistance and sued for her liberty in the courts. The master won, but the case made such a deep impression upon those who had conducted it that they decided to organize for more effective work in the future.1 1. Edward R. Turner, “The First Abolition Society in the United States,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XXXVI, 94.

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On April 14, 1775, the constitution of “The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage . . .” was accepted.2 In 1787 the group adopted a new constitution, changed their name to “The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage,”3 and elected Benjamin Franklin as its president.4 Most of the supporters were members of the Society of Friends, who had been working so assiduously in behalf of the slaves and freedmen.5 This Society did not confine its activities to securing to the Africans their rights before the courts: Help was given in many ways. Sometimes the Society paid a master to give liberty to his slave. Sometimes the master was assured that he would not be held chargeable, as the law ordained, in case the negro manumitted failed to support himself. Then when the negro was free the Society took him into care, helped him with letters of recommendation, and saw that his employer did not take advantage of him. In 1789 the Society appointed four committees to assist negroes in solving the social and economic problems which confronted them. It opened schools to teach children and night schools for adults, practically the first and certainly the best schools which these negroes ever had. As the rising prejudice against negroes, which increased so strikingly after 1800 became so more and more apparent, the abolitionists did their utmost to appease the white people, and teach the blacks to behave in such a manner as to win respect. When the authorities threatened to pass discriminatory legislation, they opposed it earnestly and successfully.6

In 1792 the Pennsylvania Society, desiring to see the scope of its activities extended, appointed a committee to take measures leading toward the establishment of a similar group in New Jersey. This committee subsequently advised the parent body of the formation of “The New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery” at Burlington.7 In May, 1793, the enlarged society drew up a constitution in which it acknowledged the common origin of white and black persons and the injustice of excluding the members of any race from enjoyment of the inalienable rights of mankind on the basis of color.8 In the decade from 1792 to 1802 at least three other such societies were formed in Gloucester,9 Essex, and Middlesex Counties,10 and in Trenton.11 These auxiliary bodies also interested themselves in the task of assisting the freedmen in their social, economic, and educational problems; securing the liberty of those illegally detained in bondage; and promoting the abolition of slavery.

2. Ibid. 3. Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage (Philadelphia, 1787). 4. Turner, op. cit., 94. 5. Brookes, op. cit., 106–­107. 6. Turner, op. cit., 95. 7. Edward Needles, An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Aboltion of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage and for Improving the Condition of the African Race (Philadelphia, 1848), 40. 8. The Constitution of the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (Burlington, 1793). 9. Frank Stewart, Stewart’s Genealogical and Historical Miscellany No. I (Gloucester, 1918), 26. 10. Minutes of the Seventh Convention of the Delegates from the Abolition Societies . . . , 11. 11. Trenton True American (Trenton), March 19, 1802.

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Interest of the Societies in the General Welfare of the Freedmen The minutes of the Gloucester County Abolition Society disclose the activities of its members in behalf of Negroes. In 1793 James and Paul Cooper succeeded in securing the manumission of a slave; Thomas Redman billed the Society four shillings to cover the cost of maintaining black Betty who was under the care of her neighbors; and the members decided to school or educate black people at the expense of the Society.12 Three years later Thomas Stokes presented a receipt for one pound and two shillings, the cost of schooling two black children.13 In the following year, 1794, the first annual convention of abolition societies assembled in Philadelphia. This body gave further encouragement to the type of activities engaged in by the Gloucester County group by urging that particular attention be given to the education of the blacks and the improvement of their general condition.14 It sent out addresses to free Negroes, exhorting them to behave in a manner which would be conducive to their happiness and to the interests of society.15 It suggested that when they apprenticed their children, they select masters who would work with the children and be interested in their welfare. Such masters would protect the apprentices from vice and assist them in acquiring habits of industry. It advised parents to teach their children soil cultivation and useful trades. It suggested further that in making contracts for themselves and their children the freedmen consult persons who could give them good advice and prevent undue advantage being taken of their ignorance of the laws or customs of the country.16 In 1797 the convention informed the Negroes that schools and places of worship had been established and had been well attended by members of their race in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and elsewhere. Many of the freedmen had proved themselves worthy of liberty by their prudent conduct. In the following year the minutes referred to the successful efforts of the Burlington Society for the Instruction of Adult Colored Persons to extend the benefits of an education to the colored people.17 In 1798 the Burlington Society forwarded to the annual convention a report in which it set forth its activities in behalf of Negroes. It gave an explicit account of the number of blacks in the county, bond and free; their moral conduct; the amount of property which many held; and the assistance rendered them in education. A number of “pleasing specimens” of improvement in writing accompanied the report.18 In 1801 the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery sent a rather lengthy report on the state of affairs in the various counties. The Burlington Society had secured the manumission of eleven slaves, Gloucester of nine, Middlesex of two, and Essex of two. There were still many

12. Stewart, op. cit., 26–­27. 13. Ibid., 28. 14. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Second Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies . . . (Philadelphia, 1795), 10–­11. 15. Ibid., 23. 16. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Third Convention . . . (Philadelphia, 1796), 13. 17. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Fifth Convention . . . (Philadelphia, 1798), 9. 18. Minutes of the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery Burlington Branch 1793–­1809, 24/ IV/1798 (Original at Haverford College).

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slaves in East Jersey.19 The census reports for 1800 estimated the number of slaves in this division at 9,406, and the number in the western part at 3,016. Of the latter, 1,220 were in Hunterdon County, and 775 in Morris County. Burlington had 188 slaves, Gloucester 61, Salem 85, Cumberland 75, and Cape May 98. There were 12,422 in the whole state.20 The report further disclosed that in the eastern half of the state the opposition to the abolition of slavery had been formidable, but the pendulum now appeared to be swinging in the other direction. The following report from Essex and Middlesex Counties portrayed the general conditions in the eastern sections: They appear, mostly, pretty comfortably provided for, and some of the free, hold fast and moveable property—­the industrious among them find pretty steady employment, but the moral conduct of many does not appear so encouraging and praiseworthy, as would be desirable.21

Gloucester County also sent in information which showed that: At the time the census was taken by order of the General Government in 1791, there were in that county 191 slaves; when taken by the direction of this Society in 1799, only 47, and this present year, according to the Census now taking by the Government, (nearly gone through) the number is still less. We think it may be said, that with a few exceptions, the slaves in this part of the state, are kindly used, more so it is apprehended of latter time; and the practice of slave-­holding is becoming daily more unpopular. In speaking of the moral conduct and general character of those who are free, we are somewhat embarrassed, but we apprehend that the following description, intended more particularly to fit Burlington and Gloucester Counteis, will generally apply throughout the western part of the State—­Many are loose in their morals too fond of unprofitable company, idling away their substance, but as a general observation, we believe it will be found true upon investigation, that waving any allowance which in justice ought to be made for the great disadvantages under which they labour, and contrasting their conduct with that of the poorer class of whites, the balance will be rather in favor of the black people.22

The report gave a much more encouraging description of the more sober members of the race living in Burlington and Gloucester Counties. Unfortunately the school in Burlington had discontinued its activities. But, whereas the schooling of the black children did not seem to attract the attention which its importance warranted, it was believed that there was an increasing manifestation of interest in this subject. As far as it was known, there were no schools which had been set aside exclusively for the Negroes, but in most parts of the state, and especially in the western division, they were entered in the small schools scattered over the counties. In the city of Burlington there was a free school for the education of poor children supported by the profits of an estate left for that particular purpose, and this school was open for the instruction of children of

19. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Seventh Convention . . . (Philadelphia, 1801), 10. 20. United States Census Report, 1800, 48. 21. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Seventh Convention . . . , 11. 22. Ibid., 11–­12.

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both races. Funds for the schooling of the poor without distinction as to color, and from which many of the colored children benefited, had been established in several parts of Gloucester County. These funds amounted to about one thousand pounds.23 In 1802 the “Trenton Association for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery” pledged itself to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, to secure the gradual abolition of slavery, and to help all blacks and other people of color. The Association was also to supervise the morals and conduct of the freedmen, to advise and protect them, to render friendly help to them. It was to instruct the young and to see that they attended school, to place out the youths and children so they could learn trades and become self-­supporting, and finally to assist in their vocational placement.24 Maintaining that slavery was at variance with Christianity, justice, humanity, and benevolence, this Association stated that, although the aims of the cause might not be completely realized during the life term of the Association, nevertheless, it would at least have the satisfaction of having assisted in laying the foundation of freedom and knowledge upon which future generations of Africans might build a life of social happiness.25

The Fight for the Abolition of Slavery While the abolition societies were striving to ameliorate the conditions of the free Negroes through supervision and education, they never lost sight of their prime purpose, the abolition of slavery. They had succeeded in persuading the New Jersey legislature to ease the restrictions governing manumissions;26 they had sought the downward27 and upward28 extension of the age limits at which slaves might be freed; and they had made several attempts to have the institution itself abolished.29 In 1795 the Convention of Abolition Societies had recommended to the New Jersey Society that it attempt to procure an amendment of the law passed in 1786 so as to make possible the manumission of slaves who had passed the age of thirty-­five. When the state society went a step further and presented a memorial to the assembly asking for the gradual abolition of slavery, a favorable bill was brought in but was lost by one vote.30 In 1797 opponents defeated another move in this direction by one vote. According to Francis Lee, the opposition had maneuvered this result by gerrymandering the districts in Hunterdon, Sussex, Cumberland, and Cape May Counties.31

23. Ibid., 13. 24. Trenton True American (Trenton), March 19, 1802. 25. Ibid. 26. Laws of New Jersey, 1886, 240. 27. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly . . . , Second Sitting, 1791, 34. Cf. Burlington and Hunterdon Counties, Petition to the Legislature for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in New Jersey (Original on file in the State Library, Trenton, May, 1792). 28. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Third Convention of Delegates from Abolition Societies . . . , 11. 29. Burlington County, Petition to the Legislature for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery (Original on file in State Library, Trenton, 1796). 30. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Third Convention of Delegates from Abolition Societies . . . , 9. 31. Francis Lee, New Jersey as a Colony and a State, Vol. III, 272. Cf. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly . . . , 1797, Second Sitting, 57.

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On February 1, 1804, the New Jersey Abolition Society presented to the assembly a petition in favor of the pending law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery. This petition made a fervent plea for the freedom of black children yet unborn. It is not credible that prejudice or personal interest can much longer hold out against a claim like this—­a claim advocated by the natural feelings of the human heart and acknowledged by Americans in their act of Independence as among the most undeniable rights of man. Why then should this just and necessary measure be any longer delayed? We cannot but indulge the hope that the propitious moment has come when an assembly, of enlightened Legislators, acting on the principles of Eternal Justice, and in conformity with their Christian Characters; will resolve to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Thus will it be your praise to have blotted from your country perhaps its greatest crime, and to have restored to an unhappy race of men, that long lost charter from which we ourselves derive so many blessings—­THE CHARTER OF MAN’S LIBERTY!32

The propitious moment had come. The opposition of the eastern counties finally yielded to the prayerful entreaties of the inhabitants of the western division. On February 15, 1804, the legislature, with only four dissenting votes, passed a law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery.33

32. New Jersey Society for the Abolition of Slavery, Testimony to the Legislature in Favor of the Law for the Gradual Extinction of Slavery (Original on file in the State Library, Trenton, 1804). 33. Laws of New Jersey, 1804, 251–­254.

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A Period of Transition, 1804–­1830 We have seen that at the beginning of this period liberal ideas were dominant in both England and America. One of the sad features of the close of the era is the fading of the ideals that had inspired the patriots of the Revolution. benjamin brawley

The years 1804 to 1830 marked a period of transition from the year of the enactment of the law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery to the decade in which Negro leaders rose to formulate plans for the elevation of the race. During this era religious groups, abolition societies, and foresighted individuals continued their activities in behalf of the spiritual, physical, moral, and intellectual amelioration of the darker race. Realizing that the law of 1804 was but one step toward the integration of a former slave class into the civic life of the state, the president of the New Jersey Abolition Society urged that attention be given to the education of children who were to be born free, and that constructive supervision be extended over the domestic affairs of the adults. Another important characteristic of this period was the trend away from the laissez-­faire policy in education to a recognition of state responsibility for financing the school training of indigent children. In 1817 the legislature created a permanent fund, which it increased by subsequent appropriations. In 1829 the friends of public education secured the passage of a law which initiated the beginning of legislation favoring a state system of public instruction.

Provisions of the Law for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery It must certainly have been a memorable occasion for Joseph Bloomfield, for several years president of the society which had been forwarding petitions to the legislature in behalf of the slaves, when, as governor of the state, he signed the act providing for the gradual abolition of slavery. It is true this measure presented the same defect of which Jean Brissot had complained in the law passed in Pennsylvania in 1780, in that not a glimmer of hope was held out to those who were slaves at the time of the passing of the act or to those who were to be born between the enactment of this bill, February 15, 1804, and July 4 of that year. Futile efforts had been made by the abolitionists to have the legislature go the whole way in abolishing the institution itself. But with the passage of this act it was at least possible to envisage the day when the citizens of New Jersey would be free from the opprobrium of holding their fellow men in a debasing servitude. 129

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This act, which declared that every child born of a slave after July 4, 1804, was to be free, decreed that such children should remain the apprenticed servants of the owners of the mothers until, if males, they had attained the age of twenty-­five years, and, if females, they had reached the age of twenty-­one.1 The persons entitled to the services of these children had the privilege of yielding this right by abandoning them one year after birth. Until that time the law held the owners of the mothers responsible for the maintenance of these infants. Notifications of abandonments had to be filed with the overseers of the poor, who in turn were to bind out these children in accordance with the laws governing the treatment of paupers. As previously noted in the section on free Negroes, one stipulation required that masters provide for the instruction of apprenticed children in reading and writing. Citizens of Bergen and Morris Counties, where opposition to the abolition of slavery had been so strong, were unwilling to accept the verdict of the law. Hence they marshalled forces in one last attempt to overthrow the achievement of the friends of freedom. Two years after this act had been passed, they sent several petitions to the legislature asking for the repeal of the law for the gradual abolition of slavery.2 “Seriously alarmed and Deeply Impressed with the dangerous consequences” which would inevitably result to the community at large from the “oppressive operations of the act,” and declaring the measure unconstitutional, impolitic, and unjustly severe, the petitioners insisted they were entitled to protection of property as well as person. Already the evils of the law were discernible. The legislature had made no provisions for maintaining the offspring of the children of the slaves who were to be born free. These children were to be free at birth and consequently chargeable to the townships in which they were born. This, the anti-­abolitionists insisted, would make for an oppression of the highest magnitude, as there would be no end to the excessive tax burden which would inevitably follow.3 But the legislature turned deaf ears to the cries of the petitioners. Positive results soon began to manifest themselves in the corollary effects of this measure. People advertised for the time instead of the persons of Negroes. In 1807 the following notice appeared in a weekly newspaper: A young Black Man, of sober, honest and obliging disposition, and well acquainted with the duties of a waiter, would receive liberal wages if a freeman, or if a slave would find a purchaser who would secure to him the enjoyment of his liberty at a period sufficiently distant to indemnify him for the risk, on terms which would be deemed liberal, provided sufficient testimonials of the disposition and capacity of the person are produced.4

On the other hand, prejudice thwarted an attempt to extend vocational training to young Negro boys. Mill owners of Paterson advertised for the time of black boys whose periods of servitude expired at the age of twenty-­five years under the laws of the state. They were to be apprenticed to

1. Laws of New Jersey, 1804, 251. 2. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, 1805, First Sitting, 533. 3. Petitions from Morris and Bergen Counties, 1806 (On file in the State Library, Trenton). 4. Trenton Federalist (Trenton), January 19, 1807.

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the spinning and weaving trades. The experiment failed because of the unwillingness of the white employees to work with the Negroes in the same mill.5 Charles Deshler6 notes, however, that in the early days of the century there were many slaves surviving among the inhabitants of New Jersey. The slaves’ children were encouraged to learn trades by many of the more thoughtful masters. The women of their masters’ families taught them to read and write and instructed them in morals and religion. The Friends, still manifesting opposition to anything that promoted the slave traffic, reminded their members who “either through inadvertence, or from selfish motives, have hired slaves to assist them in their business” were, in so doing, promoting the “unrighteous traffic.” Friends were also cautioned against acting as executors or administrators to estates where slaves were bequeathed or against doing anything whereby their bondage might be prolonged. Those who held slaves by inheritance or otherwise were urged to treat them with moderation and kindness; to instruct them in the principles of the Christian religion; to train them in such “branches of school learning” as might fit them for freedom and for becoming useful members of society. The Society further urged Friends to advise and assist such of the black people who were free in the education of their children and “common worldly concerns.”7

Continued Interest of Abolition Societies Now that one objective of their labors had been accomplished, the abolition societies turned their attention to the recommendations of the annual convention. To take into consideration means of educating the blacks and improving them in domestic economy, morality, and virtue as suggested by the General Meeting, the Burlington Society appointed Robert Smith, John Griscom, Josiah Reeve, Thomas Newbold, and John Hoskins to further these objectives. They recommended the appointment of the “Committee for the Improvement of the Condition of Free Blacks” to serve in the capacity of family counselors to the housekeepers, and to collect the single persons “at proper times and places, for the purpose, in general, of opening to them such admonition and council” as might be deemed fitting. These early “social workers” were To advise them to an habitual attention to the duties of public worship—­to enquire into their manners of life and to encourage among them good manners, industry, economy, etc,—­to warn them against intemperance, bad company, and especially against making their houses a rendezvous for idle and vicious persons of any colour or description. To instil into them a sense of the importance of affording to their offspring school learning and of early placing them out in good places to learn useful business and acquire industrious habits. To encourage the admission of black children into our common Schools especially those who evince favourable dispositions and the promise of genius. To promote the setting on foot of private associations for the purpose

5. Wilson Nelson and Charles Shriner, History of Paterson and Its Environs (New York, 1920), 179, 183. 6. Charles Deshler, Memorial Sketch of Old Christ Church, New Brunswick, New Jersey and of Rt. Rev. John Gross, D.D. (New Brunswick, 1896), 21. 7. Christian Advices Published by the Yearly Meeting of Friends Held in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1808), 62.

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of holding first day and winter evening Schools for the black people,—­and generally to devise and pursue the best plans for bettering the conditions of this people, subject to the control of this meeting.8

At the next meeting one of the subcommittees which the Society had appointed reported that different members had visited about twenty families in the various neighborhoods. The group encouraged the committee members to persevere in the good work. Although this assignment was in part completed, nothing appears to have been done about the request regarding the schooling of the children. With the main objective attained, there lacked an incentive of sufficient strength to challenge the interests of the Society as a whole. At the meeting held September 22, 1807, the five members present decided to attend the state convention to discuss the laxness which prevailed so generally among the members as to threaten the continued existence of the organization.9 William Griffith,10 president of the state Society, had already called attention to the tasks remaining to be done in behalf of the freedmen. Beside the ultimate goal of emancipation which still lay far in the future, there was a secondary but more immediate objective which demanded all the attention of the Society’s members, the mental improvement of these people. It would be almost worse than vain, he said, to have procured for them the light of freedom, if no adequate means were to be pursued to release them from intellectual darkness. The pressing problem was how to secure for the Negroes the means of education. It did not seem possible to effect this on any large scale or within any short period of time through private contributions or efforts when such a great proportion of other poor children were remaining in ignorance. What then, he wondered, was to become of the progeny of the blacks who were now to be born free in the state and thereby to acquire the privileges of other inhabitants? In addition to the poverty and slavery of the parents and the scanty revenue to be procured from private beneficence there remained the serious difficulty of obtaining the black children’s admission into the white schools even when money was available. In villages and well populated towns they were likely to go untaught because of a lack of colored teachers. The only solution to this dilemma which revealed itself to Mr. Griffith was “to furnish them with teachers of their own race.” He believed that if enough Negroes could be gradually qualified for such positions and placed in proper localities, the parents of the children, whether bond or free, would support them. The white inhabitants of the several neighborhoods could be persuaded to patronize, regulate, and assist such schools. Colored teachers would inspire in the members of their race emulation and pride favorable to morals and refinement. There was also a possibility that in a day when so many Negroes were still slaves, and when many of the ideals of democracy were to be matters of future action, there was merit in the belief that colored teachers would stimulate esteem and endeavor in Negro children taught in separate schools. President Griffith recommended further that it become a fixed objective of the state organization to establish a fund for educating a certain number of colored boys or young men annually 8. Minutes of the Burlington Society, 28/IX/1804. 9. Ibid., 22/IX/1807. 10. Trenton Federalist (Trenton), February 11, 1805.

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for teaching positions; that the Society be incorporated in order to make it eligible to receive and hold property by donation, bequest, or purchase; that a standing committee be appointed to solicit from the legislature, public groups, and private persons, gifts, legacies, and stated subscriptions to the fund. This committee was to prepare a plan for educating as many boys as the funds collected would warrant, and to arrange for their placement in the most opportune communities. He hoped many humane individuals would sponsor the education of individual boys for instructorships among their fellow blacks. The president saw a new opportunity for service in connection with the “Committee of Publication.” This committee had originally been formed for the purpose of collecting and publishing such extracts and other materials as might aid the cause of emancipation. Inasmuch as no further steps were expected in New Jersey in this direction, he suggested that this committee be employed in circulating among the blacks small, plain, cheap manuals containing religious instruction and recommendations pertaining to conduct. The little tracts, being addressed to the Negroes, “would excite their curiosity, and engage their observation;—­they could find means of having them read over and over again.” Sensitive to the temper of the times, Mr. Griffith indicated a desire to refrain from disturbing the status quo by reminding his audience that care was needed in handling “a subject apparently so simple, lest offense be given.” Nothing should be published which could awaken any sectarian jealousies “or interfere with the order of domestic subordination and authority—­in short, they must be confined to topics on which all agree and all approve.” The address sounded an encouraging note in the reminder that free Negroes were advanced in the scale of intellectual and social existence; that they were “domiciled into families” and formed into religious societies; that they had in some places established schools and hundreds had been taught, through private liberality, the rudiments of learning. They had furthermore “perceived themselves to have become objects of regard, and looking forward to a more comfortable and less abject condition they were assimilating from their superiors, more and more habits of industry and occupations necessary to subsistence and tending toward exterior decency and social enjoyments.” In an address to the people of color in 1805, the annual convention of abolition societies advised them that the education of their children was a “subject of lasting importance” and one which had claimed a large share of the attention of its societies. The time had come for them to ask the assistance of Negroes in this work. Since many of them had acquired property, it suggested that they contribute to the expenses of educating their own offspring and so release additional funds for the education of indigent children.11 At a much later convention (1805) the body manifested its continued interest in the training of black children by the admonition that: Next to correctness of conduct nothing will tend more to raise your standing in Society than the acquisition of school learning; knowledge is emphatically said to be power; be especially careful to have your children properly educated; by so doing you will furnish them with the means of becoming useful and respectable members of Society. Now when the public have provided ample

11. Minutes of the Tenth American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery . . . (Philadelphia, 1805), 38.

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means for the instruction of your children those who neglect to send them to school assume an awful responsibility and we earnestly entreat you to avail yourselves of the advantage.12

Increased State Interest in Education In 1812 the Reverend Jedidiah Morse,13 father of Samuel Morse, viewed the educational conditions of that year in much the same light as had the observers of the late eighteenth century. Calling attention to the fact that the difference in regard to fashions and manners between East and West Jersey was nearly as great as between New York and Philadelphia, he warned that it could not be expected that many general conclusions could apply. He described the people of New Jersey as on the whole industrious, frugal, and hospitable. But there were comparatively few men of learning in the state, nor could it be said that the people had a “taste for the sciences.” The poorer class, which included the majority of the inhabitants, was inattentive to the education of their children, who were generally left to grow up in ignorance. There were, however, a number of men of the “first rank in abilities and learning in the civil offices of the state and in the several learned professions.” Just five years later, 1817, New Jersey took a step which marked the beginning of a movement to establish a system of public schools under the jurisdiction of the state. The legislature provided for the setting up of a school fund which was to be used for promoting the instruction of poor children.14 The governing body made additional appropriations to this fund until 1829, when the money became sufficient to warrant plans for the distribution of the income. Friends of public education had marshalled sufficient strength to secure the passage of a law which gave promise of a state system of schools.15 Opponents, however, nullified these gains the following year.16 The fight which had been all but won had to be waged for another decade before tangible results were obtained.

12. American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for Improving the Condition of the African Race, To the Free People of Color in the United States (Philadelphia, 1829), 2. 13. Jedidiah Morse, The American Universal Geography (Boston, 1812), Vol. I, 392–­393. 14. Burr, op. cit., 256–­257. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, 1817, 26. 15. Burr, op. cit., 257. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, 1829, 105–­109. 16. Burr, op. cit. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, 1830, 119–­121.

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Sunday Schools The “Sabbath-­school” constituted an important factor in Negro education. Although cloaked with the purpose of bringing the blacks to God by giving them religious instruction, the institution permitted its workers to teach them reading and writing when they were not allowed to study such in other institutions. . . . All friends especially interested in the mental and spiritual uplift of the race hailed this movement as marking an epoch in the elevation of the colored people. carter g. woodson

Initiated during the latter part of the eighteenth century in England and America, the Sunday-­ school movement made itself definitely felt in the educational life of Negroes in New Jersey. These schools, which assumed significance because of the instruction they gave in reading, writing, and cyphering, presented many Negroes their only opportunities for schooling. Ministers and teachers trained them in both mixed and separate classes. In 1815 Sunday-­school associations undertook this work on an increasingly larger scale and testified to the rapid advancement made by their colored pupils. Eleven years later an anniversary report of the Essex County Sunday-­School Union indicated the emergence of Negro leadership in this field.

Early Sunday Schools The Sunday-­school movement which Robert Raikes1 popularized in England became one of the prime agencies through which many Negroes in New Jersey secured the fundamentals of a common-­ school education in the early years of the nineteenth century. This humanitarian explained that he had been impelled to the institution of Sabbath schools in the suburbs of Gloucester, England, as a means of regenerating the children of the laborers in the factories there. Undisciplined and without any form of training, these children when released from toil on Sundays proceeded to spend the day “in noisy and riotous behavior.” To check the “deplorable profanation of the Sabbath” Robert Raikes secured the services of teachers to instruct these children in reading and the Church Catechism. In 1783 these schools, which had been in operation for three years, had proved their worth in improving the social environment of the areas in which they had been established.

1. Ellwood P. Cubberley, Readings in the History of Education (New York, 1920), 515–­516.

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Mellick claims for Ludwig Hacker, a German Seventh Day Baptist, the distinction of having founded the first Sunday school at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, in 1747. This school, he says, stood alone until 1786, when a second one was established in Virginia, after which they became numerous throughout the country as individual enterprises. It was not until 1809 that their control began to be assumed by the churches.2 Parental interest in the welfare of their children stimulated the organization of a Sunday school in Paterson, New Jersey. The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures founded this town, for the encouragement of industries, under the guidance of Alexander Hamilton.3 Many families came to work in the shops which had been built or which were under construction. At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Society held April 15, 1794, the superintendent informed the Board that a number of the parents were too poor to educate their children, and that unless something was done some of the children would be withdrawn from the shops. The Board accordingly authorized the superintendent, Peter Colt, to employ a schoolmaster to teach the children on Sundays, when they were otherwise not employed, at a maximum salary of ten shillings per week. In April, 1794, Miss Sarah Colt, twelve-­year-­old daughter of the superintendent, began instructing some of the factory hands in the basement of her father’s residence. At that time Sunday schools devoted most of their attention to teaching reading and cyphering. In 1822 the Paterson Union Sabbath School Society declared its objective to be the instruction of youth in the rudiments of the English language, religion, and morality.4 The Society of Friends was among the early pioneers in this field of instruction. This sect organized the Trenton First Day School in 1809 but was unable to support it for any length of time because of insufficient funds with which to pay a teacher. In May, 1811, a society of all denominations formed a First-­Day Sunday School for the instruction of the poor of “all descriptions and colors.”5 In 1814 the “old church” at Succasunna, Morris County, instituted a school composed largely of colored children, to train those who were receiving no instruction at home.6 In the following year, Matthias Smith,7 inspired by an address on Robert Raikes, started a school in West Bloomfield. He was assisted in this work by several men, including Philip C. Hay, who conducted the “colored school in General Dodd’s kitchen.” One year later the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown joined the others by setting up another school. Before that time a few active friends had met on Sundays to teach colored people.8 Volunteers giving religious instruction to the children of slaves began the first such school in Orange.9

2. Mellick, op. cit., 439. 3. William Nelson, Sketch of Schools in Paterson New Jersey (Published by the Board, 1877), 14. The author was secretary of the Board of Education. 4. Ibid., 15. 5. John Hall, History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, New Jersey (New York, 1859), 382. 6. Minutes of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Morris County Sabbath School Association, 1878, 2. 7. Old Church on the Green (Bloomfield, 1901), 40. 8. History of First Presbyterian Church Morristown, New Jersey (Morristown, 1885), Part II, 39. 9. David Pierson, History of the Oranges to 1921 (New York, 1922), 250.

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The Reverend W. W. Blauvelt10 of Flemington noticed that the blacks, who were not admitted to any of the schools, were growing up in deplorable ignorance. So in 1817 he sent announcements to the churches advising that a school would be opened for Negroes on Sunday afternoons in the academy of that town. Many prominent persons in the community were opposed to the enlightenment of Negroes, whom they regarded as beasts of burden. Several of the trustees of the academy resisted the use of the building so earnestly that the request to hold the classes there was withdrawn and the school was held on the “long back porch of the Reverend Mr. Clark’s house.” About twenty pupils, mostly slaves, gathered for the class on Sunday afternoons. In the next year a Sunday school was organized and held in the academy, the use of which had been so bitterly opposed the previous year. For three years the colored pupils formed a class under the tutelage of Miss Hannah Clark, sister of the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Flemington. This project remained a union school until 1824, when each congregation organized its own school.

Sunday-­S chool Associations It was the Newark Sunday School Institution that started this work on anything like a large scale in New Jersey.11 This institution was organized in May, 1815. The enrollment gradually increased during the summer season until there were approximately 440 scholars. Many of the pupils could not come under the designation of poor children, since they were able to attend the regular weekday schools. At the approach of winter the managers of the institution deemed it expedient to confine the attention of the teachers to poor children and adults, particularly Negroes. The beneficial effects of directing their efforts exclusively in behalf of those who had none to befriend or give them religious instruction soon became apparent. Although the hopes and expectations of the instructors had been more than realized in the progress of their pupils generally, they were particularly interested in acquainting their patrons and the public with the advancement of the blacks who constituted the larger portion of the school enrollment. Their number amounted to almost two hundred persons of both sexes and all ages. Most of them evinced a persevering and eager desire to be taught to read for themselves the Word of God. Some who had begun with learning the alphabet had, at the time of this report, attained that goal. Many who could previously spell in only one, two, and three syllables had mastered the reading of the Bible. Those in charge of this school at Newark testified that the rapid improvement of the Negro children could Be better understood when we consider their very slender advantages; that from the nature of their occupation, they can have but few and transient opportunities for study, such merely as they can occasionally seize from their daily routine of labors, or take from their usual hours of rest. The little time which they employ every Sabbath in the school, furnishes their principal

10. George S. Mott, History of the Presbyterian Church in Flemington, N.J. (New York, 1894), 53–­54. 11. Centinel of Freedom (Newark), June 25, 1816.

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opportunity; and yet their improvement has been extraordinary. Judging from facts and observations, it would seem to be vain any more to oppose the cultivation of the mind of the Coloured people on the ground of inferiority of intellect, of incapacity, or of an untractable and unteachable disposition—­for if the regular six days tuition of those more highly favored be put in competition with the simple two hours on Sunday which they enjoy, where would the comparison lead us?12

The instructors had not confined their efforts to mental improvement, but had also endeavored “to instil moral obligations”; to enforce, with suitable exhortations the practical import of such texts as—­“Children, obey your parents”; or—­“Servants, obey your masters.” In addition to the Sabbath schools, the church people had instituted prayer meetings which had been well attended. Some “pious young ladies” had undertaken the management of the female department of the colored people. This report also claimed for the Newark school success in having retrieved some of the people of color from a “habit of profaneness and from the vice of intemperance.” Another such school was opened in Hackensack. The enrollment consisted of 125 scholars, most of whom were slaves, which, according to the newspaper article, was as it should be. There was reason to believe the labors of the teachers would not be in vain, since “seriousness characterized many and decorum all.” It was insisted that the Negroes’ progress was almost unparalleled, and that they certainly kept pace with many of the white children who enjoyed all the privileges of daily instruction. So great was their desire for further improvement, that many of the Negroes came to the school from distances of four or five miles on foot every Sunday. The report, maintaining that it could no longer be said that the degraded children of Africa were destitute of the feelings or understandings of men, declared that it was against the “suggestion” of Christian experience to deny them the privileges of literary and religious instruction on the ground that it would make them proud.13 In November, 1815, a Sunday school was opened for blacks in Elizabeth Town. The Elizabeth Town Free School Association, which commenced this project, did good work among the colored people and the children of the poor for almost fifty years. Four years later, in 1819, the Association revealed that it was caring for three schools, one for white boys with an average attendance of sixty-­four pupils; another for white boys, with an attendance varying from sixty to eighty pupils; and another for colored children and adults under Oliver Nuttman, which averaged sixty-­five in attendance. Teachers organized these pupils into small classes in which were taught the Bible, the Catechism, hymns, texts of Scripture, spelling, and reading. When first established, these sessions were held on Sundays, but the necessity for the work became so apparent that they were soon changed into weekday schools. This Association continued its work until 1858, when the school became incorporated into the public school system.14 According to Elias Smith,15 the work of this association was conducted under discouragement and public indifference. He said that “the

12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., August 20, 1816. 14. Elias D. Smith, A Former Superintendent, The School Interests of Elizabeth A. D. 1664–­1910 (Elizabeth, 1911), 44. 15. Ibid., 45.

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founders deserve high praise for their steadfast devotion to duty in the self imposed and self denying tasks of elevating a race whose ancestors had tilled the soil of our state as slaves and who were despised and outcasts among men.” In 1826 the Sabbath School Society of the Reformed Protestant Church at Acquackanonk reported the formation of a Sunday school in that vicinity. Although applications for assistance were limited, for want of time, to a few individuals, such was the willingness of patrons to contribute that the Board of Directors was soon able to open the school. It had planned to operate the school on a small scale but soon learned it would have to expand the facilities. When the schoolhouse which the instructors had intended to use proved inadequate, they transferred their activities to the church building. Here they enrolled 144 pupils, of whom fifty-­one were colored males and fifty-­three colored females. The number later increased to fifty-­two white boys and sixty-­six white girls, and seventy-­six colored boys and fifty-­eight colored girls. Of the total number of 252, from 180 to 200 had attended regularly. Many of these pupils, too, came from two to four miles on foot, in the most inclement and unfavorable weather.16 This Board also commended the progress which the pupils had made. It was convinced that much greater improvement would have been possible if there had been more teachers to handle the classes. Eleven male and twelve female instructors, in addition to the superintendent, had been engaged in the work. Each teacher had been obliged to take under his supervision sixteen and eighteen pupils, whereas the number should not have exceeded eight if full justice was to be done to the members of the classes. The hours of instruction were from two to four on Sunday afternoon. The scholars had merited special commendation for behavior when they had been listening to the “counsels and exhortations of the Pastor of the church,” who had “engaged to meet with them at least once a month, and as much oftener as his avocations” would permit. The owners of the colored members of the class testified to the effectiveness of the work: Of their improvement in obedience to their master’s authority; their steady attendance at the Sanctuary, and the pleasing tale which frequently salutes their ears, of children of the families spending whole evenings in the delightful business presented to the master’s eye in full operation—­that of infancy instructing age—­Nor can they omit to mention the pleasing fact that the Landing place in the immediate vicinity of the Church, which was until our Sabbath-­School was opened, the rendevouz of coloured people for every idle amusement and iniquitous conduct on the Sabbath, is now marked by more of that stillness and solemnity which should characterize every Christian Village on the day which the Lord hath made for himself—­No more is the voice of quarreling and accompanying profanity to be heard on that day along our streets; but on entering the Temple of the Lord, the delightful buzz of 250 scholars reading or learning to read the word of God, echoed and reechoed by so many voices.17

The editor of the Sentinel of Freedom expressed the hope that this account would stimulate other neighborhoods to do likewise. Just how many did follow the lead of the one in Acquackanonk 16. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), March 28, 1926. 17. Ibid.

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is not known, but in the class at St. John’s Church in Elizabeth Town there were fifty white and twenty colored children.18 In Passaic very little attention had been paid to the spiritual side of the natures of the Negroes until about 1820, when the wife of a businessman formed a class of colored youths, which met at her house.19 The Third Presbyterian Church in Newark also organized a Sunday school at about the same time for colored children,20 while the first such school in Bergen was opened in the garret of the schoolhouse.21 In 1826 the Holmdel Church School in Monmouth County reported an enrollment of seventy-­one white and eighty colored boys and girls.22 In 1826 the number of children who participated in the anniversary celebration of the Essex County Sabbath School Union exceeded all previous records. Taking part in the celebration was a “respectful number of coloured people, part of whom were members of the school taught in the African Church.” Altogether there were thirty-­five schools, containing 3,060 scholars, of whom 480 were colored.23 This reference to the class in the Newark African Church indicates that Negroes were beginning to take part in the movements designed to bring about an elevation of their status. In the years immediately following, records describe an increasing realization among Negro leaders of the problems which existed to challenge their best efforts.

18. Journal of Proceedings of Annual Convention, Protestant Episcopal Church, 1821, 12. 19. William J. Scott, Passaic and Its Environs (New York, 1922), Vol. I, 357. 20. Remembering the Days of Old—­The Seventy-­Fifth Anniversary of the Third Presbyterian Church of Newark, N.J., 42. 21. Harriet P. Eaton, Jersey City and Its Historic Sites (Published by the Woman’s Club of Jersey City, 1899), 74. 22. Thomas Griffiths, History of Baptists in New Jersey (Hightstown, 1904), 493. 23. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), April 18, 1826.

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The African School If the colonizing plan should be efficiently prosecuted, as I sincerely hope it will be, then more pains than ever must be taken to prepare the emigrants for the new and interesting situation in which they will be placed. Unwearied exertions must be made to give them some degree of intellectual culture, and to impart to them, so far as means can effect it, a christian character. samuel miller

While the Society of Friends was seeking the adjustment of freedmen to living conditions in this country, the Presbyterians were supporting a movement to encourage the emigration of free Negroes to Africa. Convinced that it was impossible for these people to become integrated citizens of America, the Reverend Robert Finley promoted organizations to assist in the establishment of a colony in Africa for those who were willing to try their fortunes there. In 1816 the Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey founded the African School at Parsippany, New Jersey, to train teachers and ministers for service in America and in the new colony. This institution, which was the first professional school established in this country for Negroes, sustained a struggling existence for ten years. In order to provide for a more horizontal spread of school training at earlier ages, the Board of Directors of this school recommended the substitution of an institution which could be conducted on the manual labor plan. Benjamin Lear, trustee of the Kusciusko Fund, promised the Board the use of the money bequeathed by the Polish General for the manumission and education of Negroes on the condition that it raise a similar amount. When the heirs of the General succeeded in having the will invalidated, the plans were abandoned. Part of the money which had already been collected was used to educate a few promising Negroes.

The American Colonization Society The Reverend Robert Finley1 of Baskingridge, New Jersey, was sure that although some of the Negroes were nominally free, they enjoyed none of the privileges of freemen. Subject to an invincible prejudice, as a result of their color and former servitude, their social elevation in this country appeared hopeless. Convinced that nothing could effectually raise them unless they be located by 1. Historical Notes on Slavery and Colonization (Elizabeth-­Town, 1842), 18. Cf. Early Lee Fox, The American Colonization Society, 1817–­1840 (Baltimore, 1919), 43–­44.

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themselves, placed on an equality with all around them, and cast upon their own resources, the Reverend Mr. Finley published an essay on “The Colonization of Free Blacks in Africa.” He then went to Washington, where he succeeded in effecting the organization of the American Colonization Society in 1816. The friends of the movement insisted that the prime object of the society was to “colonize in Africa with their own consent, the free people of color residing in the United States.” They expected that if the society should succeed in establishing a flourishing colony on the coast of Africa several advantages would follow. The conditions of the emigrants would be elevated; the seeds of civilization and religion would be planted in Africa; and the slave trade would be repressed wherever such settlements occupied the coast.2 Immediately after the organization of the American Colonization Society in Washington, the Reverend Mr. Finley proceeded to Trenton, where he succeeded in establishing an auxiliary group.3 Because of protests to colonization, which even then were being made by Negroes, the proponents of the project assured them there was nothing to be feared, as only those persons who wished to go were to receive assistance in leaving the country.4 In 1818 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church recommended to its members not only religious training for slaves but also their attendance at Sunday schools. It likewise recommended that families should not be separated or slaves sold to people who would not be interested in their religious welfare. But most strongly, the Assembly advised the support of the colonization society.5 Other religious bodies advocating support of the emigration movement were the General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church and the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church.6 In 1824 the colonizationists succeeded in having the New Jersey Legislature adopt resolutions advocating a system of foreign colonization which would in due time effect the entire emancipation of the slaves in the country and furnish an asylum for the free blacks, “without any violation of the national compact or infringement of the rights of individuals.” Declaring that such a system should be predicated upon the principle that the evil of slavery was a national one, the resolution insisted that the people and the states of the Union “ought mutually to participate in the duties and burdens of removing it.”7

The School at Parsippany The Reverend Samuel Mills and others interested in the colonization movement soon realized the necessity of education and training for the people who were to be leaders in the projected colony. In 1816, when the Committee on Overtures laid before the Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey a proposal concerning the establishment of an African school under the care of the

2. Historical Notes on Slavery . . . , 20–­22. 3. Ibid., 19–­20. 4. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), January 14, 1822. 5. Ibid., July 14, 1818. 6. Ibid., June 14, 1822. 7. Laws of New Jersey, 1824, 191.

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Synod to educate young men of color for service as teachers and preachers among Negroes in the United States and elsewhere, the matter was referred to a committee for prompt consideration.8 Three days later this Committee, reporting favorably on the proposition, suggested a plan whereby the Synod would appoint annually a board of twelve directors, consisting of six ministers and six laymen. Under the direction of the Synod, these men were to select a site for the school, collect funds, employ a teacher or teachers, examine and admit scholars, visit the school, dismiss or reprimand students as circumstances might require, and superintend all the affairs of the institution. Prospective students were to come well recommended, afford evidence of discretion and piety, and be able to read and write.9 In 1817 the directors of the school reported that they had circulated one thousand copies of an address to the public on the subject of instructing the African race. In the early part of the year they had employed the Reverend Samuel Mills to collect donations for the institution in the several states or any other part of the world which he had occasion to visit.10 Dr. Edward Griffin11 preached the first annual sermon in behalf of the African School, which the Synod had established at Parsippany. The Synod distributed two thousand copies of his Plea for Africa, which plea was incorporated in sermons by other preachers to citizens in Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Hudson, Newark, and New Brunswick, in all of which places collections were taken up for the benefit of the school.12 In championing the cause of the new institution, Dr. Griffin advised his hearers that the capacity of the blacks had been fairly tested in the schools which had been established for their use. The two young men, William Pennington and Jeremiah Gloucester, who had been admitted to the African School, had “given manifestations of talents and proficiency” not at all inferior to what might have been expected from their own brothers or sons. After giving a detailed history of the undertaking, Dr. Griffin set forth the plan of the institution as follows: I. The school shall be under the immediate care of a chief instructor, who shall be called the Principal. Other instructors may be employed as occasion may require. II. The usual term of study shall be at least four years, and longer if the Board deem it expedient. The first year shall be devoted, as the Principal may find necessary, to Reading, Writing, Spelling, and learning the definitions of English words, but chiefly to English Grammar, Arithmetic, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy; the third to Theology; the fourth to Theology, the elements of Ecclesiastical History, the more practical principles of Church Government, and the Composition of Sermons. The exercises of Public Speaking and Composition shall be kept up through the whole course.

8. Minutes of the Synod of New York and New Jersey, 10/15/1816. 9. Ibid., 10/18/1816. 10. Ibid., 10/27/1817. 11. Edward D. Griffin, A Plea for Africa (New York, 1817). 12. Ibid., 71.

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the education of negroes in new jersey III. It shall be the duty of the Principal, from the commencement of the course to attend with

special care to the religious improvement of the pupils, to converse with them frequently on the state of their minds, to give them familiar instruction on the various branches of Christian and ministerial duty, and to form them by practice to habits of devotion and usefulness. IV. The ordinary time of entrance shall be at the close of the fall vacation. There shall be two vacations in a year, of five weeks each; one beginning the day before the fourth Tuesday in April, the other the day before the first Tuesday in October. There shall be one public examination in a year, which shall be held in the presence of the Directors and others, on the second Tuesday in July, at 10 o’clock, a. m. V. The Standing Committee shall have the charge of providing clothing, books, stationary, and all necessary articles for the pupils, of disposing of them in vacations, and of putting them to labor as far as shall be expedient and practicable. They may employ the Principal to execute any part of this trust. They are authorized to discharge the regular quarterly bills. They shall keep minutes of their proceedings, and submit them to the Board at every stated meeting.13

Dr. Griffin pointed out that the two students who had been admitted during the previous year had been reexamined by the Board in the following May and taken under the permanent supervision of the principal, the Reverend Mr. Ford. By their conduct and progress they had given “flattering hopes of usefulness.” With the permission of the Reverend Mr. Ford, these students had held weekly prayer meetings for people of their own race “to whom they had become much endeared.”14 Several other young men had applied for admission, but as these applicants were unable to read or write, the board of directors had postponed their admission until such time as they could meet these necessary requirements. Friends of religion and humanity in every district of the Union were urged to look out for suitable young men; to qualify them for entrance to the school; and to form auxiliary societies wherever there were a few who “partook of the compassion of Christ, and felt for the sorrow of Africa.”15 Voicing the opinion that considerable aid might be obtained from the blacks themselves, Dr. Griffin told of the efforts of a society which had already been formed, “The African Association of New Brunswick.” Negroes had organized it on the first day of that year for the sole purpose of aiding the Synod. Every free person paid fifty cents at entrance, and one dollar annually. Slaves had to bring written permissions from their masters and pay twenty-­five cents a year. Females were admitted but were denied the privilege of voting.16 This society had already paid into the treasury of the board forty-­four dollars and fifty cents, besides the collection which had been taken up when a sermon had been preached to them. With the addition of fifty cents sent in the next morning by a female slave, this collection amounted to four dollars and fifteen cents, making a grand total of forty-­eight dollars and seventy cents which the colored people of a single town had given in one year.

13. Ibid., 67–­68. 14. Ibid., 68–­69. 15. Ibid., 69. 16. Ibid., 70.

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Dr. Griffin had found Peter Upshur, the moderator of this Society, to be a man of “sense and apparent piety.” He was then about forty-­eight years old, “with an intelligent eye, a large and prominent forehead, and a general physiognomy indicative of vigorous intellect.” Mr. Upshur, who had once been a slave in Maryland, was a member of the Reverend Mr. Huntington’s church. He prayed regularly in his family, was highly respected by the whites, and “exerted a benign influence over his colored brethren.” In 1787, when about seventeen years of age, he ran away from his master and came to New Jersey, where he was soon arrested and, having no papers to show, was cast into prison. For sixteen dollars, the cost of the process, he was bought out and held a slave for nine years. During this time, by working at night, he had earned money which he used to secure instruction in reading. Finally in December, 1796, benevolent persons brought Upshur’s master from Maryland and induced him through the payment of one hundred dollars to give the slave his freedom. Besides serving the nine years, Peter Upshur had to refund the sixteen dollars and an additional four dollars which had been expended in an attempt to detain him. He also had to pay $112.50 for the freedom of his wife, and $37.50 for the liberty of his two children. In twelve months he refunded the one hundred dollars which friends had advanced for him. In the course of twenty-­ one years he not only succeeded in liquidating all the debts mentioned, but had acquired property worth several thousand dollars.17 It was a special duty devolving upon the American people, declared Dr. Griffin, “to raise up preachers and teachers for the African race at large.” He considered it much easier to “provide characters in this country,” and there was a greater need for them here than anywhere else. It was his opinion that: If our black population is to be instructed, it must be chiefly done by men of their own colour. If colonists are to be sent abroad, they must be supplied with ministers and schoolmasters, for they will relapse into heathenism, and instead of advancing will retard the improvement of Africa. . . . Had I a voice to reach the Ohio and St. Mary’s I would invoke the whole population of the South, as they value the favor of God or their tranquility, to teach their slaves to read the Scriptures.18

In 1818 the principal admitted another young man, John Jackson, to the school. The deportment and progress of the students had been such as to give entire satisfaction. In the public examination which had been held in July of that year the proficiency which Pennington and Gloucester had exhibited in reading, writing, English grammar, arithmetic, geography, composition, and speaking “was highly gratifying and exceeded all expectations.”19 To make possible support on a much larger scale, the Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey made an effort to interest the Synods of Philadelphia and Albany and the Synods of Pittsburgh and Geneva in the project of preparing ministers for Africa, since there was every reason to believe that the American Colonization Society could place all who could be trained for the work.20

17. Ibid., 71. 18. Ibid., 33–­34. 19. Minutes of the Synod of New York and New Jersey, 10/20/1818. 20. Ibid.

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Unfortunately this plan was not consummated because of the inability of the groups concerned to agree upon plans for such a union.21 The attention of these Synods, however, had been called to the pressing need of measures for the elevation of Negroes in America and Africa. In such an appeal, the seeds were sown for the establishment of Ashmun Institute, now Lincoln University, and the sending of missionaries to Africa by the Presbyterians. In 1819 the board of directors informed the Synod of the admission of Gustavus Cesar from Jamaica, Long Island, Mark Jordan from New Brunswick, John Bartley from Philadelphia, and Joseph Michael from Charleston, South Carolina.22 It advised that the financial condition of the enterprise was not in a promising state and called the attention of the Synod to the need of “making some more general convictions among our churches for the support of the school.” Seven young men were under their care and their treasury was exhausted. Except in a very few instances, the recommendations of the Synod relative to the formation of auxiliary societies in the congregations had not been followed. The board expressed the “hope that an undertaking so auspiciously begun and which involves the immortal hopes of millions would not be suffered to fall to the ground.”23 The employment of the young men during vacations presented additional difficulties. The board had met with such resistance that it had been compelled to expel two of the men from the school. The remaining five, however, were “pursuing their studies with encouraging success and demeaning themselves according to the Gospel.”24 The following year Nathan Blocent from Salisbury, Connecticut, and Samuel Dawes from Princeton, Massachusetts, joined the student group at Parsippany. The father of Jeremiah Gloucester had been compelled to request the release of his son because the state of his own health made it necessary that his son assist him in conducting his school in Philadelphia.25 That year the directors witnessed the examination of all the students in reading, writing, spelling, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and the meaning of English words. Two were examined in trigonometry, navigation, surveying, natural philosophy, and astronomy, while one was further examined in theology and ecclesiastical history.26 In 1822 Robert Bavid, a freed man from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and William Gordon of Philadelphia entered the institution. The board had dismissed Gustavus Cesar because of “his unsoundness in Doctrine and his pertinacious adherence to erroneous sentiments.” Another student had been released because of a “partial derangement of mind, which disqualified him from pursuing his studies with any probability of ultimate success.” William Pennington, having completed his program of studies, had been examined on theology and ecclesiastical history and “had read a lecture and popular discourse.” The board then referred his case to the Synod for further direction.27

21. Ibid., 10/20/1819, 10/17/1820. 22. Ibid., 10/20/1819. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 10/18/1820. 25. Ibid., 10/17/1821. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 10/16/1822.

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In 1823 the Synod of New York and New Jersey was divided into the Synod of New York and the Synod of New Jersey. Each synod then elected one-­half of the board of directors of the African School.28 Although the school continued under the joint custody of the two synods, the larger share of attention appears to have been given by the Synod of New Jersey, with the concurrence of the Synod of New York. But the school, which had never assumed very large proportions, began a steady decline. In the report of 1823 the directors stated that during the previous year they had not felt justified in admitting any additional young men on account of the state of their funds. They had four students whose “deportment had been commendable,” and whose “diligence and success in the prosecution of their studies satisfactory.” William Pennington, upon the advice of the New Jersey Synod, had applied for a license to the Presbytery of New Jersey. This Presbytery, being satisfied with his trials, had licensed him that December. Since that time he had preached the Gospel to people of his race in Elizabeth Town and Newark.29 The committee which had received the report of the directors advised that the condition of the funds and the condition of the school pointed to a need for new efforts in its behalf, especially if the Synod was “disposed to sustain an institution, commenced with the zeal and hope which the object manifestly justified,” and which was continually increasing in importance.30 The Synod accordingly passed a resolution that the board of directors be instructed to revise the plan of instruction in the institution, and make such alterations in it as their experience might suggest and justify.31 In 1823 the Reverend Dr. Samuel Miller of the Princeton Theological Seminary preached the annual sermon in behalf of the African School. This sermon, which was printed for distribution, is particularly interesting because of the increased fervor with which Dr. Miller advocated colonization as compared with the plea made by Dr. Griffin in 1817. He advocated the colonization of the Negroes “because of the impossibility of their being able to remain in this country with the whites on terms comfortable to either since they would be treated and made to feel like inferiors.”32 Suggesting that the teaching of Christianity made for obedient service, Dr. Miller urged the masters to provide for the religious instruction of their slaves. In speaking of the school he made this appeal: To your Christian judgment, and your Christian feelings I make the solemn appeal. Will you abolish it? Will you suffer it to die? Nay, will you suffer it to languish? Is this a time to relax our exertions on behalf of the children of Africa, when the aspect of their affairs is so interesting, so portentous, in our country, and in other parts of the world? Is this a time to suffer such a Seminary to perish, when we need, more than ever, a large number of such young men as it is intended to rear?33

28. Ibid., 10/23/1823. 29. Minutes of the Synod of New Jersey, 10/22/1823. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Samuel Miller, A Sermon Preached at Newark, October 22, 1823 (Trenton, 1823), 13. 33. Ibid., 28.

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Agreeable to the recommendations of the Synod, the directors revised the plan of instruction. They divided the course of study into two parts. The first, comprising two years, was to be devoted chiefly to such studies as would prepare young men for jobs as instructors. The second, to comprise at least two additional years, was to train those who gave promise of becoming ministers of the Gospel. At the yearly examination the board was to decide upon the candidates for the teaching profession and those for the ministry. It further directed that instruction in mathematics be extended no further than was necessary to give the young men a competent knowledge of the theory of surveying.34 No agents had been appointed to collect funds for the school. The board had hoped that the institution might in some way become affiliated with the American Colonization Society, since such an alliance might give publicity to the institution and awaken interest in its favor. Although there was little probability of an immediate realization of such a hope, the board felt that the prospect of an increasing demand for teachers and preachers for the emigrants to Haiti and Montsevado would develop a favorable attitude toward the school on the part of the Christian public. A follow-­up of the students disclosed that Samuel Dawes had been compelled to leave because of ill health, while Samuel Treadwell, a free young man, had been admitted to the establishment. The Board of the United Foreign Missionary Society had sent William Pennington to Haiti.35 In 1825 a rather long report set forth the difficulties and disappointments which had attended the management of the institution; the opinions of the board regarding the emancipation of Negroes under conditions then obtaining; and the conclusions of the directors concerning the philosophy which should govern educational objectives for the people of color. As to the school, finances were in a very precarious state; the number of students had been reduced to two; and the principal had refused to render further service. The moral status of the Negroes, their unfavorable social environment during childhood years, the difficulties which attended efforts at adjustments to a hitherto unknown freedom, convinced these men of the necessity of a plan of training which would embrace the formative years of the lives of these people. There was an imperative need for a seminary for the education of colored children and youth on a more liberal plan, if intelligent and well educated men were to be available for service among the emigrants at Haiti and Liberia. Suggesting that the Synod empower the Board of Directors of the African School to execute any plan which it might adopt, the Directors placed several observations before that body for consideration. New York and New Jersey had enacted legislation which eventually promised freedom to every slave in those states. The manumissions already effected led to the belief that to extend more freedom to slaves was but to set them loose upon society with no qualification other than a manumission certificate at a time when a guardianship was most needed. The Directors expressed the hope that the legislature of New Jersey, which was then building up a public education fund, could be persuaded through the influence of the Synod to devote a portion of it to meet the educational

34. Minutes of the Synod of New Jersey, 10/20/1824. 35. Ibid.

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needs of these people. They called upon the ministers to speak fully on this “momentous subject” so as to awaken public interest in a seminary for the education of the blacks.36 Then, dominated by a philosophy of social, racial, and educational determinism, the Board spoke out and declared: Experience has demonstrated that no system of amelioration for them [Negroes] can possess any energy unless it be exclusive, they are emphatically a separate people, they must be trained and educated by themselves, and it is the dictate of the soundest wisdom to deal with them as they are, let them so understand us, that we are not educating them for our Society, not to form our Magistrates or Legislators, but preparing them to go home.37

Among the members of the Board who subscribed to these points of view were Joseph Hornblower, prominent church layman and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and Theodore Frelinghuysen, outstanding civic leader who served in the legislature of New Jersey, in the Senate of the United States, and was one time candidate for the vice-­presidency of the nation. Also on this Board were Dr. Asa Hillyer and Dr. Amzi Armstrong, who as clergymen had the opportunity of regularly expressing their opinions to their congregations and other citizens. Since the Presbyterians were the most numerous sect in the state, the influence of their contributions to the social thinking of that day cannot be underestimated. The committee selected to consider this significant report successfully recommended to the Synod that the African School be continued; that the Board of Directors be instructed to develop a more extensive plan of operation for the school; and that in doing this they consider themselves at liberty to correspond with the Board of Managers of the New Jersey Colonization Society or such other individuals who might be interested in the welfare of the Africans.38 The difficulties enumerated by the Board in the previous report were reiterated in the report of the following year. The Directors had been under the “painful necessity” of dismissing three of their students, had received none, and at the time of the report had but one young man under their supervision. Shortly after the meeting of the year before, the Board had placed this student under the care of the Reverend Amzi Armstrong, under whose tutorship he had remained until the following August, when because of Dr. Armstrong’s feeble health the Board had been obliged to make other provisions for him. He had then been sent to the Bloomfield Academy, where by complying with the regulations of the trustees of that institution concerning the labor of beneficiaries he had been boarded at one dollar per week.39 Agreeable to the suggestions in their last report and the instructions of the Synods, the Directors soon devised a more extensive and efficient plan for the education of African children and youth. They had discussed the subject at several meetings, until they had become fully convinced that a system of training adapted to the wants “of that degraded and much injured race must

36. Ibid., 10/19/1825. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., 10/18/1826.

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embrace instruction in literature, science and the mechanic arts, and that in order to secure sufficient patronage, it must be divested of its sectarian character.” A correspondence with Benjamin Lear of Washington, trustee of the Kusciusko Fund,40 had led them to believe that the money of the fund might be applied to the support of an African school established on liberal principles. Since this fund amounted to about thirteen thousand dollars, they had deemed it important to organize as soon as possible an incorporated society which could receive and hold this and other funds that might be obtained for this purpose. The Directors had called a public meeting of the friends of the “injured children of Africa” in Newark in February of that year. Measures were taken for a more general meeting in that town in the following April. At this meeting a resolution was passed to incorporate an “African Education Society.” At a subsequent meeting of the Board of Trustees, “the importance of the object and the peculiar difficulties connected with it determined the Trustees to invite a number of the firm and ardent friends of this unhappy race to meet with them at Newark in the Month of August.” Mr. Lear and other “respectable gentlemen” from various parts of the United States attended this meeting. Mr. Lear, approving the plan of the school, agreed to apply the fund to its support, provided an equal sum was raised for this purpose. The Trustees took measures to raise a sum for the benefit of the school which would match the Kusciusko Fund. Since it was their plan to educate for the ministry those who might be suitable candidates for that sacred profession, the Directors suggested that the Synods transfer to the African Education Society the funds in their possession, the records, papers, and the young men under their care. The Board, moreover, being fully convinced that the prosperity of the African Education Society was “intimately connected with the dearest Interests of our country, the Welfare of our colored population and of the whole African race both in time and in eternity,” respectfully but earnestly recommended it to the favor and patronage of the members of the Synods.41 The Synod unanimously resolved to approve the course pursued by the Directors of the African School.42 This action was concurred in by the Synod of New York, which had in the previous year suggested that the affairs of the school be brought to a close as soon as it was expedient to do so; that the property be disposed of and the revenue devoted to the education of the people of color, in such a way as to the directors might be “judged useful.”43 In the meantime, a series of five articles under the heading “Something must be done for Africa and her despised Sons and Daughters” appeared in the Sentinel of Freedom. These articles pointed out the inconsistency of slavery with the principles underlying the Revolutionary War and the founding of the new Republic; the desirability of setting the South an example in educating free Negroes to value and enjoy their freedom; the benefits which these people had derived from Sabbath schools which they had attended with zeal; the purpose and hopes which led to the founding

40. General Kusciusko, in 1798, made a will providing that the money which he had received from the United States Government for his services in the Revolutionary War should at his death be used to purchase the freedom of Negro slaves who were to be educated for useful service. He made Thomas Jefferson executor of this will. Cf. Monica Gardner, Koscuiszko-­A Biography (New York, 1920), 181–­182. 41. Minutes of the Synod of New Jersey, 10/18/1826. 42. Ibid. 43. Minutes of the Synod of New York, 10/21/1825.

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of the African School at Parsippany; and the economy of educating Negroes instead of suffering them to grow up in ignorance to fill the prisons and penitentiaries. Calling attention to the work being done by the Americans in foreign lands, one article cited the lack of public institutions for the education of Negroes in this country. With the exception of schools in cities designed for the supervision of colored children until they could be apprenticed, a colored parent, no matter how wealthy or well disposed, or anxious to afford his son a liberal education, was unable to place him for that purpose, on anything like equal terms or advantage with other youths.44

“The Kusciusko School” The legislature of New Jersey incorporated the African Education Society under the name of “The Society for the Education of Free Colored Children and Youth in the United States.”45 The organ of the American Colonization Society, expressing the hope that the public charities would soon establish the proposed school on a broad and durable foundation, suggested that a few liberal donations from the “opulent of the country,” added to the generous bequest of General Kusciusko, would “build up a seminary of immense utility to Africa and the world.”46 In a letter to Dr. Amzi Armstrong, one of the directors of the African School, Benjamin Lear expressed his ideas concerning the type of school which should be established. It is significant that he suggested a course providing for a correlation of vocational and academic training. Expressing the belief that the intention of General Kusciusko had been to make the recipients of his bounty not only free and happy, but useful to society, Mr. Lear set forth his ideas on the kind of education best adapted to this purpose. One of his favorite ideas was “to instruct the children in agriculture and the mechanic arts, in connection with their literary education, so that the mind and body might be, one or the other, always active in useful occupation; variety thus answering the purpose of amusement; and to apply each mainly to such an education as shall be found on experiment to be best adapted to his capacity.”47 Benjamin Lear’s ideas show clearly a strong similarity to a philosophy of education proposed in 1685 by Thomas Budd,48 a member of the Society of Friends, in his Good Order Established in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in America. The theory of this book was amplified by Pestalozzi49 in the first quarter of the nineteenth century at Burgdorf and Yverdon in Switzerland and put into practical operation by Fellenberg,50 a Pestalozzian disciple of Swiss nativity. Thomas Budd had urged that schools be provided in all towns and cities under teachers of known honesty, skill, and understanding where boys and girls would receive instruction in all the most useful arts and

44. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), November 22, 1825, December 6, 1825, December 20, 1825, January 3, 1826, and March 20, 1826. 45. Laws of New Jersey, 1826, 89–­90. 46. African Repository, Vol. II, 163. 47. Report of the Proceedings at the Formation of the African Education Society, Instituted at Washington, December 28, 1829 (Washington, 1830), 15. 48. Thomas Budd, Good Order Established in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in America (New York, 1685). 49. Ellwood P. Cubberley, History of Education (New York, 1920), 539–­546. 50. Ibid., 546–­547.

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sciences. In addition to the academic subjects, the boys were to be taught a useful trade, such as the making of mathematical instruments, jewelry, twinery, the making of clocks and watches, weaving, and shoemaking, while the girls were to learn the spinning of flax and wool, the knitting of gloves and stockings, sewing, and the making of straw hats, baskets or other straw articles. From the profits derived from the labor of the children in these schools the education of the poor and the Indians could be financed so that they as well as the rich could be taught. The school officials could utilize the remainder of the profits, if there were any, in building new schools and making improvements on the thousand acres of land which were to surround each school.51 Pestalozzi believed the entire systematic training of the child, including industrial training, could be best carried on in the home, although the concomitants of the industrial revolution in Switzerland led him to a gradual recognition of the need for industrial training in the schools.52 But it was Fellenberg who, in the twenties and thirties, developed these ideals into a practical form which was copied by educators in Europe and America.53 John Griscom,54 a native teacher of New Jersey who visited Fellenberg’s school in 1819, enthusiastically described the institution. There were two parts, one a boarding school for the sons of noblemen and the other a school for the boys of the poorer class. The latter were “clothed and fed in a very plain, coarse, and farmer like style” and they worked “diligently in the fields, at employments adapted to their strength and skill.” At stated periods the boys received instruction in “letters and music.” They also worked in the shops, where they learned to be blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, cabinetmakers, shoemakers, or workers in brass in accordance with their individual bents or capacities. The income from the students’ labor in the school contributed in large measure toward the expenses of their maintenance and instruction.55 Dr. Lewis Anderson makes the interesting and, in light of the evidence adduced by this study, tenable statement that “the great pioneers in the work of elevating the condition of the Negro race in this country saw clearly, as Pestalozzi had seen, that the intellectual and moral enlightenment of a submerged class must be based upon, must indeed be an outgrowth of, their economic efficiency.” To Fellenberg he says may be traced much of the system of employing the industrial occupations as a means of education in institutions for the care of orphaned or delinquent children, or “for the children of Indians or Negroes.”56 Griscom, as a result of his observations of the outstanding work being done by Fellenberg, concluded the system could with profit be introduced into this country: I know of no means by which a benevolent and wealthy individual could do so much good, at the same expense, as by erecting one or more such institutions, in any of our middle states. If white children could not at once be obtained to begin with, I would take the children of coloured people. These could be procured at a suitable age, and taken on indentures to remain a certain 51. Budd, op. cit., 43–­45. 52. Lewis F. Anderson, History of Manual and Industrial School Education (New York, 1926), 88. 53. Ibid., 139–­140. 54. John Griscom, Year in Europe (New York, 1859), Vol. I, 265–­267. 55. Ibid., 266. 56. Anderson, op. cit., 211–­212.

t h e a f r i c a n s c h o o l 153 number of years, or until they were of age, if it should be found requisite, as in some cases it might be. Such an experiment, with persons of this description would be highly interesting. It would put to flight the ridiculous theory of those who would contend for an organic inferiority on the part of the blacks. It would in time produce examples very beneficial to our black population; and in reference to the scheme of colonization, now becoming popular, it might prove extremely important, by furnishing individuals admirably qualified by education, habits, and morals to aid in the management of an infant colony. The great difficult would be, either in America or anywhere else, in finding persons qualified to conduct such schools.57

Benjamin Lear suggested that the school be initiated on a very limited and economical basis, since always every enterprise in the country which had failed so far owed its failure “to embarking too incautiously in expenses before the experiment had been properly tested.” He thought a few acres, with perhaps a single building near some village, would be sufficient for the experiment. The village could supply mechanics who might be willing to give instruction in their arts for a very moderate compensation. The plan could be easily enlarged if it was found advisable. It would be more gratifying to be able to expand than to be obliged to “contract the undertaking.”58 Mr. Lear would purchase the prospective pupils on the condition that after receiving their education they would go to Africa, “where they could certainly be more useful than anywhere else,” and where perhaps it was not too great a stretch of enthusiasm to suppose they might be instruments of establishing the fame of their benefactor upon a foundation more firm and extensive than that on which he had already placed it by “his valor, his patriotism, and his devotion to liberty.” Whether the colonization society would ultimately realize its hopes or not, the colony, at least, would afford a field for usefulness to these youths, who “could scarcely be useful at all elsewhere,” and its best welfare would be promoted while it existed, whether its life was of short or long duration.59 The Trustees recommended that the proposed school, which had the approval of Thomas Jefferson, be called “The Kusciusko School” for the education of free colored youth in the United States.60 But the school never became a reality because of the inability of Mr. Lear or subsequent administrators to place the funds at the disposal of the Board. Theodore Frelinghuysen explained that when they were about to purchase a small farm and select teachers, Mr. Lear wrote that the heirs of General Kusciusko had filed a bill against him in the Supreme Court of the United States on the ground that the will was invalid. Until this suit was settled, he would be unable to pay over the fund or any part of it. He advised the Board to wait until then, and he would promptly advance the whole amount. Mr. Frelinghuysen said this information disappointed the Board because they had relied so much on this fund. After deciding to postpone activities for a time, the Board applied part of the fund which had already been collected to the education of two or three worthy men of promise.61

57. Griscom, op. cit., 277. 58. Report of the Proceedings at the Formation of the African Education Society, 15. 59. Ibid. 60. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), August 15, 1826. 61. African Repository, Vol. XI, 294–­295.

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The Kusciusko School, which has been reported in several instances as having actually been established at Newark,62 never really came into existence. The case dragged on through the courts until 1852, when the Supreme Court of the United States held that the third will made by the General in 1816 revoked the earlier wills of 1798 and 1806, while the fourth and final will of 1817 failed to provide for the disposition of the property in the United States, and decreed that as far as this property was concerned Kusciusko had died intestate. The Court ruled that the fund was to be distributed according to the laws of the country in which he was domiciled at the time of his death, which was France. Consequently, the money was distributed among his relatives.63 This judicial report contains a letter from Thomas Jefferson which explains the history of the fund and his reason for asking to be relieved of its administration when he found it was to become a matter of litigation. His advanced age made it impossible for him to continue under such circumstances. From a letter which the General had written to Jefferson just prior to his death, it is quite possible to infer that Kusciusko did not realize that he had invalidated the provisions of the will of 1798. He asked that safeguards be employed to insure Jefferson’s receiving the interest of the money punctually, “of which money, after my death, you know the fixed destination.” 64 Thus the pioneers of education for Negroes, deprived of Kusciusko’s philanthropy, were forced to rely on their own efforts. But these efforts were to be seconded by the rise of strong Negro leadership in the campaign for the education of this underprivileged race.

62. Booker T. Washington, My Larger Education (New York, 1911), 240–­241; “Tadeusz Koscuiszko,” Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. X, 498; Gardner, op. cit., 182. 63. United States Supreme Court Report–­December Term 1852, Ennis et al. v. Smith et al., 14 Howard 400, 450. 64. Ibid., 442.

PART II

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IX

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Rise of Negro Leadership These organizations are indications of the activity of self-­educative influences in Negro life. They worked from within the group and showed their results not only in organized action but also in trained individuals who joined hands with the white leadership in other religious and philanthropic societies working for the improvement of Negro life. dorothy porter

For approximately one hundred years religious and philanthropic groups had been working for the social uplift of Negroes. Now in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century the results of their efforts were beginning to manifest themselves in an aggressive leadership which would enable these groups to work with the race instead of just for it. Free Negroes called national conventions to grapple with the problems underlying their attempts to live as respected citizens in this country. Members of the race in New Jersey, following the recommendations of these bodies, organized societies which were designed to promote their general welfare. These associations assisted the anti-­slavery cause, opposed colonization efforts, and established schools. Individual Negroes passed on to others the knowledge which had been given to them. The distribution of state funds created additional educational opportunities. Citizens of Paterson petitioned the legislature to assume greater responsibility for the education and welfare of the free children whose parents were still slaves.

Early Conventions among Negroes The conventions among Negroes during the early thirties of the nineteenth century were indications of an awakening to the necessity of their assuming an aggressive leadership in the direction of their destiny. John Cromwell, writer of an authoritative chapter on these meetings,1 pointed out their importance in the following words: The conventions were great educators, alike of the Negro and the American whites. They taught the former parliamentary usages and how to conduct deliberative bodies. They brought to light facts pertaining to the Negro’s status which tended to establish that he was thrifty and 1. John Cromwell, The Negro in American History (Washington, 1914), Chapter XI. Cf. Harriet Short, Negro Conventions Prior to 1860 (Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Howard University, Washington, 1935).

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steadily improving as a moral and economic force, while the American whites had in them an object lesson from which they learned much.2

The agenda of these conventions included recommendations pertaining to emigration and colonization, vocational training and work opportunities, proper home training for children, the formation of societies for promoting intellectual improvement and correct moral conduct, and the philosophy which should direct educational facilities for Negroes.3 The leaders vigorously opposed the American Colonization Society and urged support of the abolitionists.4 Prominent members of the latter groups supported these efforts by their participation and encouragement.5 The following statements by John Cromwell are indicative of the sincerity and influence of the men who took part in these important gatherings: 1. The Convention Movement begun in 1830, demonstrates the ability of the Negro to construct a platform broad enough for a race to stand upon and to outline a policy alike far-­sighted and statesmanlike, one that has not been surpassed in the eighty years that have elapsed. 2. The earnestness, the enthusiasm and the efficiency with which the work aimed at was done, the singleness of purpose, the public spirit and the intrepidity manifested, encouraged and inspired such men as Benjamin Lundy, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, S. S. Jocelyn, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, William Goodell, and Bereah Green to greater efforts and persistence in behalf of the disfranchised American, accomplishing at last the tremendous work of revolutionizing the public sentiment of the country and making the institution of radical reforms possible. 3. The preparatory training which the convention work gave, fitted its leaders for the broader arena of abolitionism. And it can not be regarded as a mere coincidence that the only colored men who were among the organizers of the American Anti-­Slavery Society in 1833, Robert Purvis and James G. Barbadoes, were both promoters and leaders in the convention movement. 4. The importance of industrial education in the growth and development of the Negro-­ American is no new doctrine in the creed of the representative colored people of the country. Before Hampton and Tuskegee reared their walls—­aye, before Booker T. Washington was born, Frederick Douglass and the Colored Convention of 1853 had commissioned Mrs. Stowe to obtain funds to establish an Agricultural and Industrial College. Long before Frederick Douglass had left Maryland by the Under Ground Railroad, but for the opposition of the white people of Connecticut, and within the echo of Yale College, would have stood the first institution dedicated to our enlightenment and social regeneration.6

2. Ibid., 35–­36. 3. Minutes and Proceedings of the Second Annual Convention for Improvement of the Free People of Color in These United States (Philadelphia, 1832), 34–­35. 4. Cromwell, op. cit., 33. 5. Ibid., 32–­35, 45. 6. Ibid., 45–­46.

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Negro Associations in New Jersey The recommendations and addresses emanating from these conventions, plus the continued activities of white religious and philanthropic groups, stimulated several progressive moves among Negroes in New Jersey. In 1837 an anti-­colonization meeting of free colored inhabitants in New Brunswick condemned attempts to colonize Negroes in Africa and pledged support to William Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionists.7 Colored citizens of Newark formed an anti-­slavery society as an auxiliary to the National Anti-­Slavery Society which maintained that William Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionists were their true and faithful friends.8 Three years later, in 1837, the annual report of the American Anti-­Slavery Society showed that even the youths of the race were enlisting in the fight for the freedom of the Negro when it reported a colored Juvenile Anti-­Slavery Society at Newark with Adam Ray as secretary.9 Peter Johnson and the Reverend Henry Drayton, who led the meeting in Newark, also sponsored an anti-­colonization meeting in Rahway in 1834. This gathering declared it looked upon the efforts of the colonizationists with feelings of abhorrence, for while the abolitionists were doing everything in their power to elevate and improve the condition of the people of color, the colonizationists were resorting to every means in their power to put them down. The persons attending the meeting resolved that they would never consent to go to Africa, for they considered this country as their only home. It was here that they were born and it was here they would remain. They viewed those Christians and philanthropists who boasted of their liberty and the equality of all men while they held thousands in bondage and endeavored to drive them from their native land to an “unhealthy and pestilential country,” as “inhuman in their proceedings, defective in their principles, and unworthy of their confidence.” They pledged assistance to the American Anti-­Slavery Society in its efforts to effect the immediate abolition of slavery in the United States, to improve the character of the free people of color, to inform and correct public opinion in relation to their situation and rights, and to obtain for the freedmen civil and religious privileges with the white inhabitants of the land.10 At this time very strong feelings existed against the antislavery societies in the industrial centers of the state. Early in July, 1833, a riot broke out in the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Newark when the pastor of the church attempted to deliver an address on the sin of slavery. A group of men who gathered around a colored man in the audience saved him from a possible lynching.11 The Emancipator insisted the riot was instigated by a group of colonizationists who felt they could not afford to offend the South because of the trading relations between the two sections.12 Another riot occurred at Paterson, where one had just been dispersed a few weeks before. The Sentinel of

7. The Emancipator and Journal of Public Morals (New York), February 4, 1834. 8. Ibid., April 8, 1834; Cf. Short, op. cit., 59. 9. The Fourth Annual Report of the American Anti-­Slavery . . . (New York, 1837), 134. 10. The Emancipator and Journal of Public Morals (New York), May 27, 1834. 11. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), July 15, July 29, 1834. 12. The Emancipator . . . , August 12, 1834.

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Freedom, speaking editorially, deprecated the folly of abolitionists who insisted upon discussing a subject which was so calculated to stir up the emotions of the people.13 Four years later, 1838, the Colored American accused the colonizationists of “swindling up” the souls and drying up the liberality, benevolence, and piety of Jerseymen.14 The paper declared it vain to hold public meetings, or to appoint agents or committees to go to Africa or Asia, because the minds of the people were made up on the subject of colonization. Neither the place nor the scheme would ever satisfy them. They knew as much about Liberia as they wanted to know, and more about the “Negro Shipping Company” than it was profitable to know.15 In a letter to Samuel Cornish, a Mr. Abner Francis, bemoaning the influence of the colonization society which prevented people from getting a true picture of actual conditions, urged that they be “abolished at once.”16 Samuel Cornish agreed with Mr. Francis and explained that he, as a resident of the state, had seen the bitterest persecution, the meanest and the most shameful deeds worked upon and toward the defenseless colored people of New Jersey. He attributed these difficulties to the influence of the professors of the Princeton Theological Seminary, the seat of “colonization abominations . . . proslavery influence and sinful prejudice against color.”17 He pointed out that as a citizen of New Jersey he had endured within the previous year at the hands of former friends and Christian professors “proscription, persecution, and insult” which would have disgraced a heathen community. His only son had been denied the advantages of a common “District School” unless he submitted to being degraded in the sight of all the boys and a professedly religious community, on account of his color, in which he had “no agency.” He wondered if the citizens of Newark were not influenced in these measures by mercenary motives and if they had not courted southern trade long enough.18 In this connection, very bitter indeed were the Reverend Mr. Cornish’s editorial comments on the death of a Negro, William Stives, who had fought in the Revolutionary War for seven years. The minister charged that if this veteran had “lived in the petty little village of Belleville with his sons,” he would have been denied by “professing gray headed Christians, ministers and officers in the church of Jesus Christ” the privilege of giving his children a common school education. This meant that the above patriot and his sons had been “proscribed out of all their civil rights and privileges, and made politically mere beasts of burden, after he had purchased the country with his sacrifices, toil and blood.”19 In a letter to the Honorable Theodore Frelinghuysen and the Honorable Benjamin Butter, the Reverend Mr. Cornish and the Reverend Mr. Theodore Wright attacked the colonization scheme in virulent terms as a hindering force to the progress of the Negroes in this country. They contended that: 13. Sentinel of Freedom, November 4, 1834, May 19, 1835. 14. Colored American (New York), October 6, 1838. 15. Ibid., October 13, 1838. 16. Ibid., January 9, 1839. Samuel Cornish was co-­author of the first Negro newspaper published in the United States, Freedom’s Journal (New York). 17. Ibid., January 9, 1839. 18. Ibid., May 18, 1839. 19. Ibid., September 14, 1839.

r i s e o f n e g r o l e a d e r s h i p 161 To say of a community, that it is laboring under a present, and existing prejudice offers no disparagement to the power of truth; but to say that it is laboring under a prejudice which is irremovable, is to pronounce, that error is an overmatch for truth, and to despair of the improvement of the world. To assert of a people, that they will always be guided by prejudice in relation to any interest, is to declare, that they are hopelessly stupid and besotted.20

Complaining that Negroes were not invited to the deliberations of the Colonization Society, the address insisted the public had not aided in the education of Negro children because it was felt such encouragement would induce Negroes to remain here; that they had not sought to secure to Negroes civil privileges and rights “without which, in their own case, they would look on themselves as grievously oppressed;” and they had united with slaveholders in proclaiming to the world that Negroes were the most corrupt, depraved, and abandoned people. The protest considered it unjust to bind the colored man hand and foot, to stand on his neck and then say that he was not capable of rising.21 These men were asked if, in view of the whole case, they ought to take advantage of the Negroes’ weakness to impose upon them an enterprise which they had unremittingly rejected from the first; whether they ought to persist in a scheme which nourished an unreasonable and unchristian prejudice; which persuaded legislators to vigorously continue their unjust enactments against the Negroes; which exposed them to the persecution of the “proud and profligate”; which cut them off from employment, and “straightened” their means of existence; and which, afflicting them with a feeling that their condition was unstable, prevented their making systematic efforts for their own improvement or for the advancement of their own usefulness.22 Joseph Sturge, the well known English Quaker, supported these stories of prejudice when he visited America in 1841. This antislavery advocate accompanied by his friend, Lewis Tappan, attended an anti-­slavery meeting in Newark. In the afternoon an examination of the scholars of the church school, where the meeting was being held, gave rise to an incident which Joseph Sturge felt served to illustrate the state of public feeling. Newark, he said, from its extensive trade with the south, was very much under the influence of the pro-­slavery sentiment. But the congregation of this church was generally anti-­slavery and had several colored children in its school. One of these, a little black girl, was qualified to take part in the public examination, but some of the parents of the white scholars and several of the trustees protested her appearance. Others, on the contrary, resolved to call for her, if she was not brought forward. Finally she came on the platform to recite alone after the little scholars, who could “rejoice in the aristocratic complexion, had performed their parts without suffering the indignity of a public association with a coloured child. Even this was, however, considered a victory by members of the anti-­prejudice party.”23 In 1836 this same prejudice resulted in the physical ejection of the Reverend Theodore Wright from the chapel of Princeton Theological Seminary when he attempted to attend a meeting of the 20. Samuel Cornish and Theodore Wright, The Colonization Scheme Considered (Newark, 1840), 9. The Reverend Mr. Cornish was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Newark, while the Reverend Mr. Wright was pastor of a Presbyterian church in New York. 21. Ibid., 11. 22. Ibid., 26. 23. Joseph Sturge, A Visit to the United States in 1841 (London, 1842), 110.

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Literary Society of the Alumni of Nassau Hall. He was making a return visit to the institution which had graduated him as a minister of the Gospel.24 Dorothy Porter,25 in her discussion of the organized educational activities of Negro literary societies during the years 1828–­1846, explains that incidents such as the ones just mentioned had encouraged the rise of these societies, which sought to spread useful knowledge, stimulate reading, encourage literary expression, and train future orators and leaders. In 1832 a group in Newark formed the Tyro and Literary Association to assist in promoting these objectives. James Still,26 who overcame the handicaps of poverty, meager schooling, and prejudice in carving out for himself a successful career as a physician, revealed in his autobiography the influences of some of these very difficulties in his own life. He was born April 9, 1812, in Burlington County, near the birthplace of John Woolman, and reared in a large family which could afford few of the necessities of life. Three months constituted the whole of his formal education. He went to a school, which was attended only in bad weather and where, from the New Testament and Comly’s Spelling Book, pupils learned “everything that was useful for man to know.” They knew no better, says Dr. Still, who was glad that later in the century the merit of a teacher was determined before he was given employment. At sixteen, his father bound him out to a farmer for a term of three years, two months, and five days, for which the farmer was to give the father one hundred dollars and James three months of schooling plus ten dollars and a new suit of clothes at the expiration of his period.27 While working on the farm James indulged in fantasies of himself as a successful physician. He revealed nothing of this desire to anyone for fear of being ridiculed. He knew not how he could receive training for this profession, since there were no colored physicians to train him and there were no white ones who would.28 In 1843 this ambitious man bought a still, which he used for preparing extracts that were purchased by a pharmaceutical firm in Philadelphia. The transactions with these druggists inflamed the old ambition to become a doctor. Through the assistance and encouragement rendered by a Friend, who was a stranger to him, James succeeded in obtaining three medical books. With these books, a cigar box for a medicine chest, and a homemade wagon, Dr. Still finally built up a successful practice.29 As a result of his success he was in a position to afford his children the educational advantages which had been denied him in his youth. So he endeavored to keep them in school and succeeded fairly well while they were small, but when they grew larger the teacher treated them with a coolness which was then common in white schools. They were sometimes looked upon as inferior beings. He was sending them to a near-­by school taught by a neighboring young man and supposed all

24. The Emancipator, October 27, 1836. 25. Dorothy B. Porter, “The Organized Educational Activities of Negro Literary Societies, 1828–­1846,” Journal of Negro Education, Vol. V, 557. 26. James Still, Early Recollections and Life of Dr. Still (Philadelphia, 1877), 3–­4. 27. Ibid., 30–­31. 28. Ibid., 33. 29. Ibid., 70–­82.

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was well, but the young teacher discovered eventually he was not doing the will of God in teaching colored children, so “he repented for what he had done, and resolved to sin no more.” Dr. Still’s children had to quit the school even though their tuition bills had always been promptly paid.30 Dr. Still expressed opposition to separate schools because they tended to prevent associations which might encourage good will and understanding between the two races instead of hate and prejudice. He also found it difficult to understand the motives of Christians who manifested so much zeal for the poor heathens of other lands as to be prompted to send ministers and money for their civilization, while at their own doors they permitted thousands to grope in darkness.31

Establishment of Schools by Negroes Such prejudice as exampled above either resulted in the exclusion of Negroes from schools then available or made their attendance at them intolerable. To meet such conditions Negroes began to assist in providing educational facilities for their own children. In 1828 Abraham and John King of Newark applied to the town meeting for funds to be used in educating poor children, who numbered about fifty. The Town Council appropriated one hundred dollars for this purpose.32 In 1826 an announcement was made in the newspaper of the opening of a new town school for males on the Monitorial or Lancastrian Plan. In order that none of the children might be excluded from the benefits of the school, the Committee had graduated the fees to meet the circumstances of the parents.33 But this democratic provision did not include Negro children. In 1829 a correspondent to the Newark Sentinel of Freedom, offered to give ten, or if necessary twenty, dollars toward the establishment of one or more schools for colored children, since there were no regular schools for them at that time. The editors made the following comments on this letter: Our correspondent above appears to feel a lively interest in the education of colored children—­and it is certainly a matter of great importance, both as respects their morals and their usefulness to society. Until lately, the Reverend Mr. Anderson (a colored preacher), has had charge of the African School; and to encourage which, the Township appropriated and paid one hundred dollars the last year. The same sum for this object, was again voted at the last Town Meeting. If there is now no colored school in operation, we should say there is a culpable neglect on the part of the colored people, many of whom are able, and ought to take a deep interest in the education of their children. They are however, very lax on this subject. The school, to be efficient, ought to be organized and superintended by an active and benevolent committee of white people.34

Reports to the town meetings revealed some of the difficulties which those who had attempted to manage the school had experienced. In 1830 the Reverend Benjamin T. Hughes, teacher, gave the 30. Ibid., 159–­160. 31. Ibid., 239–­241. 32. Journal of the Town Council, 4/14/1828. 33. Sentinel of Freedom, May 2, 1826. 34. Ibid., June 16, 1829.

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enrollment of the school as forty-­eight. He had taught the children grammar, geography, writing, arithmetic, spelling and reading. Some of the children were learning the alphabet, while eleven had advanced to spelling in words of two syllables, and nine to three syllables. But he had had serious difficulty in collecting tuition, and little could with certainty be said of the amount which could be derived from the school. Only five of an estimated thirty-­five dollars had been paid by the parents or guardians during the previous quarter.35 On April 29, 1830, the colored people appointed a committee to devise plans for supporting the school more efficiently. These representatives presented the situation which confronted them to the town fathers. Setting forth their conviction that nothing was more essential to the well being of their race than education, the committee expressed the fear that the existence of the school would be very short unless a more liberal appropriation was made by the township. The public, unaware of the “straightened” circumstances of the colored people and accustomed to estimating their condition by the “barely genteel appearance” which some of them through “persevering industry” endeavored to make, when solicited for aid for the school often replied that the colored people ought to support themselves. Because of the pressure of economic conditions which had weighed heavily upon the colored people, many had been unable to meet their bills. At that time there were about forty children of both sexes enrolled. If additional support could be obtained for the school, the number could be increased by from sixty to one hundred children.36 Theodore Frelinghuysen, William Hamilton, and L. S. Smith visited the school and gave high praise to the merit of the work being done by the teacher. They were “most agreeably surprised by the order, good conduct, and good scholarship of the children, who, if they did not read quite so fluently, or answer questions in geography and arithmetic quite so promptly as others who have had superior advantages, gave convincing proof of attention to their studies, and of solid, nay, even rapid improvement. In spelling and in writing, as well as in the neatness of their books and their person, the children of this school would suffer in comparison with but few of their age.” The committee expressed the hope that the work would be continued, since the colored people would “strain every nerve” to avail themselves of the opportunity of having their children well instructed in the more needful branches of learning, and in correct morals.37 In 1830 the Town Council voted one thousand dollars for the education of the poor children of the township, one hundred and fifty dollars of which was to be appropriated to the colored school. It resolved that the school committee take charge of the money and superintend the colored school.38 This indicates that the township was assuming greater responsibility for the education of colored children. Newark appears to have taken the lead in this direction. The report made in 1831 disclosed that difficulties had almost brought about the dissolution of this school, but through the efforts of the committee and the teacher, it had continued to exist. During the previous summer, at one time, nearly ninety children had been taught at the school. 35. Statement from the Colored School to the Township Committee (In Township Papers 1829–­1830 on file in the office of the City Clerk). 36. Ibid. Report of the Colored School, April 12, 1830. 37. Sentinel of Freedom, November 10, 1829. 38. Journal of the Town Council, 4/14/1830.

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There were then fifty-­two children from two to fourteen years of age in attendance, who had received instruction in spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and geography. The teacher had used Murray’s Grammar and Woodbridge’s Geography. The introduction of Hazen’s symbolical primer had materially advanced the improvement of the younger children while the general progress of the scholars had afforded encouragement. The committee again advised that if an adequate support could be obtained very many children of the helpless poor would be added to the school and benefited “by a participation in the ordinary privileges of a Christian community.” Respectfully submitting this statement to the candid consideration of their fellow citizens, the committee prayed for further assistance to their cause.39 The Newark Sentinel, in referring to the figures given in the quarterly report of the school committee on the distribution of the school funds, contended that the specific appropriation made for the colored schools did not afford the colored children a dividend equal to that received by the white children. Because of the extreme poverty of the colored parents, the teachers were able to collect but very little from them. Consequently the teachers of these schools needed additional remuneration, since their allowance would not support them.40 After Newark became a city in 1836, the school committee was “required to take up the colourd [sic] children in the city and make provision for their education either by establishing one or more seperate [sic] and distinct schools or otherwise according to their discretion.”41 Five days later the City Council “resolved that the School Committee be authorized, if they shall deem proper, to establish one or more schools for the education of poor colored children of Newark and appoint a teacher or teachers.”42 The following article which appeared in the Colored American shows that females had been separated from the males in the schools, so that they no longer attended the same classes: The Examination of the Colored Female School of Newark, took place on Friday September 1, 1837. The School is under the instruction of Miss Sawyer, a lady of ample qualifications. The pupils were examined in reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, and geography. The Mayor of the city attended the examination, and pronounced it to be as good as he ever witnessed, for the time they had been under instruction. It is important to be known also, that the Mayor, the Hon. Mr. Frelinghuysen, made remarks for the encouragement of the school. He alluded to the great fact that God has made of one blood, all nations, and reminded us that the elevation of our race depends upon the instruction of our daughters. There were present a goodly number of ladies, who expressed themselves to be highly pleased. The exercises were closed with prayer by Rev. T. P. Hunt.43

39. Report of the Colored School, Township Papers (1831–­1832). 40. Sentinel of Freedom, July 28, 1835. 41. Report of School Committee, July 1, 1836 (Common Council, Street & Highways, Committee Rep. Res. 1836–­1850). 42. Journal of Council, 4/16/1836. 43. Colored American, September 30, 1837.

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It was to Betsy Stockton, a colored woman and member of the Presbyterian Church in Princeton, that many of the colored residents of Princeton owed their schooling in the early part of the nineteenth century. Dr. Ashbel Green tells how he freed this colored girl with his wife’s consent and then kept her in his home as a paid servant. Betsy Stockton made “laudable progress in knowledge” as a result of the instruction which she received in his family, especially from his son, James. She saved her wages, and with some assistance from Dr. Green, prepared herself for missionary service in the Sandwich Islands. Dr. Green published some of the letters she wrote to him in the Christian Advocate, of which he was then editor.44 During her stay in the islands, she taught a school and after her return to Princeton conducted one for the benefit of her race for many years.45 A communication from New Brunswick in 1833 to The Emancipator described a meeting held for the improvement of the free people of color of that town. These people had formed an education society for the instruction of their children. Nearly fifty dollars had been subscribed by different individuals for the promotion of this objective. The Emancipator pleaded with other towns to “go and do likewise,” where at that time no schools existed. The New Brunswick people had formed an education society for the instruction of their children, and had also organized a “flourishing” Temperance Society for the improvement of the morals of race.46 The life of the school was evidently short, because in 1838 a Mr. A. N. Freeman related his experiences in starting a school in New Brunswick. He had just returned from that town, where he had attended the examination of the Colored School. Mr. Freeman regretted that those enemies of the race, who insisted that colored people had no brains, could not have witnessed for themselves the ability exemplified by those children that evening. The school, which he and a Mr. John Campbell had started under the most discouraging circumstances, had been in progress for one year and nine months. Being a stranger in the place, it was difficult to make people believe he had come there for any good. When he informed some of the white residents of his connection with the Oneida Institute he found that to be no recommendation for him. He was requested to say nothing on abolition if he succeeded in getting a school established in the town, as the school might be destroyed on that account. Although he could not under any circumstances comply with this advice, he went ahead with his preparations. After overcoming discouraging obstacles he opened the school with six pupils. The number soon increased to thirty and at times numbered as many as forty pupils. Mr. Freeman, who taught the colored school for eighteen months, was succeeded by Charles Brooks.47 In 1842 Mrs. William Middletown opened the first school for colored children in Bordentown. A local historian said her character and conduct deserved more than a passing notice. A native of the town, she had by dint of perseverance acquired more than an ordinary education at a time when a mistaken policy denied the means of instruction to her race. As soon as circumstances permitted she strove to make herself useful by imparting her knowledge to others. In the beginning,

44. Green, op. cit., 326. 45. John Hageman, History of Princeton and Its Institutions (Philadelphia, 1879), 121. 46. The Emancipator, August 10, 1833. 47. Colored. American, October 20, 1838.

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her school numbered but fourteen scholars whose ages ranged from five to twenty-­five years. This school, which antedated the one founded by Clara Barton for white children,48 increased in importance until 1853, when the Township Board of Trustees incorporated it into the school system of the township.49

Religious and Philanthropic Interest during This Period In addition to the educational opportunities which Negroes made available through their own activities, there were the schools and the schooling which continued to be made possible by the Society of Friends or other philanthropically inclined persons. A Minute of 1841 of the Salem Monthly Meeting reports $94.99 as the amount which had been spent for the schooling of white and black children.50 The trustees of the school fund of Haddonfield Monthly Meeting spent $155.79 for the education of white and black children in 1814,51 and in 1846 they suggested for the consideration of the Meeting the propriety of applying to the salary of the teacher so much of the school fund as would not be necessary for the schooling of poor Friends and those children of the black people whose condition gave them a claim to the benefit.52 In 1838 philanthropists established a school in Jersey City, “where the mental wants of colored infants” were to be met. A number of children were partaking of its benefits and the Jersey City Advertiser and Bergen Republican expressed the hope that this school which deserved encouragement would be “noticed by the benevolent in such a manner that its usefulness might be increased.”53

Municipal Interest in Negro Education In May, 1832, the trustees of the First School District of Trenton announced through the newspaper that notice was being given to all who wished to avail themselves of the provisions of the act relative to common schools that the school for girls, and the one for colored children would open the following Tuesday.54 The next year they sought the services of a colored gentleman for the latter, and advised that none need apply who could not come well recommended.55 In 1842 Elymas Rogers56 gave the children of this school instruction in spelling and reading for one dollar per quarter. Writing, arithmetic, and geography were added for the payment of one dollar and twenty-­five cents, while “other higher branches” were available for the sum of one dollar and seventy-­five cents.57

48. James D. Magee, Bordentown 1692–­1932 (Bordentown, 1932), 98. 49. E. M. Woodward and John Hageman, History of Burlington and Mercer Counties (Philadelphia, 1883), 486. 50. Minutes Salem Monthly Meeting, 24/11/1841. 51. Minutes Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, 14/11/1814. 52. Ibid., 9/III/1846. 53. Jersey City Advertiser and Bergen Republican (Jersey City), July 3, 1838. 54. New Jersey State Gazette (Trenton), May 5, 1832. 55. The Emancipator, August 31, 1853. 56. The Reverend Elymas Rogers was later pastor of the African Presbyterian Church in Newark. 57. Edwin Walker et al., A History of Trenton (Princeton, 1929), Vol. II, 718.

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In 1833 the Third District of Middletown in Monmouth County advertised for a teacher who could come “well recommended for sobriety and morality of character, and who is well qualified to teach grammar, geography, and other branches of education necessary for a country school.”58 Ten years later Camden ordered that a colored school be opened under the same regulations as the white school and appointed George Shreeve as teacher at a salary of seventeen dollars a month.59

Free Children of Slave Parents The conditions under which one particular class of children were being reared were such as to excite a number of citizens of Paterson to petition the legislature in their behalf. These were the children born of slave parents who were to be free after the men were twenty-­five and the women were twenty-­one. The petition complained of the term of service, which extended several years beyond the limit at which it was considered that white people had attained their majority. They could not see any reason why young people of African descent should not be declared of age at the same period in life as those of European lineage. These citizens viewed the system of servitude as unjust because it made no provision60 whereby the children could choose the trade which was to furnish them a livelihood as adults. They objected further to the system because it failed to guarantee to these children a common school education. It was true that the law required the owners of slaves or servants to provide instruction in reading for them before they became twenty-­one, but the penalty exacted was such as to make it more economical to evade the law than to obey it. If the system was to be continued, and they hoped it would not be, the petitioners felt that masters should be required, under heavy penalty, easily collected, to give the children a good common school education before they arrived at the age of fifteen years. The petition presented a touching description of hardships suffered by these children of slave parents: It is impossible to put upon paper the unnumerable little sufferings that fall to the lot of these servant children, and which go to make up the amount of their misery. It is easier to conceive of them in the aggregate, than to describe it in detail; regarded from the first moment of their entrance in the world as mere things of profit and loss, deprived, in many instances, of the nurture and control of their parents at a tender age, driven hither and thither by interest and passion, they grow up without a proper sense of filial obligations, and, in many instances, without even being taught their responsibility to their Maker, their duty to their God.61

Complete freedom was the only remedy which the petitioners could see for these deplorable conditions. They pleaded for the emancipation of the 658 Negroes who remained slaves in

58. The Emancipator, December 21, 1833. 59. George R. Prowell, The History of Camden County (Philadelphia, 1886), 499. 60. Address to the Legislature of New Jersey in Behalf of the Coloured Population of the State by Citizens of Paterson (Paterson, 1841), 5–­6. 61. Ibid., 6.

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accordance with the law of 1804, so that those who had children might be restored to their guardianship, a right to which they should never have been deprived.62 As difficult as was the struggle to effect the mental elevation of Negroes in New Jersey, either bound or free, the obstacles cannot be wholly attributed to lack of consideration for the particular group. Citizens of New Jersey were just being brought to a realization, through the energetic efforts of progressive persons, of the need for providing a state system of education for the children of the state. In 1839 the trustees of the school fund reported that out of 64,411 children in the state between the ages of five and sixteen, 33,954, or just a little more than one-­half, were in school. They saw this as a most “melancholy contrast to the condition of the common schools and the diffusion of education in some of our sister states.”63 If white citizens had not yet seen the advantages of a common school education for their own children it could not be expected they would be very much concerned about the lack of opportunities for such training for the children of the blacks.

62. Ibid., 7. 63. Report of the Trustees of the School Fund of New Jersey, 1839, 4.

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Extension of Democracy, 1844–­1865 There can be no question but that the fact of universal manhood suffrage made inevitable a heightened concern over public education. The evils of an ignorant and unenlightened electorate were obvious and made inescapable argument in favor of universal education. The chief figures in the campaign for free public schools were educated persons, leaders in community activities, who saw clearly the imperative need of widely diffused, even universal, opportunities of education in a country where all had equal influence at the polls. edward h. reisner

The period from 1844 to 1865 witnessed many varied and conflicting tendencies in New Jersey. The rise of the working man to power in the urbanized industrial centers of the state made for an extension of suffrage and education. Negroes did not share in the privileges of voting but they did benefit in the horizontal spread of educational opportunities. The Civil War completely eliminated involuntary servitude and paved the way for the elevation of all Negroes to citizenship status. Dr. Nelson Burr has described the battle in New Jersey which by 1871 eventuated in free, public, universal, non-­sectarian education. The legislature later enacted a law providing for the compulsory education of children between the ages of eight and thirteen years of age. During the early part of this same period, religious and philanthropic groups continued to assist in the schooling of Negro children. Negroes themselves exercised further initiative in this direction. School trustees provided educational opportunities for colored pupils in both mixed and separate schools. In their annual reports to the state superintendents, local superintendents pointed out problems which confronted them in the execution of the state law where Negro children were concerned. A permissive law passed in 1850 and an interpretation of the school law by the state superintendent in 1863 established a legal precedent and sanction for the segregation of Negro pupils. In 1860 the Philadelphia Society for the Instruction of Adult Colored Persons responded to a request from Negroes in Camden to conduct an evening school for their benefit. Friends in Camden who took over the supervision of the school from 1863 to 1865 discontinued this work in New Jersey in order to aid the freedmen of the South.

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Extension of Democracy The Constitution of 1844 extended the franchise to every white male citizen of the United States, “twenty-­one years old who had been a resident of the state for one year and in the county for five months before election, except non-­residents quartered in military or naval positions, garrisons, barracks, place or station, or paupers, idiots, insane persons or person convicted of crime which now excludes him from being a witness unless pardoned or restored by law to the right of suffrage.” 1 For the male population, the Constitution provided for an extension of democracy through the removal of property qualifications. In denying the right to vote to Negro men, it placed them in the category with convicts and mental defectives. It was in another stipulation that the Constitution promised a more hopeful future: 6. School fund; establishment of school system. The fund for the support of [free] schools, and all money, stock and other property which may hereafter be appropriated for that purpose, or received into the treasury under the provision of any law heretofore passed to augment the said fund, shall be securely invested and remain a perpetual fund; and the income thereof, except so much as it may be judged expedient to apply to an increase of the capital, shall be annually appropriated to the support of public schools, for the equal benefit of all the people of the State; and it shall not be competent for the legislature to borrow, appropriate or use the said fund, or any part thereof, for any other purpose under any pretense whatever. [The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in this State between the ages of five and eighteen years.]2

The framers of the Constitution and the citizens realized the importance of accompanying the extension of the suffrage with a like extension of opportunities for receiving a common school education. Even more, the upper age limit of eighteen years looked toward the education of the children of the state beyond the elementary school into the secondary level. The social forces which were operating in the United States and Europe to bring about a crowding of people into urban centers, and the consequent demand for political power and educational opportunities, reached New Jersey with the results manifested in the liberal and far-­reaching stipulations of this constitution. The close of the Civil War won for the Negro freedom from slavery while the Reconstruction amendments secured to him, theoretically at least, the civil and political rights which had previously been denied.

The Early Development of Public Schools The new Constitution which decreed that the state should provide an efficient school system for all the children of the state initiated the educational movements which resulted by 1871 in free,

1. General Statutes of New Jersey, 1709–­1895. 2. Ibid., XXIX, XXXIX. Word and sentence in brackets added by amendment, September 7, 1875.

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universal, public, non-­sectarian education in New Jersey. Dr. Nelson Burr, describing this march to victory, says: The struggle for the publicity-­supported elementary school was carried to success. The reformers were favored by the humanitarian movement, the great extension of the suffrage, the urban industrialism of the East, which deeply affected northern New Jersey, the increase of a poorly-­ educated, enfranchised industrial proletariat, swelled by heavy immigration, and the consequent fear of crime and social unrest. In some of the literature, one detects a fear that the labouring classes would use their political power to overthrow the new capitalist society. It was rather naively believed that the common school would be its guarantee, and a certain preventative of crime and social discontent. The movement went through several phases which more or less overlapped. The opening struggle abolished the pauper conception of the common school, partly inherited from colonial times, and fastened upon the state by the reaction of 1830–­1831. The victory was won by 1846. The campaign for state supervision attained its first great success about the same time, in the appointment of a state superintendent of common schools, whose powers were later increased. The normal school was won in 1855, principally through the efforts of Richard S. Field. The apportionment of public funds to denominational schools, based upon an act of 1846, was regarded by progressives as a draw back upon the development of the public system, and was definitely abolished in 1866. The reformers wanted a general tax for common school support, and its adoption in 1867 marked their fifth great victory. The final campaign was for the abolition of tuition, represented by the “odious rate bill” which New Jersey was the last state to discard. When it fell in 1871, the state finally secured a free elementary school system, supervised by the state and supported by general tax.3

In 1874 the state took one more forward step in the development of its supervision over the education of children when it passed a compulsory education law, thereby increasing the assurance of a more enlightened citizenry.4 The increase of opportunities for the education of Negroes in New Jersey paralleled the larger developments taking place in the nation and the state. The fight for a public school system in New Jersey was waged at the time when the friends of education in the United States were battling for the establishment of free public schools.5

Activities of Religious and Philanthropic Groups During the early part of this period the activities of liberal persons begun in previous years continued. Negro children in the vicinity of Rahway received training in the school built in 1844 by the Society of Friends through the legacy of Isabel Hartshorne in 1792.6 On two occasions the legislature 3. Burr, op. cit., 257–­258. 4. Laws of New Jersey, 1874, 135. 5. Edward H. Reisner, The Evolution of the Common School (New York, 1930), Chapter XVI; Ellwood P. Cubberley, Public Education in the United States (New York, 1919), Chapter V. 6. Supra, 27.

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came to the assistance of this school by making it possible for the trustees to receive money for it from the public school fund.7 Friends of the school had hoped that the Rahway Board of Education would take over the school, but this was prevented for a time by the terms of the will, which made it impossible for the trustees to relinquish their office without invalidating that instrument.8 The school for colored children in Salem received fifty dollars from the public monies and thirty dollars from the Society of Friends. The district in which this school was located included parts of two townships. To this school, which was not entirely free, Salem contributed at the rate of the cost for the education of the white children, three dollars and fifteen cents for each child.9 A Minute of Salem Monthly Meeting in 1852 lists an item of thirty dollars as paid to the teacher of the colored school.10 In a Friends’ school in Lower Alloways Creek in Salem County there were on the teacher’s list “about fifty-­two different scholars, including five colored children.”11 Negroes also attended mixed classes in the schools of the Hicksite Friends in Moorestown,12 Westfield,13 Haddonfield,14 and Chester.15 A continuing interest of the Protestant Episcopal Church, once represented by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, was manifested by the reports of a parish which was created while the Venerable Society was still active in New Jersey.16 In 1854 Christ Church in Shrewsbury revealed that it had given fourteen dollars and forty-­eight cents to the African Parish School.17 In 1856 St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy contributed seventy-­five dollars towards support of the colored school. In the same year Christ Church and Trinity Chapel in Red Bank, in mentioning the school in their annual reports, said that it had been established for several years and at that time numbered about eighty scholars.18 In the following year it was reported that James Still, the teacher, had an enrollment of four male and one hundred and eight female pupils.19 District No. 3 of Atlantic Township in Monmouth County used funds supplied by the state to defray the expenses of seventeen colored children whom it sent to this school.20

Educational Opportunities Provided by Negroes Negro individuals and groups continued to assume responsibility for the schooling of some of the colored children. On March 18, 1840, Arthur Bower, Samuel Sharp Jr., Anthony Till, Kendall Smith,

7. Laws of New Jersey, 1849, 4–­5; 1863, 101. 8. Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1862, 182. 9. Ibid., 1856, 133. 10. Minutes of Salem Monthly Meeting, 31/III/1852. 11. Annual Report of the Superintendent, 1858, 118. 12. Minutes Chester Monthly Meeting (Hicksite) (Women), 8/III/1849. 13. Minutes Westfield Preparative Meeting (Hicksite), 7/11/1867, 6/11/1868, 3/XII/1868, 4/III/1869. 14. Minutes Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting (Hicksite), 11/XII/1862. 15. Minutes Chester Monthly Meeting (Hicksite), 8/II/1866, 7/II/1867. 16. A Brief History of Christ Church, Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, N.J. (Pamphlet, place and date of publication not given), 9–­10. 17. Protestant Episcopal Church, Journal of Proceedings of Annual Convention, 1854, 23. 18. Ibid., 1856, 18–­19. 19. Ibid., 1857, 58. 20. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1855, 107.

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Moses Brown, and Peter Johnson, all colored, were elected trustees of the Freehaven School for colored children which Ralph Smith of Philadelphia had laid out in Gloucester County for Negroes.21 In 1851 Superintendent Jacob Fort of Perth Amboy expressed concern over the inadequate provisions being made for the education of colored children. There were fifteen or twenty Negroes in the district who were being deprived of the money which by right belonged to them. Fort expressed the hope that some means might be devised by which the school system could benefit these children. While they could not be found in the regular school, from which they were excluded by common consent,22 they were not, however, being wholly deprived of training, since a Sunday school had been established for their benefit at Combination Hall, where an average number of thirty-­five colored children were being taught.23 Two years later Superintendent Benjamin Gory revealed that one quarter’s instruction had been provided for the colored children from the public school fund. They had been taught by themselves in a room provided expressly for them. Lack of requisite funds had forced the teacher, to whom the highest commendation was due for the zeal and interest with which she had discharged her duties, to suspend her good work.24 A new superintendent, I. M. Roberts, was quite disturbed by the situation in respect to these children who had not been admitted to the public school. He stated that it was unknown to him whether this was due to the indifference of the parents or to a refusal of admission on the part of the trustees. The limited number of these children precluded the maintenance of a separate school for their instruction, “even were the trustees authorized to make the invidious discrimination such an arrangement would evince.” The trustees had taken it upon themselves to apply a small portion of the money raised for public schools toward the instruction of colored pupils in a separate school over which the trustees did not pretend to have any control. A few benevolent people of the town had, chiefly at their own expense, provided the only facilities for the education of the colored children of the district. This local officer asked the opinion of the state superintendent concerning this situation which apparently ignored the state law in this respect.25 In 1863 the state superintendent gave his answer to this and similar questions in his interpretation of the school law which is discussed in another section of this chapter. Scattered sentences and phrases in school reports to the state superintendent of public instruction gave further clues to the existence of other schools which were either wholly or partially supported by Negroes. Every district in the township of Hopewell was on the way to having a good schoolhouse except No. 9 which was composed wholly of colored children who attended a school in a private house taught by a colored man.26 In the Haines Neck District there were thirty-­six children in one school exclusively colored and taught by a colored female during the summer.27 The school in Bridgewater for colored children was taught for one quarter. It had been impossible

21. Stewart, Notes on Old Gloucester . . . , Vol. III, 288. 22. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1855, 102. 23. Ibid., 1851, 82. 24. Ibid., 1853, 101. 25. Ibid., 1858, 93. 26. Ibid., 1851, 54. 27. Ibid., 1858, 121.

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to obtain the number of pupils who had been in attendance because the school had been taught in the early part of the year. Since the teacher was unlicensed, none of the money from the regular fund had been advanced to him.28 All the schools in the city of Burlington had been free in 1859, with the exception of a colored school which was partly sustained by private aid.29 Pilesgrove, in Salem County, had three schools for the Negroes, one of which belonged to the “American African Church,” which raised some of the money with which to support the school.30 The Negroes had their own visiting trustees, who were subject to the legally appointed trustees of the said districts and to whom the quota of money due was paid.31 Deptford, too, had a school for colored children taught by a colored teacher which received its portion of the public money.32

Schools Sponsored by District Trustees About 1848 the district trustees of Snow Hill established a separate school for colored children.33 More than seventy colored children of Greenwich Township received their “full proportion of the appropriation with the whites,” which, said the superintendent, would soon free them from the reproach of having a single individual unable to read or write.34 This same district in 1856 numbered seventy-­seven pupils, who attended school two quarters during the year. They received instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. Most of the patrons of the school were said to have been entirely ignorant of the first principles of primary education. About half of the pupils could read and write and some could “cipher right smart.” Although a decided educational advance had been made in the district in the past year, irregular attendance, bad associations, indolence and the want of proper appreciation of the values of a good education contributed to a retardation in their progress.35 In 1851 the colored children in Bridgeton Township were educated in two districts which were exclusively colored.36 The trustees of one of the districts of Northampton maintained for a period of six months a free school for the children of that township. Here thirty children were acquiring an education under the supervision of a colored female teacher who had been licensed by the trustees and the superintendent.37 In the districts including Woodbury there had been a free school taught eight months by a male teacher for the white children, while a school for the colored children had been kept open for three months.38 Two free schools supplied the needs of the children of Westhampton; one for white was kept open twelve months during the year, while

28. Ibid., 125. 29. Ibid., 1859, 52. 30. Ibid., 1861, 146. 31. Ibid., 1863, 146. 32. Ibid., 99. 33. George R. Prowell, The History of Camden County (Philadelphia, 1886), 708. 34. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1851, 53. 35. Ibid., 1856, 65. 36. Ibid., 1851, 49. 37. Ibid., 42. 38. Ibid., 1853, 76.

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the colored children had to get what they could during the terms of six months for which their school was open.39 Evesham had but one free school for colored children and it was open only a few months a year.40 In 1858 District No. 5 in Newton established a separate school with a colored male teacher and an enrollment of about forty scholars.41 The term of this school ranged from three to six months during a year.42 In 1863 the superintendent testified to the meritorious work done by the colored teachers of the two schools in Newton when he classed them among the best of the “pedagogues.”43 School officials provided separate accommodations also in Cohansey (where there were twelve attending school),44 Bordentown,45 Cape May,46 Freehold,47 Shrewsbury,48 Fairhaven,49 Elsinborough,50 and Princeton. Owing to unavoidable circumstances there had been considerable irregularity in the attendance at the latter school, yet the superintendent felt the results accomplished would compare favorably with those of most of the common schools. “The measure of success,” he continued, “which has attended this school we regard as demonstrating fully the capacity of colored children, not inferior to that of white children for education—­at least as to those branches of study usually taught in public schools.”51

Education of Negro Children in Larger Municipalities The school which the Elizabeth Town Free School Association had started in 1815 continued under private auspices until 1859, when it was taken over by the city. The Elizabeth-­Town Female Humane Society, which had been organized early in the century to deal with the problem of affording education for the children of people in such indigent circumstances that they could not pay for tuition, assisted in the schooling of children who would otherwise have “been left to run at large in the streets and continue in ignorance.”52 But when the Board of Education took over the colored school and proposed to house it in the building owned by this Society, the group released the Board from the payment of any additional charges rather than have the colored children educated on its premises. This difficulty was bridged by the offer of a board member to permit the use of property owned by him for the housing of the colored school.53

39. Ibid., 1856, 54. 40. Ibid., 51. 41. Ibid., 1858, 52. 42. Ibid., 1859, 64. 43. Ibid., 1863, 81. 44. Ibid., 1859, 69. 45. Ibid., 52. 46. Ibid., 67. 47. Ibid., 1860, 169. 48. Ibid., 175. 49. Ibid., 176. 50. Ibid., 1862, 163. 51. Ibid., 1862, 134. 52. Smith, School Interests of Elizabeth, 43. 53. Minutes Elizabeth Board of Education, 5/7/1859.

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With the exception of the year 1845–­1846, the colored school in Newark had remained active. In 1847 the Board of Education abolished the pay system in the school.54 In 1859 the Board appointed a committee to consider the matter of admitting the colored children into all the schools under its care.55 This committee decided adversely on the proposition when, after carefully considering the subject, it reported that no amendment to the regulations relating to the public schools of the above nature ought under “existing circumstances, to be recommenced or adopted.” But the committee expressed a deep interest in the education of colored children. The Board of Education had established a public school for their special benefit, which was then in successful operation under efficient and competent teachers. If additional means of instruction were necessary for the more advanced pupils, they should be supplied by the board as its funds allowed or the exigencies of the school required. The body accepted this report by a vote of twelve to five.56 It in turn rejected a minority report on the same matter by an eleven to seven vote.57 The small attendance at the school led to its second closing in 1863. Immediately, interested citizens sent a communication to the Board expressing their desire for the continuance of the educational advantages heretofore enjoyed by these children and expressing their determination to use the means necessary to secure a full attendance at the school.58 The Board reopened the school and recalled Wilbur Strong to the position of principal to succeed Allen Bland, who had resigned.59 Shortly after the opening of the first public school in Jersey City, Negroes sought admission but were denied entrance. They then asked for a portion of the public money for the education of their children. According to the Jersey City Telegraph, the only answer to what it deemed a just demand was a separate school.60 Dr. Julia Harney states that the Common Council decided to organize one in the old schoolhouse but allowed only one hundred dollars for the services of a teacher. In the fall of 1848, with the assistance of donations from sympathizers, a teacher was secured. When the white teacher who had been put in charge became ill in 1850, the school was temporarily closed, and although petitioned to reopen the school the authorities made no move to do so until, at the request of “some ladies,” they granted the use of a room in the old town house together with some books and fixtures for the colored school. In July, 1851, the Common Council authorized the Committee in Charge of Schools to organize a school for the colored children but limited its expenditures to fifteen dollars per month. In accordance with the provision of the ordinance establishing a board of education, it was incumbent upon that body to make provisions for Negro pupils. A request in 1852 from a Miss Anna Ogden for assistance in promoting this objective evoked the reply from the board that it was without authority to grant such a request. But the Board asked the Committee on Teachers and Salaries to provide a public school for colored children and to engage a suitable teacher. Miss Ogden later became the instructor of this school. 54. Minutes Newark Board of Education, 4/23/1847. 55. Ibid., 3/25/1859. 56. Ibid., 5/8/1859. 57. Ibid., 4/29/1859. 58. Ibid., 8/28/1863. 59. Ibid. 60. Julia Harney, The Evolution of Public Education in Jersey City (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1931), 39.

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In 1857 the Board supplied new quarters and engaged another teacher. That the mayor of the city was aware of the obligations incumbent upon the officials in the problems centering around the training of Negro children was evidenced by the following statement: The Board has been enabled to secure for the school the services of a female teacher of excellent accomplishments. This class of our citizens demands from the hands of the authorities sympathy and kindness—­without the power of voting to strengthen their demand for further patronage the rising generation of colored persons require at our hands as much consideration as other children.61

The report of the Board, which recommended that the above suggestions be incorporated, described the school as “in a most flourishing condition, having at its head a colored female teacher peculiarly fitted for the station, combining with winning and ladylike manners and deportment, a gratifying aptness to teach, with unusual facility as respects discipline.” In appreciation of these unusual qualities, her salary was increased.62 In 1855 Paterson opened a school for its colored children under the instruction of Miss Eliza Halsted, who held this position for the twenty years of its existence. The sessions were held at first in the Godwin Street Church. When the East Ward School vacated its premises the colored children fell heir to the abandoned schoolhouse. In 1857 it was decided to remove them to the Clinton Street School building. Many complaints from parents followed this change because of the remoteness of the school from the center of the Negro population. But the school remained here for nearly sixteen years.63 The superintendent in charge of the mixed school at New Barbados observed with pleasure the “degree of proficiency in the few colored children” who had been taught. In most cases they had compared favorably with the other pupils. He expressed the hope that this part of the juvenile population, which had been so much neglected, would more extensively reap the benefit of “that education which is common to all.”64 District No. 7 in Bergen Township was a colored school “under the care of a colored lady,” who was “well qualified for her situation.” Her mode of instruction and the progress made by her pupils had “always afforded peculiar pleasure” when her school was visited. The success of this school in elevating the condition of the blacks in its neighborhood gave great encouragement to the maintenance of such schools wherever they were needed. With the exception of the colored school which was usually kept open for about seven months, and the school in District No. 1, which had been closed for four months during the erection of its new building, the schools in that township had been kept open for the full term, with allowance for the usual vacations.65 But later reports revealed several difficulties which the trustees and the teacher had to encounter in order to keep the school going. The classes were held in the basement of a colored church, as the trustees owned 61. Ibid., 61. 62. Ibid. 63. Nelson, op. cit., 50. 64. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1854, 58. 65. Ibid., 1858, 71.

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no property. The parents were poor and the money received from the school fund was insufficient to carry them through the year. The children lacked proper schoolbooks and other conveniences; yet in spite of these hindrances some of these pupils acquired “a tolerable degree of knowledge in spelling, reading, and elementary rules of arithmetic.”66 In 1854 the New Brunswick Board of Education appointed a committee “to invite the Trustees of the Hall Fund to cooperate with them in the establishment of a school for colored children.”67 On January 19, 1855 the colored school was opened with Miss Lott in charge. In the annual report of 1860 it was stated that the teacher was “laboring diligently with her charge.” The scholars who attended regularly were making good progress but the irregularity of attendance was a great evil in the school, since more than one third of those on roll were generally absent.68

Negro Children in the Schools Many instances have been given of the education of Negro children in schools provided exclusively for their use. A natural curiosity arises concerning the educational opportunities for those children where no such schools existed. Were they permitted to attend the schools available for the training of white children or was there no provision made for them at all? Statistics giving the number of colored children who attended schools which appeared in the early annual reports of the state superintendent throw some light on this interesting question. Table I shows the attendance of colored children in the schools of the state during the years 1847, 1850, and 1860. It indicates that many Negro children attended mixed schools during these years in both the northern and the southern sections of the state. It is incorrect to infer that Negro children failed to attend schools in localities for which no figures appear, because in some instances answers to the questions concerning the attendance of colored children were not given. For example, no figures appear for the city of Burlington for the year 1847, yet there is every reason to believe that colored children in Burlington attended school that year. A school for colored children was in operation in Newark in 1850, and the school in Rahway under the Society of Friends had begun its existence in 1844. The school in Jersey City, which was opened in 1848, was closed only temporarily two years later. The table is of value, however, from the point of view of the positive data given concerning the educational opportunities available to these children in the decade or so preceding the Civil War.

Problems Faced in the Education of Negro Children In their reports to the head of the state school system, local superintendents disclosed various problems which confronted them in the execution of the law where colored children were concerned. Not many children in Orange attended the public schools, but benevolent individuals kept both an

66. Ibid., 1861, 99. 67. Minutes of New Brunswick Board of Education, 1/10/1854. 68. Ibid., 5/2/1860.

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evening and a Sunday school for their benefit.69 The superintendent of Westfield indicated that of a total of 457 children from five to sixteen years of age, 190 were not being taught. Four of these were colored.70 In two districts of Raritan Township a difficulty existed for which the superintendent could find no solution. There were in these districts between twenty and thirty colored children who were not receiving an education because, having been refused admission to the white schools, no other provision had been made for them in spite of the fact that their parents were taxpayers. The teachers enrolled the names of these children but did nothing toward educating them. This Superintendent Bell deemed unjust.71 In Fairfield there were ninety-­four children “who were the least disposed to avail themselves of their opportunities” and very few children attended school for more than one quarter.72 In the next year, 1853, the township returned nearly three hundred dollars to the state because nearly one hundred and fifty children had failed to attend school that year. The superintendent expressed the opinion that the largest proportion of the number could be found in the neighborhood of the colored people bordering on the township of Bridgeton.73 In North Bergen there were about twelve children who had not been induced, “although means had been made available,” to enter the public schools.74 In 1846 a division in the Monroe School District resulted when the trustees refused to admit a colored boy to the school. One faction built the schoolhouse in Monroe District while another erected a school for the people of Jamesburg.75 In Lower Cape May County, there were a few colored children in the district who were a “subject of annoyance,” in consequence of which a committee had been appointed to see if they could be removed. Being unable to find any means of removal, the committee appealed to the state superintendent for suggestions.76 The whole number of children taught in Freehold, Monmouth County, in 1858 constituted about eight hundred, fifty-­five of whom were colored. But this “amalgamation of white and colored children” was found to be a source of much objection and dissatisfaction generally, and some plan was greatly desired whereby they could be taught separately.77 Matawan had 574 white and 54 colored children. Of the latter only two had attended school. Until some arrangement might be made by which they could be taught separately the superintendent was convinced that this class of the population would be in a measure neglected.78

69. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1850, 76. 70. A Van Doren Honeyman (editor-­in-­chief), History of Union County (New York, 1923), 543. 71. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1850, 86. 72. Ibid., 1852, 63. 73. Ibid., 1853, 56. 74. Ibid., 1856, 90. 75. W. Woodford Clayton, History of Union and Middlesex Counties, N.J. (Philadelphia, 1882), 802. 76. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1862, 99. 77. Ibid., 1858, 97. 78. Ibid., 1863, 130–­131.

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860.1 Place Atlantic County

1847 0

1850 0

1860 8

Atlantic City Egg Harbor

3

Egg Harbor City Galloway

1

Hamilton

0

Mullica

3

Weymouth

1

Bergen County

15

45

Franklin Hackensack

73 3

7

10

Harrington

18 16

Hohokus

6

Lodi

5

7

14

12

3

4

New Barbados

7

Saddle River Union

1

Washington Burlington County

37

7

12

217

369

Beverly Bordentown

69

Burlington Chester

68 12

Chesterfield Evesham2

12

Little Egg Harbor

5

57

15

40

66

5

6 18

Mansfield

30

Medford New Hanover

40

5

Northampton

6

12

22

29

7

10

Pemberton Shamong

7 3

8 (continued)

1. Annual Report, State Superintendent, 1847, 31–­41; 1850, 21–­29; 1860, 65–­72. 2. Taken from last report.

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860. (continued) Place Springfield

1847

1850

3

5

Southhampton

1860 8 6

Washington

4

Westhampton

5

Willingboro Cape May County

28

Cape Island

73 9

Dennis

4

0

Lower

20

48

Middle

2

10

Upper

2

6

94

274

Camden County

14

Camden

100

Centre

108

Delaware

30

Gloucester

5 5

Monroe Newton

10

Stockton

17

Union

50

Washington Waterford

3 14

14

Winslow Cumberland County Bridgeton

6 13 7

43

213

177

30

40

40

5

13

Cohansey Deerfield

1

Downe Fairfield

79

30

Greenwich

75

60

Hanover

4

Hopewell

15

Maurice River

10 (continued)

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860. (continued) Place

1850

1860

Millville

10

2

Stow Creek

6

6

Mendham

1847 9

Essex County

105

5

233

Belleville

2

2

8

Bloomfield Caldwell

15 1

Clinton

4

Livingston

1

Newark Orange

98

190

4

3

15

Union County

45

87

91

Elizabeth

28

38

24

New Providence

1

Plainfield

5

Rahway

2

9 40

Springfield

43 6

Union

5

6

Westfield

4

3

6

6

97

6

6

35

Hudson County Bergen

9

Harrison Hoboken

2

Hudson City Jersey City

60

North Bergen* Weehawken (No report received) Hunterdon County

23

67

95

3

1

Alexandria Bethlehem Clinton

5

21

Delaware

6

4

East Amwell

10

35 (continued)

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860. (continued) Place

1847

1850

Franklin

1860 1

Kingwood Lambertville

1

Lebanon

14

Raritan

10

Readington

1

Tewksburg

5

8

8 18

15

10

4

3

40

165

Union West Amwell Gloucester County

2

Clayton Deptford

5 2

Franklin

8

21

3

24

Greenwich

40

Harrison

35

Mantua

10

Woolwich Mercer County

3

29

30

159

6

East Windsor

7

Ewing

12

Hamilton

17

Hopewell

5

Lawrence

20

Princeton

40

Trenton

63

1

82

17

5

10

Washington West Windsor

3

Middlesex County

30

East Brunswick (no reports) Monroe New Brunswick North Brunswick

3

Piscataway

27

13 (continued)

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860. (continued) Place

1847

1850

1860

Perth Amboy South Amboy

5

South Brunswick

34

Woodbridge

25

7

90

132

12

4

5

3

12

33

Monmouth County

59

Atlantic Dover

3

Freehold

25

Holmdel Howell Manalapan*

9

Marlboro Matawan Middleton

25

Millstone Ocean Plumstead

6

Raritan

4

Shrewsbury

35

Upper Freehold

25

36

37

Morris County

93

115

Chatham

12

14

Chester

5

1

Hanover

9

10

Wall

Jefferson

1

Mendham

9

Morris

18

34

Pequannock

3

Randolph

4

Rockaway

2

8

Roxburg

9

6

Washington

18

25 (continued)

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860. (continued) Place

1847

Ocean County

1850

1860

17

20

Brick

2

Dover

7

Jackson

1 3

Plumstead

17

13

Stafford Union Passaic County

1 5

15

Acquackanonk

5

Manchester

2

Paterson 6 5

West Milford Salem County

2 87

Pompton Wayne

91

2 2

70

Elsinborough

105

343

16

20

15

22

Lower Alloways Creek Lower Penns Neck Mannington

60

Pilesgrove

60

157 57

56

Pittsgrove Salem Upper Alloways Creek

40 10

11

45

Upper Penns Neck

4

Upper Pittsgrove

2

3

Somerset County

83

146

167

Bedminster

7

11

12

Bernards Bridgewater

6 20

Branchburg Franklin

31

11

15

29

Hillsborough Montgomery

38

50 65

27

50

17 (continued)

Table I Number of Colored Children Who Attended School during the Years 1847, 1850, and 1860. (continued) Place

1847

1850

1860

4

3

37

55

58

3

37

10

4

6

Warren Sussex County Byram Frankford Greenee Hardystown

6

10

Lafayette

2

Montague

1

5

Newton

9

16

Sandystown

5

Sparta

9

1

Stillwater Vernon

5

Walpack Wantage Warren County Belvidere

16

4

10

3

43

42

4

11

16

Blairstown

5

Franklin Frelinghuysen

4

Greenwich

9

10

Hackettstown Hardwick Harmony Hope

1 1

Independence Knowlton

2 10

4

2

Mansfield

2

3

Oxford

7

2

Pahaquarry

1

Phillipsburg Washington

4

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Legal Precedent Established for Separate Schools Very significant was an act passed in 1850 enabling Morris Township in Morris County to set aside a separate school district for the exclusive use of the colored children of the township.79 Previously various communities had, when they so desired, simply set up separate schools for their colored children or had continued those which had already been in operation when the community took over the supervision of these schools. But at this time, through a petition sent in by the inhabitants of Morris Township in Morris County, the legislature gave legal and official sanction to the segregation policy that had already held in so many places. The district was to be abolished whenever the people in their town meeting should so vote. This permissive piece of legislation paved the way for other such schools in places where there had been some doubt as to the legality of such procedures. In 1863 a further sanction of segregation was given by the superintendent of the state system through his interpretation of the school laws on the subject: 1. There is no section of the law nor any decision of the courts that deprives colored children of the advantages of public school instruction. 2. Schools may be established for the special benefit of colored children. The law declares that it shall be the duty of the trustees of the several school districts to apply the money apportioned to their respective districts, or raised therein, to the establishing and maintenance of free schools in said districts, in which shall be taught, free of charge, all the children between the ages of five and eighteen, desirous of attending the same. Under this section of the law, the children of any class of persons are entitled to the advantages of public school instruction; and there is no section of the law, nor any decision of the court which deprives colored children of these advantages. The law makes no distinction between children of one nationality, or race, and children of another; nor does it make any distinction between the children of citizens and children of those who are not citizens. Trustees have full authority to establish schools and employ teachers for their respective districts; and if in their judgment the interests of a district require the establishment of a school for colored children, or the establishment of two or more schools differing as to grade, or character, they may act accordingly, provided always that every child enjoys the advantages to which he is entitled.80

All doubts as to the legality of establishing separate schools were accordingly removed. Thus communities which had not already done so, but which were desirous of segregating colored children, were now given a free hand to carry out such inclinations. This official sanction remained in force for almost twenty years, when a situation developed out of which evolved a law prohibiting the exclusion of any child from any public school in the state on account of nationality, religion, or color.

79. Laws of New Jersey, 1850, 63–­64. 80. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1863, 41–­42.

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The Camden School for Colored Adults Having been informed that there was a desire among the colored people of Camden, New Jersey, for the opening of a school in that city for the free instruction of men and women, the Philadelphia Society for the Instruction of Adult Colored Persons appointed a committee to consider the practicability of such an undertaking. It urged that the committee give early attention to the matter.81 This group called a meeting of the colored people for October 16, 1860, in order to ascertain the extent of their desire for an education. The committee was very much disappointed in the attendance of only thirty persons. After a preliminary discussion, Shepherd Sample, a colored teacher of the day school for children, called the meeting to order. A number of the leading men indicated that, notwithstanding the small group present, it was their belief an intense desire existed among a considerable portion of the colored population for self improvement, and that the limited attendance was occasioned by the inclement weather which had kept many away from their places of worship on the day when the notices were given.82 When a second meeting was called the following week, the committee found a considerable number of both sexes present. All the benches and chairs were soon filled, and many stood about the door and in the aisles. With few exceptions “their countenances showed a steadiness and sobriety indicating self respect.” A hundred and four persons signified their desire to attend such a school, and the meeting closed with an expression of hope on the part of the committee that those present might not be disappointed in their wish for an opportunity of improving their education. But the committee explained that it could not answer for the association to which it belonged. Even if it agreed to sponsor the school there might be some difficulty in collecting the requisite funds.83 The committee advised the association it had been well aware from the beginning of its investigation that a real difficulty to be faced in the establishing of another school was the procuring of sufficient funds with which to carry it on. The group said it was well known that the amount required to carry on the school in Philadelphia was collected over a somewhat widespread area from friends who were frequently called upon for donations within their own neighborhoods. Some of their own members had felt the “present service of collection to be rather a tax upon their time and business pursuits.”84 The members of the committee felt that the burden of supporting such a school in Camden should fall mainly upon the residents of New Jersey and the Friends of that city should be enlisted in the service of collecting the necessary means. “But,” said they, “when we contemplate the spectacle of a hundred persons gathered together, many of whom are subjected to very degrading associations, and many who have never had a spelling book in their hands, perhaps the thought of being instrumental in enabling even six out of this number to read would have weight to induce us to spend a little more time and effort, and it is believed by some Friends, including two or three 81. Minutes of the School Society, 12/X/1860 (Deposited in the Department of Records of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia). 82. Ibid., 29/X/1860. 83. Ibid. 84. Ibid.

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resident in Camden County, that if the case should be properly presented, it would be met by the citizens of New Jersey in a liberal light.” They estimated the probable cost of a four month’s session to be about $225.00, allowing $20.00 for incidentals and new stationery.85 In December of the same year the committee reported that the objective had been attained. Immediately after its last meeting, subscription books had been placed in the hands of several interested Friends in New Jersey, and each member of the committee had collected from Friends in Philadelphia. In this manner about two hundred dollars had been collected. Jesse Stanley, a Friend residing in Camden, had been engaged as principal at a salary of fifteen dollars a month, for a term of three months, while his wife, Elizabeth Stanley, and William and Mary Alsop had been appointed as assistants at salaries of twelve dollars each a month.86 The school opened with an initial enrollment of sixty-­three persons of both sexes which soon increased to eighty-­two, with an average attendance of about sixty. The committee was not only well satisfied, but much pleased with the appearance and deportment of the scholars. It was also gratified to be able to give as its opinion that the students were of a class who would appreciate and profit by the pains which had been taken for their advancement.87 The Friend called attention to the new school in the neighborhood of South Camden, New Jersey, where numerous colored families were settled, and among whom a spirit of self improvement had recently awakened. These families had begged sufficient funds with which to erect a small schoolhouse, where the children were taught in the day by a colored teacher, whose salary was paid from the public educational fund of the city. Now, many of the parents and others of the adult colored population who had never had any opportunity for school learning were desirous of attending an evening school in the same house, and, after several futile attempts in other directions, had applied to the Philadelphia association to help them. After pointing out the sympathy of the association for the desires of these adults and the expenses which were involved in the undertaking, the article made a plea for cooperation from the friends of the blacks, and particularly from the residents of New Jersey.88 Another article reported that four teachers, two of each sex, had been employed in the school. Notwithstanding their diligent attention to the work, they had been unable to render all the assistance which was desirable; there was ample work for another instructor, but the funds applicable to this purpose were not sufficient to discharge all the obligations already incurred. The deportment and attention to personal neatness of the scholars were said to have been very satisfactory. It had been observed that where two had been seated together, who were “unequally advanced in Acquirements,” the better scholar had assisted his neighbor in the absence of the teacher. It was expected the school would be regularly visited at least twice a week by a committee appointed for that purpose, when the weather and the crossing of the river permitted.89 85. Ibid. 86. Minutes of the Camden School Committee, 6/XII/1860 (Filed with the Department of Records). 87. Ibid. 88. “The Camden School,” The Friend, Vol. XXXIV, 77. 89. Ibid., 125.

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The following month the committee expressed regret that none of the New Jersey Friends had visited the school since its opening, especially since it had hoped they would have become sufficiently interested to take over the management. One of the Friends, however, had informed another Friend that, although he had not seen the school himself, he was satisfied that it was already accomplishing much good and hoped its achievements would be continued.90 The Camden School Committee kept regular minutes of its visits to the school. In one instance it expressed pleasure with the manner in which the men students were cooperating with the teachers in preserving good order and encouraged them to persevere in their efforts. This was occasioned by a tendency to hilarity on the part of certain young people which had led to a resolution that the next person who disturbed the school by laughter or other unseemly conduct should be expelled for two weeks. Interestingly enough, the committee cautioned the teachers to remember that the spirits of young people were naturally high, and since many of them had probably never been subjected to much restraint, due allowance should be made for their behavior.91 At another time the committee was attracted by the reading of a half dozen young women, who occupied places near the teacher’s desk. Their attention to the pauses and their apparent clear understanding of the subject were interesting and gratifying, and the teacher seemed to be taking “much pains with them.” An engineer, Adam Dill, had become so interested in his studies that he had asked if he could receive private lessons from the principal teacher while the school was adjourned.92 Occasionally a member of the committee took advantage of an opportunity to deliver short lectures to the group. The minutes commented on the marked attention of the scholars to the short address of W. F. Mitchell, which was in keeping with their general strict attention to their studies. The lecture was intended “to call their attention to the part the people of Color should act, so as to gradually, but surely raise them to that station in society by a proper fulfillment of their Religious, Moral, Social and relative duties, as to command the confidence and respect of the community, and that on every one of them this duty rested, not only for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of their Color in succeeding ages.”93 On another evening a colored teacher, in South Camden, delivered a lecture on physiology to an audience of fifty-­three scholars. Four nights later the committee took with it a map of the United States which had been presented to the school, and spent an hour in pointing out places of interest and discoursing upon their boundaries, productions, and matters of history.94 The annual report of the association described the closing exercises as simple in their character, being mostly confined to spelling, reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. Many had seized the opportunity to improve in knowledge and the teachers mentioned several instances of “considerable advancement.” The committee members had frequently addressed words of 90. Minutes of Camden School Committee, 1/II/1861. 91. Ibid., 19/XII/1860. 92. Ibid., 4./I/1861. 93. Ibid., 16/I/1861. 94. Ibid., 6/III/1862.

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encouragement to the scholars and had given them simple lectures on geography, galvanism, electricity, and physiology which had been well received.95 The committee was satisfied that the expenditure of time, money, and labor during the three months’ session had been well bestowed. The recipients had expressed much appreciation through both oral and written statements. When the engineer had been obliged to rejoin his vessel he had purchased his books so he could continue his studies while at his engine. Another pupil, during a suspension of the school, expressed willingness to pay his teacher to continue the regular instruction. “Considering,” said the committee, “that the two hours session of the school followed in most cases a day of fatiguing labor, and that the distance to be traveled in reaching the school-­building was in some instances considerable, it was a matter of remark to the committee how faithful and painstaking were the majority of the pupils, old and young, of both sexes.”96 One of the teachers had read passages of Scriptures each evening at the close of the exercises. A number of Friends’ Tracts and copies of the Moral Almanac were gratuitously furnished to the scholars, while Testaments printed by the Bible Association were sold to them at nominal prices.97 So appreciative were the scholars of the visits of the committee that they offered to have them brought in a carriage from the ferry at their own expense, rather than to have the length of the walk dissuade them from visiting the classes. But that which pleased the committee most was the regular attendance and close application of the scholars. In spite of the labor and personal sacrifice necessarily involved in carrying on the school, the committee felt that if the Association saw fit to reopen it the following winter, there was enough interest among the members to make them willing to undergo the inconvenience attending its management.98 At the closing session of the following winter, the committee encouraged the scholars to keep up their efforts during the vacation of the school and to give their children an opportunity for learning.99 When in 1864 the Friends of Camden decided to assume the management of the school, the Association in Philadelphia turned over to them the funds collected and the books, lamps, and other supplies bought for the work in Camden.100 This particular term was characterized by irregular and small attendance because of the many religious meetings held at the colored churches and the prevalence of smallpox, to which many of the pupils had fallen victims. When the pupils expressed a desire to have the school reopened the following winter, they were led to believe that the poor attendance during the previous term would prevent a continuance of the classes. But the Friends advised them to draw up a petition if they “continued in the desire.” At the same time the Friends reminded the pupils of the heavy demands that were being made upon Friends for the benefit of the freed slaves in the South, who were often found 95. “Report of the Committee Having Charge of the Camden School for Colored Adults,” Thirty-­First Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Association of Friends for the Free Instruction of Adult Colored Persons (Philadelphia, 1861), 12. 96. Ibid., 12. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 99. Minutes of the School Society, 11/IV/1862. 100. Ibid., 14/X/1864.

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in a deplorable condition. The pupils were also asked to consider, in case the school should be resumed, whether they could contribute more themselves toward defraying its expenses.101 Fortunately for the Camden colored group, the Friends did assist them in holding a session of the school during the next winter season. This venture was said to have been very successful, but it appears that, as far as the Friends were concerned, it marked the end of their activities in behalf of this particular undertaking.102

101. The Friend, Vol. XXXIX, 164–­165. 102. Ibid., 165.

XI



Reconstruction Period The citizens of our state have always been at odds in regards to major issues. New Jersey has never been permanently Democratic nor has it ever been wholly Republican. The same attitude was evident during the Revolution when the Tories and Patriots were of equal strength. . . . Reflected through the last few centuries, these conflicts in the political, economical and industrial pattern of New Jersey have, instead of weakening the structure of the community, given strength to it and have made the state one of the real trial grounds for the solution of problems which have risen in other states. frank kingdon

The Democratic party, which had controlled New Jersey politics during the decade from 1850 to 1860, opposed the social, political, and civic elevation of Negroes during the Reconstruction era. The Republicans, by sponsoring legislation that favored Negroes, provided a legal framework within which social justice for the darker race could be sought. But, contrary to expectations, the separate schools thrived in the sections dominated by the Republicans while the abolition of segregation gained headway in the areas of Democratic strength. A possible explanation may lie in the immigration figures, which show that between 1850 and 1880 there were heavy infiltrations of Negroes from contiguous states into South Jersey, and of foreigners from European countries into North Jersey. In 1873 Negroes petitioned the legislature for an amendment of the school law which would provide for the admission of colored students to the New Jersey State Normal School. The Senate Education Committee reported adversely on the petition, saying that such an amendment of the school law would create a race distinction where it did not exist because Negro students were eligible for matriculation under the law as it was then framed.

Reconstruction Politics The conflicts between political parties in New Jersey which marked the years preceding and accompanying the Civil War were with equal intensity carried over into the Reconstruction era.1 The editor of the Daily True American reflected the sentiment of his party when he described Theodore 1. Charles M. Knapp, New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and the Reconstruction (Geneva, N.J., 1924).

194

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Runyon, Democratic aspirant to the governorship, as “the white man’s candidate” sponsored by men who were “against negro suffrage and the attempt to mix negroes with workingmen’s children in our public schools.”2 The resolution proposing ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment was rejected in the senate by a vote of twelve to eight, characterized by a split strictly along party lines, since every Democrat voted against it,3 It was not until January, 1866, that New Jersey ratified this amendment, after it had already become a part of the Federal Constitution.4 The Fourteenth Amendment, which Governor Marcus Ward considered “the most lenient amnesty ever offered to treason,” was ratified by the same Republican legislature which had approved the first Reconstruction amendment.5 But, when a Democratic majority was returned to the legislature in 1867, a joint resolution was passed rescinding the previous ratification of that amendment.6 The House of Representatives resolved that the resolution be returned to the representative of New Jersey presenting it and gave the instruction that it be referred to in the journal of the House by number only.7 A legislature controlled by Democrats rejected the Fifteenth Amendment,8 which a later body controlled by a Republican majority passed.9 In the national Congress, the Democrats and Republicans elected to represent New Jersey pursued the same policies as did the members of their parties in the state legislatures. Andrew Rogers, of Sussex County, the most vocal of the representatives from the state to the Congress during the Reconstruction years, true to the ideals of the Democratic party of that period consistently opposed every measure which proposed to elevate the status of Negroes.10 Senator William Wright, Democrat, was taken to Washington from his home in Newark by his son to vote against a bill designed to grant Negroes the rights accorded to other citizens.11 These were the years when it would have been almost impossible for anyone to distinguish the platforms, actions, or speeches of the Democrats of New Jersey from those of their political faith in the Southern states. But, as has been noted, contrary to what might have been expected from the political activities of the two parties, the separate schools for Negroes continued to develop in the southern section where lay the strength of the Unionist or Republican parties, while in the northern area, which was the stronghold of the Democratic party, there was developing a tendency to abolish segregation through the admission of colored children into the regular schools.

2. Doily True American (Trenton), October 3, 1865. 3. Journal of the Senate, 1865, 472. 4. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, 1866, 44–­45, 80, 85. 5. Minutes Special Session of the Legislature, 1866, 17. 6. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, 1868, 308. 7. Congressional Globe, Vol. LXXX, 2225–­2226. 8. Votes and Proceedings, of the Assembly, 1870, 185; Journal of the Senate, 1870, 166. 9. Ibid., Assembly, 1871, 261; Senate, 1871, 375. 10. Congressional Globe, Vol. LXIII, 522; Vol. LXIV, 1490; Vol. LXV, 2612; Vol. LXXXIV, 742; Vol. LXXXVI, 1564; Vol. LXXXVIII, 103; Vol. LXX, 1123; Vol. LXXIII, 134; Vol. LXIX, 358; Vol. LXX, 1121; Vol. LXIX, 353–­354; Vol. LXX, 1809. 11. Knapp, op. cit., 147.

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Increase of Separate Schools in Southern Counties In 1865 Bridgeton reported two colored schools with about one hundred and twenty pupils who had been instructed during three-­fourths of the year.12 Newton maintained for five months,13 a school for ninety-­seven colored children. The trustees of another school district in this same township kept a school open for colored children during the whole year, excluding vacations. The colored people had provided the schoolroom themselves, while the trustees had supplied the teacher and incidentals.14 In Gloucester County, Deptford, Woolwich, and Franklin had each a small school taught by colored women. The superintendent expressed the hope that greater progress would be made in them in the future than had been made in the past.15 In the fourth district of Camden an eight-­room building intended for the colored youth of the city was nearing completion.16 Mount Holly erected a new schoolhouse for the use of its colored children which far excelled “the buildings used by the white children.”17 Bordentown built for her colored children a new school which was furnished with modern desks, blackboards, and other equipment, and which afforded “all the conveniences that are to be had in the large building for the white children.”18

Increasing Trend toward Mixed Schools in Northern Counties When in 1868 the colored citizens of Newark petitioned the Board of Education for improved educational facilities for their children, the wheels were set in motion for rationalizing the policy to be pursued in respect to the colored children of Newark.19 The matter of high school attendance brought this problem into a still clearer focus. In May, 1871, the Board of Education tabled a motion to the effect that at the approaching examinations for admission to the high school properly qualified candidates from the Colored School should be admitted.20 The Board then appointed a committee to consider the “propriety of introducing into the Colored School as may be required such subjects” as were then offered in the high school.21 In September, 1871, the Board decided to consider the Colored School in relation to the high school as a grammar school.22 As a consequence of this ruling Irene Pataquam Mulford became the first colored pupil to be admitted to the Newark High School.23 She had to sit alone in the last

12. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1865, 88. 13. Ibid., 1866, 78. 14. Ibid., 79. 15. Ibid., 1867, 81. 16. Ibid., 1872–­1873, 3. 17. Ibid., 1875, 31–­32. 18. Ibid., 1879–­1880, 53. 19. Minutes of Newark Board of Education, 1/3/1868. 20. Ibid., 5/26/1871. 21. Ibid., 6/1/1871. 22. Ibid., 9/29/1871. 23. Annual Report of the Newark Board of Education, 1872, 52.

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seat because it was not possible for a colored pupil at that time to sit next to a white pupil. But she said that in all other respects she was treated with much consideration.24 In his annual report the Newark Superintendent of Schools pointed out the necessity of making some arrangements for the colored children, since many of them suffered a great handicap in the distances they had to travel to school. He saw three possibilities: maintaining a central school; establishing three or four schools in different sections of the city; or requiring all to attend the schools for white children. It was difficult for the Superintendent to determine which would be the best solution of this problem. He preferred a central school to three or four smaller schools. The small children, under eight or ten years of age, could attend the primary schools in their neighborhoods and all above that age could attend the central school. It was his opinion that if the children were admitted to the primary schools, as they now were to the high school, the prejudices of color would be softened, and the people would gradually be prepared for the day, that was surely coming and which he believed was near at hand, when no distinction in regard to public school accommodations would be made on the basis of color. Continuing, Superintendent Sears intimated that while he did not want to hasten this state of things to the prejudice of either the white or the colored citizens, he believed it wise for all to prepare their minds for such an event, as he sometimes thought it was so near that it was hardly worth while to build separate schools.25 When in 1872 a motion was made that colored children applying to the principals of the primary or grammar schools in the district where they resided should be admitted to the schools, subject to the regulations of the Board, an effort was made by one of the commissioners to have the motion postponed indefinitely. Immediately another motion was made to the effect “that colored children are, and are hereby declared to be entitled to admission to all the public schools of the city on the same terms and conditions as other children.”26 The Board passed this motion by a vote of twenty-­one to one, the one negative ballot being cast by the same person who had attempted to have the original motion postponed.27 Superintendent Sears later revealed that not many children had availed themselves of this privilege of changing schools but that there were colored children in all grades from the primary to the normal. To the credit of the teachers and scholars it could be said that the entrance of these Negroes hardly produced a stir in the atmosphere of the schools. Out of ten thousand children in the schools, the Superintendent did not know of ten who had been withdrawn as a consequence of the admission of about sixty colored children into the regular schools. These children had

24. Interview with Mrs. Irene Pataquam Mulford. Mrs. Mulford says that one teacher was especially kind to her when she went to the school. She was made editor of the class paper and was invited to play the march by which the class left the room but her natural shyness prevented her doing so a second time even though the teacher volunteered to stand beside her in order to inspire self confidence. In her early years, she attended a nursery school which was kept by a Mrs. Thompson who taught the children the alphabet, spelling lessons from the primer, and a smattering of music. The purpose of this school was not so much to impart knowledge as it was to keep the children occupied. She also attended another such school conducted in the home of Mrs. Elymas Rogers whose husband was pastor of the African Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Mulford’s daughter, Mae Mulford, is a teacher in the Newark school system. 25. Annual Report of the Newark Board of Education, 1871, 65–­66. 26. Italics the writer’s. 27. Minutes Newark Board of Education, 2/23/1872.

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taken their places in these schools “upon a grade of studies corresponding with the same grade in the Colored School.” As far as quality of instruction was concerned, no benefits had been gained by the change. But as far as race or nationality was concerned the schools were “emphatically free schools.”28 The United States Commissioner of Education also paid a tribute to the quality of teaching done in the Newark Colored School when he spoke of the principal, James Baxter, as a good scholar whose pupils were well taught.29 After the retirement of this principal,30 the Colored School was abolished. When Bergen consolidated with Jersey City in 1870, the children in the colored school on the hill, as Bergen was then designated, joined other pupils in a separate school in the lower part of Jersey City. Four years later this building was closed and the pupils were sent to two other schools, No. 5 and No. 21. In 1872, after School No. 12 had moved to a new structure, the school officials transferred all the colored pupils to the old building, dropped the term “colored,” and designated it as School No. 16. In 1877, however, the Board of Education reorganized this school and allowed the colored pupils to attend the regular schools in their respective districts. This move was prompted by the fact that only forty colored children were then making use of the facilities of the building, while five hundred white children in the district lacked school accommodations. In 1878 the superintendent of schools made the complaint that, although this structure could accommodate almost two hundred additional children, there were some who could not bring themselves to attend a school which had once been designated as “colored” or where twenty-­five or thirty children still in attendance were “guilty of possessing a hue darker than their own.” He expressed the hope that the objection would soon disappear, as there were then colored children in nearly every school. When Greenville was annexed to Jersey City in 1873 the separate school for colored children in that municipality was also abandoned.31 In 1869 the Paterson Board of Education considered a complaint registered by parents of colored children attending the school in Clinton Street, who were living at considerable distances from the building.32 In 1873 the Board reported that a new site had been secured for a colored school, but the erection of a structure was to be delayed as the number of colored children, approximately seventy-­five in an enrollment of about six thousand, did not appear to justify the expenditure at the time. Speaking on the subject of mixed schools, the Board declared that “the abstract right of the colored parent to send his children to any school in the district where he resides, is at present contended for with a keenness and earnestness which is the more logically accounted for by reason of the newness of the subject than by any justly grounded expectation that the dark and white races 28. Annual Report of the Newark Board of Education, 1873, 32–­33. 29. Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1870, 223–­224. 30. Mr. Baxter was a graduate of the Institute for Colored Youth which was founded by the Friends of Philadelphia for the education of Negro youth in higher branches of learning in 1839. He was appointed principal of the Colored School in Newark in 1864 and remained in this position until his retirement in 1909. A daughter, Grace Baxter Fenderson, is a teacher in the system. 31. Harney, op. cit., 130. 32. Annual Report of Paterson Board of Education, 1869, 15.

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of men will ever consent to stand together on the plane of acknowledged educational or mental equality.” The annual report expressed the opinion that it would be better for the members of the Board to stir up the subject as little as possible until the matter had had an opportunity to die out of its own accord, “and the black man finds his place in school as heretofore he has in the churches, viz., together with those of like color. Thus associated, his docile and comparatively unintellectual nature will be free from the aggressiveness and the ridicule of the white children.”33 But in 1872 the Board voted to permit colored children to attend the schools in their respective districts. All but five or six availed themselves of the privilege. In the following year, the Board ordered the Colored School abandoned and the property on which it stood sold.34 In 1870 there appeared a possibility of a separate school’s being established where there had not been one before. After the erection of a new building a member of the Passaic Board of Education made a motion to retain the old one for the use of the colored children. After discussing the subject, the Board concluded that such a scheme was impractical and that the colored children had as much right to attend the new school as any other children in the district.35 The colored school in Elizabeth was closed during the winter of 1868 because of the very small attendance. However, an evening school for the benefit of the colored population was opened through the generosity of Mr. Nathaniel Meeker, a “young man of liberal education, and having a warm sympathy for the colored people in this community.”36 In the next year, the officials reopened the day school with an attendance of thirty pupils, which was said to be the largest number to have attended the school in years.37 In 1867, because the per capita cost of educating each child in this school was estimated at thirty dollars, the Board decided to close the building.38 This action marked the end of approximately one half the segregated schools in the northern counties.

State Normal School On March 5, 1873, colored citizens of Mercer County presented a petition to the State Senate relative to the admission of colored students to the normal school. In less than two weeks the Committee on Education reported that it had given the subject the consideration its importance deserved and agreed with the petitioners that the educational advantages of a state educational institution, sustained by all classes, should not be denied to any on account of color. The law required that “at the opening of each term of the Normal School, the principal with his assistants, shall proceed to examine applicants, and to admit to the school such as appear to be possessed of the proper qualifications, to the number to which each county may be entitled.” The Committee pointed out that the language employed was general in character, and could not possibly be construed as excluding any class or race of people in the state. A reference in the law to the race or color of applicants such as was desired by the petitioners

33. Ibid., 1873, 37. 34. Nelson, op. cit., 50. 35. William Pape and William Scott (Editors), History of Passaic (Passaic, 1899), 102. 36. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1868, 179. 37. Ibid., 1869, 101. 38. Minutes Elizabeth Board of Education, 8/8/1877.

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would have been unwise in the Committee’s opinion, as it would have conferred no rights not already possessed, and would have tended to create distinctions where none existed. Not being content with having examined into the “sufficiency of the law” the Committee had inquired into its operation. It developed that several years previous a person of color had applied for admission to the school but had been rejected. The Committee had been unable to discover the reason. As far as the present principal knew, no other application had since been filed. There was no doubt but that the present head of the institution would comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the law, and that fitness alone, not color or race, would determine the success of the applicants for admission to the school. In view of these data, the Committee recommended that no change be made in the law at that time.39

Significant Population Figures The fact that, in 1880, 8,393 of the 11,184 Negroes of New Jersey born in other states had come from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia leads to a very strong inference that separate schools were more readily accepted by Negroes in the southern counties because of the similarity of living conditions in South Jersey to life in those states from which they had come. The Negroes from these states constituted over one-­third of the total population of 38,853 Negroes then resident in New Jersey.40 Whereas it might have been expected that the Democrats in the northern counties, who had so vehemently opposed the acceptance of Negroes on any basis approaching social or political equality, would have prevented the integration of the colored children into the regular schools, it developed that every separate school which had existed in these counties was eventually abolished. A very important consideration is the fact that more than one-­fourth of the population of Essex, one-­third of Hudson, almost one-­fourth of Union, and nearly one-­fifth of Middlesex were foreign born. These five counties had more than two-­thirds of the foreign born population of the state.41 With such a heavy infiltration of people born in other lands, the influence exerted by tradition and homogeneity of population in respect to nationality, opinions, and attitudes was considerably weakened. It was certainly this factor which contributed as much, if not more, than reasons of economy or protest on the part of Negroes themselves to the elimination of separate schools in northern counties. Consideration also has to be given to the practices of New York and Philadelphia which influenced the two contiguous sections of the state.

39. Journal of the Senate, 1873, 509, 655–­656. 40. United States Census Report, 1880, 488–­491. 41. Ibid., 439.

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The Law of 1881 In the first instance, I think most of us would agree that to segregate is to stigmatize, however much we may try to rationalize it. We segregate the criminal, the insane, pupils with low IQ’s, Negroes, and other undesirables. charles h. thompson With the temper of our country what it has been and still is, if the effectual local opinion is opposed to any law, it is almost impossible to enforce that law in that locality. william h. kilpatrick

The closing decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a continued development of the trends which manifested themselves during the years of the Reconstruction period. Negroes in New Brunswick requested an expansion of educational opportunities for their children. Colored citizens of Englewood protested the establishment of a segregated school. Refusal of school authorities in Fairhaven to allow Negro children to attend the regular school led to the enactment of a state law prohibiting the exclusion of any child from any public school on account of religion, nationality, or color. The Court upheld the right of colored children to attend the schools in the districts in which they lived. But Negroes themselves weakened the force of the law by accepting separate schools in Fair Haven and Long Branch. Subsequent developments resulted in a continuation of segregation practices in the southern counties, on the one hand, and an integration of Negro children into the regular schools in the northern counties, on the other. Negro citizens through vigorous protests thwarted attempts to introduce segregation into East Orange, a northern community. Negro leaders forged another link in the chain of separate schools when they founded a manual training and industrial school to provide vocational instruction for their youths. In 1900 the state legislature completed the pattern of Negro education by placing this school under the management of the State Department of Public Instruction.

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Negroes Protest Educational Restrictions After several changes in the housing of the school at New Brunswick, the colored citizens in 1875 presented a petition concerning the school accommodations available for their children.1 A month later the Committee on Teachers was instructed to consider the feasibility of holding two sessions in the colored schools as a possible means of adjustment. Four years later the colored voters sent in another petition charging that their children had long suffered and still continued to suffer great injury and disadvantages from the fact that they were not allowed to advance beyond the grades established in the one school which they were permitted to attend. Every year cases occurred where children were obliged to give up their schooling just at the time they were prepared to receive the greatest benefit from it, because they were denied the privilege of advancing to the higher grades, which other children enjoyed. For these reasons the colored citizens asked that their children be allowed to enter the Bayard Street School.2 The Committee to whom these charges were referred “cheerfully recognized” the right of the children of the petitioners to all the educational advantages they were capable of receiving while they were of school age; and also the duty of the Board to make full provision of good and suitable means for this education. Such provision they positively asserted had been amply made. The colored children had a good school building, “well furnished and appointed, and competent teachers.” Miss Jones, the principal teacher, was a graduate of the Philadelphia Colored Normal School and was qualified to teach in grades far in advance of those to which any of these children had attained. The charge of the petitioners that their children suffered injury and injustice they declared to be unjust and untrue. No child in the “one school” had ever reached the boundaries of the higher grades there established and taught, nor had any been refused the right to advance beyond these grades. No one had been obliged to give up his schooling because he had been denied the privilege of advancing to a higher grade than that which he had already completed. Miss Jones’s educational resources had been largely drawn upon by them, but certainly they had never been exhausted by any one of her pupils. The Committee, therefore, believed that the petition based as it was “on groundless charge and injustice” presented no cause for the further action of the Board.3 In Englewood the public sentiment appeared “to be awakened to the expediency of establishing a separate school in a separate place for the exclusive tuition of colored pupils.” The Board of Education resolved that the question of establishing such a school be submitted to the legal voters of the township. The trustees further determined that in the event an affirmative decision should be rendered, the sum of five hundred dollars would need to be raised by taxation to carry the proposed plan into effect.4 The proposition was adopted,5 the school was established, and a

1. Minutes of New Brunswick Board of Education, 6/2/1875. 2. Ibid., 7/30/1879, 10/1/1879. 3. Ibid. 4. Minutes Englewood Board of Education, 4/20/1878. 5. Ibid., 5/18/1878.

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colored teacher appointed6 to instruct the seventy children who constituted almost ten per cent of the school population of the town.7 County Superintendent Demarest stated in his annual report that Englewood had entered into a project of which he heartily approved. Colored children “were numerous” in that district yet but few of them had been seen in school. So instead of being educated to usefulness, under careful instruction, a large majority of them were running at will in the streets, learning all the vices found on street corners, and being rapidly prepared to become inmates of the almshouses and state prisons. Consequently, the legal voters directed the trustees, for the good of the colored race, to fit up a building specially for their use, and force the children to attend school. Thus was Superintendent Demarest able to say that the first colored school in Bergen County had been established.8 The following year Superintendent Demarest had to admit that the school had not met with the success for which he had hoped, but he trusted a glorious future still awaited it, as he believed the establishment of this school to be a move in the right direction. Many of the colored people had thought its object was to create a caste to deprive them of their rights, and so had refused to send their children to the school. But when they found upon investigation that the trustees had acted strictly in accordance with the law, which left no redress in the courts for their “supposed wrongs,” they were willing to discuss the matter quietly in order to reach an amicable settlement. An audience was granted them, as a result of which they promised to send their children to the school. In another year there would probably be a new building for their use. And so, the superintendent concluded, ended the difficulty with the colored citizens in this district and the colored school could be considered a “fixed fact.”9 It remained a “fixed fact” for five years, when a law was passed which served as a basis for redress from separate schools.

The Fair Haven School War In January, 1881, owing partly to the resignation of Miss Zumella Johnson, teacher of the colored school in Fair Haven, and partly to some difficulty between the collector and her, a train of events was initiated which had repercussions far and wide. According to reports, the school remained closed during the whole of January because of the inability of the school officials to secure another teacher. In the meanwhile the children roamed the streets. Finally several of these children applied for admission to the white school, where they were assigned seats. More indicated their intention of entering. But the white people insisted they would withdraw their children from the school if the colored children were admitted. The school board, in view of the adverse public sentiment and the lack of sufficient seats for additional pupils, decided to close the white school if the colored children presented themselves there. These children presented themselves, and the school was closed.10

6. Ibid., 5/17/1879. 7. Ibid., 8/5/1874. 8. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1877–­1878, 37. 9. Ibid., 1878–­1879, 31. 10. Sentinel of Freedom, March 1, 1881.

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The following week the trustees secured a “competent teacher” for the colored school, but the aroused parents expressed indignation at the exclusion of their children from the white school for which they paid taxes. Meantime the colored schoolhouse burned to the ground in a mysterious manner. The belief was expressed by the white residents, and also by one of the trustees, that some of the colored people had deliberately set the school on fire. This was emphatically denied by the Negroes, who insisted that the fire was caused by the stove, which was set close to the wall on bare boards without zinc.11 There was not, however, a unanimity of opinion among the colored people regarding the school. The great majority, it was claimed, did not wish to have their children attend the white school if proper quarters were provided elsewhere. On the other hand, a few Negroes insisted on having the privilege of using the white school. Consequently, the belief developed that if some of the latter group should send their children to this school the following week, their action would only result in a second closing of the school, since the trustees “were determined not to yield.” The editor of the Newark Sentinel, expressing sympathy with the colored people in their dispute and declaring that the children were entitled to admission to the common public school, viewed it as an act of smallness on the part of the trustees to have kept them out. If they desired a school of their own, the editor saw it as right enough that they should have it, provided the trustees were willing to pay the additional expense, but he felt that such an arrangement should be one of courtesy.12 In giving its version of this dispute, the Trenton Weekly Gazette pointed out that there had been two public schools in Fair Haven, one for white children and another for colored. When the colored teacher resigned the trustees closed the colored school and thereby sent the forty or more colored pupils to the white school. At this, the white children revolted and stopped attending school. A rebellion of the white teacher followed, and the school trustees were forced to procure a colored teacher and reopen the colored school.13 At a school meeting held later the Negroes insisted that a new addition be built to the white school for the accommodation of their children. The whites opposed this mingling of the races, but voted for a new school for the colored children. A committee was then appointed to select a site and report at a meeting to be held March 29.14 The following week an editorial in this same paper expressed the opinion that the race war raging at Fair Haven, in Monmouth County, revealed a far from creditable condition of public opinion among the white residents in that section. Why the whites should resist so desperately the admission of colored children to the public school was difficult to understand. “But,” continued the editorial, “there lingers a good deal of the old Copperhead spirit in Monmouth County.”15 Declaring that the exaggerated and in some respects untruthful reports of a “school war” at Fair Haven had done great injustice to all the parties interested, both white and black, the Monmouth Democrat set forth a history of the school situation as gathered from the various persons concerned. Accordingly, it was reported that on the twenty-­second of the previous January a committee of 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Weekly State Gazette (Trenton), March 3, 1881. 14. Ibid., March 17, 1881. 15. Ibid., March 24, 1881.

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three colored men residing in Fair Haven had visited Robert Allen Jr., an attorney, at his office in Red Bank, and informed him that the colored school at Fair Haven was not in a fit condition for use as a school. The sides of the building were open so as to make it impossible to heat the building and other repairs were necessary. Mr. Allen prepared a paper for the committee to serve on the trustees, in which demands were made that the colored school building be put in fit and proper condition for use. Miss Johnson, the teacher who had had a misunderstanding with the township collector about the payment of her salary, and who had become so disgusted with the bad condition of the schoolroom, suddenly decided to leave. The county superintendent and the trustees immediately set out to procure another teacher for the school, which in the meantime was closed. The white school being already overcrowded, it was, they declared, impossible to take the colored children in there, so to avoid confusion, the white school was closed for one day. Miss Mary Harper was shortly afterward engaged to teach the colored school. Everything went on as usual until the following Wednesday evening, February 23, when the school burned to the ground. Since the burning of the building the colored children had not attended school. A meeting of the people of the district was called for March 15 to take action in the matter of providing a new place for them. These facts, said the report, had given rise to a host of rumors which had circulated through the community gathering new additions at every stage, until the county was startled by the sensational stories of the “Shore Fiend” who threatened a war of races “at quiet, law abiding, and happy Fair Haven.”16 The most diligent inquiry had failed to discover anything like a school war at Fair Haven, but, on the contrary, the white and colored people were found to be living in quiet harmony under the terms of an agreement made three years previously. At that time a meeting of the people of the district had been held to determine what should be done for the accommodation of the school children. County Superintendent Lockwood had presided at the meeting where the necessities of the colored population were “fully considered.” The delegation of representative colored men who were present was heard. The chairman of the meeting insisted that the colored people be fully heard and encouraged those present to speak. “They demanded a separate school asking as good accommodations as the whites.” It was “fully agreed” that a tax should be voted large enough to build a new schoolhouse for the white children and to secure comfortable quarters for the colored. At the expiration of five years another tax was to be voted in order to build a new structure for the colored children. This proposition was supposed to have been satisfactory to the Negroes. The men at the meeting, characterizing the action as generous, “thanked the people present on behalf of their colored neighbors, for the friendly, considerate and satisfactory manner in which they had been treated.”17 The destruction of the building in which the colored school had been held necessitated the construction of a new structure earlier than had been agreed upon. It was certain the meeting on March 15 would vote a tax on the district large enough to raise the required amount. When Miss Johnson left the school, correspondence was at once opened between the county superintendent and the trustees on the question of admitting the colored children to the white school. 16. Monmouth Democrat (Freehold), March 10, 1881. 17. Ibid.

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Superintendent Lockwood’s advice had been that the colored people ought to adhere to the agreement they had made, “that they were morally bound not to ask admission to the white school house.” The editor, stating that Superintendent Lockwood realized that admission to the white school could not be legally denied the colored children, insisted he could not have given the advice “to keep them out at all hazards,” as one New York paper had stated it. Nor did he “in the most forcible manner insist that the white and colored children must not under any circumstances be allowed to attend school in the same building,” as had been charged by this same paper.18 On March 7, 1881, as a result of this “school war,” Senator James Youngblood, Republican senator for Morris County, introduced a bill in the New Jersey Senate providing: 1. That no child, between the age of five and eighteen years of age, shall be excluded from any public school in this state on account of his or her religion, nationality or color. 2. That any member of any board of education in this state, who shall vote to exclude from any public school in this state any child between the age of five and eighteen years of age, on account of his or her religion, nationality or color, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail, workhouse or penitentiary of the county in which the offense is committed not less than thirty days nor more than six months, or both fine and imprisonment may be imposed in the discretion of the Court. 3. That this act shall take effect immediately.19

This bill passed the senate March 10 by a vote of fifteen to two. A week later, when it came up in the assembly, Mr. Van Cleef of Middlesex County moved its indefinite postponement. Mr. Bonsall of Camden County spoke against the bill, saying that it would create an agitation which they were trying to prevent. Mr. O’Connor of Essex County said it was a just and liberal measure and should pass, while Mr. Williams said no man should put himself on record against it. Then Mr. Lufburrow of Monmouth County offered an amendment providing that county and city superintendents should set off schools for the exclusive use of colored children, when there were a sufficient number to do so. Mr. Munn of Essex characterized the amendment as monstrous, and after some debate it was defeated. Mr. O’Connor successfully moved the suspension of the rules so that the bill might be put on its final passage. In explaining his vote Mr. Murphy said that Monmouth County desired separate schools, that Fair Haven desired them, and that the newspapers were all wrong in their reports on the subject. In reply, Mr. O’Connor said that he would not stultify himself by not voting for the bill after spending the four best years of his life fighting for freedom. Mr. Wright added he would be ashamed of himself if he voted against the bill.20 The assembly passed the measure by a vote of thirty-­seven to eighteen, the split being along party lines. Every negative vote was cast by a Democrat. Governor Ludlow, Democrat, filed the

18. Ibid. 19. Laws of New Jersey, 1881, 186. 20. Daily State Gazette, March 18, 1881.

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bill with the New Jersey Secretary of State without his signature.21 On the other hand, some of the affirmative votes were cast by members of the Democratic party. Mr. O’Connor, one of the most ardent spokesmen in behalf of the measure, was a member of this party. Neither was the split along sectional lines, since the representatives who voted against the bill came from northern and southern counties. The Hunterdon County Democrat, commenting on the proposed enactment, remarked that “our ardent Republican friend from Morris County, in order that no colored person shall be excluded from the public schools, has introduced a bill to prevent such a calamity. In the Democratic city of Trenton they build school houses for colored people.”22 This same paper a week later sarcastically warned that great care should be taken to see that this bill, with another in favor of Negroes, was not lost and the displeasure of the national government incurred, as it would be a sad thing if the “honorable senators should be gobbled up by a lot of United States Marshals from Washington.”23 The Monmouth Democrat opined that the measure practically compelled the admission of colored children into the same schools with the white children, whether the colored children had schools of their own or not.24 In view of the passage of this law on March 23, 1881, the following report in the Monmouth Democrat of a school meeting held at Fair Haven on the twenty-­ninth of the same month has significance: “Notwithstanding the false and exaggerated accounts of the school meeting held at Fair Haven on the evening of the 29th, which was published in the New York papers” the meeting was said to have been a quiet one. When the Reverend J. K. Freed stepped upon the platform to call the meeting to order, the schoolroom was crowded with men and boys, many of them black. The best of good feeling prevailed and there was no excitement. Immediately after the meeting was called to order the district clerk said the committee appointed to select a site and prepare specifications for a new schoolhouse for colored children had not been able to complete its report, and would therefore ask for another week’s time, when Superintendent Lockwood would be able to attend. The meeting was accordingly adjourned for one week. After the close of the meeting the men gathered about the room in groups talking over the situation. At times some little excitement showed itself in the discussions, but there was nothing to indicate the heated feeling which had been represented as existing.25 General Clinton B. Fisk, after whom Fisk University had been named, expressed himself as opposed to the mixing of the races at Fair Haven. It had been currently reported that the General was present for the purpose of championing the cause of the colored people. This, said the report, was true so far as that cause was a just one and commended itself to the good judgment of a gentleman of General Fisk’s experience. Upon “careful inquiry” the General had reached the conclusion it would be unwise to mix the races. Two evenings later he presented his views at length to a meeting of colored people. The Reverend Benjamin Williams, pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, seconded General Fisk’s suggestions. When a vote was taken it was unanimously 21. Monmouth Inquirer (Freehold), March 31, 1881. 22. Hunterdon County Democrat (Flemington), March 15, 1881. 23. Ibid., March 22, 1881. 24. Monmouth Democrat, March 24, 1881. 25. Ibid., April 7, 1881.

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decided to accept a separate school. This decision at once “simplified matters” and thus obviated further difficulty. The following Tuesday evening the upper room of the school building was again crowded with citizens. The first business was the report of the committee appointed to select the site for the school.26 The committee had selected a satisfactory location and had prepared equally satisfactory plans. General Fisk, being invited to speak, addressed them for one half hour in “his usual happy style, assuring them that the common sense and good judgment of the colored people had guided them to the position they had taken in accepting a new school house.”27 Dr. Lockwood in his report to the state superintendent for the year 1880–­1881 said Fair Haven had nobly fulfilled its promises in having erected for the colored people an elegant and commodious schoolhouse.28 The following year he reported that the “commodious new colored schoolhouse at Fair Haven has done a year of right good work. The citizens are proud of it, and the encouragement given their teacher by the pastor has greatly strengthened her hands. It must be mentioned that the singular success of this school is due not a little to the kind attention given it by General Clinton B. Fisk and his excellent lady.”29 The influence of General Fisk, whom the Negroes of Fair Haven held in high esteem, and who was opposed to the mixing of the races in the school there, undoubtedly exerted considerable weight in persuading them to accept a separate school when a law had just been passed making it legally possible for them to attend the white school in the township. This naturally weakened the law before it had been given a chance to operate. A further weakening occurred when a month later Negroes of Long Branch asked for a separate school for their children.30 In 1884 it was reported that the requested school had been erected.31

Developments in the Years following the Law of 1881 In the year following the difficulty at Fair Haven, Dr. Lockwood told of the vote of the Asbury Park School District to enlarge its building, to erect a grammar school on the Ocean Grove side of the district, and to build a school for colored children.32 Dr. Lockwood went on to say that some years before, having become aggrieved with the indifference of the colored people of Brown’s Point and Matawan in respect to the education of their children, he had sought to stir up interest by working on an original line. “Their invariable averment,” he said, “was that they would send their children to school if I would give them a school of their own.” He called together the trustees of three contiguous districts for a conference. They assured him no obstacles had ever been put in the way of these children’s attending the white schools. The simple fact was they would not attend

26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1880–­1881, 70. 29. Ibid., 1881–­1882, 66. 30. Weekly State Gazette, May 5, 1881. 31. History of Monmouth County (New York, 1922), Vol. I, 396. 32. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1881–­1882, 65.

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them. The boards then agreed and accepted with unanimity the proposition that if Superintendent Lockwood would get a place and organize a school for the colored children, and see that it was run efficiently, they would submit to an assessment upon their several funds for its support, with the understanding that any one board could on due notice given to the county superintendent withdraw from the compact, in which case the entire agreement would cease. This arrangement proved to be a “great blessing,” and for twelve years the colored school grew in popularity. Dr. Lockwood said that, to his sorrow, a paper was served on him by a majority of the trustees of No. 48 asking to be allowed to withdraw from the covenant, on the ground that the number of colored children in their district had become so small that the assessment was in excess of the good obtained, and they thought they could do as well for the colored children in the white school. “Of course,” continued Lockwood, “this was a settlement much against my own wishes, and to the grief of the colored citizens the school was disbanded and the children directed to go to the respective white schools.”33 In 1884 Superintendent Lockwood advised that a “nice colored school” had been built in Asbury Park.34 Five years later there were six separate schools for colored children in Monmouth County, “each taught by a teacher of their own preference,” and of them he could not say less than that they stood high and he was proud of them.35 Subsequent reports to the State Department of Public Instruction show that not only did the law passed in 1881 fail to accomplish its purpose in Fair Haven or in Monmouth County, but that it failed to effect the abolition or erection of separate schools in other counties in South Jersey. While the law stipulated that no child should be excluded from a public school because of religion, nationality, or color, it did not provide against the setting up of schools for colored children. About 1881 a separate school for approximately forty-­six children was opened in Atlantic City. It continued successfully for several years, until political influences prevailed against separate schools.36 The superintendent testified to the resumption of segregation of colored pupils when in 1901 he said that the employment of colored teachers for separate classes had worked very successfully in that city.37 The ten who were employed occupied rooms in the same building attended by white children. The separation continued as far as the seventh grade, after which the colored children attended mixed classes. The superintendent saw this practice as beneficial to the race in many respects.38 In the following year, pointing out that the colored and Italian population formed a very large portion of the school enrollment, he complained that it was these nationalities which were largely indifferent and thus neglected to send their children to school regularly.39 In 1903, again expressing the opinion that the separate rooms for colored children had been beneficial in more ways than one, the superintendent considered the harmonious feeling existing between parents,

33. Ibid., 65–­66. 34. Ibid., 1883–­1884, 88. 35. Ibid., 1888–­1889, 65. 36. John Hall, Daily Union History of Atlantic City and County (Atlantic City, 1900), 267. 37. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1901, 244. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., 1902, 112.

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children, and school officials as very gratifying. A field of usefulness had been opened to bright colored girls. He trusted these girls might finally complete the high school course, and enter higher institutions of learning, thus preparing themselves for the better enlightenment and educational uplifting of their own race.40 One wonders why, in view of the harmonious feelings existing between the various groups connected with the school, the superintendent felt called upon to foster separate classes rather than build upon the existing good feelings to promote the education of the two groups in a more democratic manner. When colored children applied for admission to the white school in the district in which they were living, if that district was remote from the school set up for the exclusive use of colored children, the right to attend such schools was upheld by the court. Three years after the enactment of the law of 1881, a case in point arose in the city of Burlington, which had four public schools, one of which had been set apart for Negroes. A Negro petitioned for a writ of mandamus to compel the trustees to admit his children to the white schools and the Court issued the writ on the ground that it was unlawful for school trustees to exclude children from any school because of their race.41 This conflict in Burlington prompted the superintendent of schools in Camden to send in a rather lengthy commendation of the colored schools in that city where, under the leadership of W. F. Powell, the attendance had increased from two hundred to seven hundred and ninety children. At one time it had been a moot question with the trustees whether the school should not be turned over to the white children whose needs required expansion. Another school could then be built which would be capable of accommodating all the children of the darker race who wanted to attend. But now the necessity had arisen for giving additional facilities for the Negro children. The grade of study had been raised and the level of the school had been elevated to that of the grammar grade. It had an able corps of teachers and was fast becoming one of the best schools of the city. The superintendent who had examined some of the work in the grammar department had found it equal to any work in any of the other schools. The cleanliness of the rooms, the neat appearance of the children, the literary productions, and the musical programs were excellent. He had been a close observer of the work of the school in order to determine for himself whether schools taught by colored teachers were a success or a failure. Admitting that he did not know how it stood in other parts of the state, the superintendent declared that the colored schools in Camden taught by the colored teachers were a decided success. This city, too, had a larger colored population than any city of its class in the state, yet the Board had never received an application from a colored child to enter the other schools. Notwithstanding the efforts of certain ones to do away with these schools, by tact or something else, Mr. Powell had so interested the people of his race that they preferred to send their children to him rather than to send them elsewhere.42 From his knowledge of the colored schools in Camden, the superintendent believed the colored people

40. Ibid., 1903, 93. 41. New Jersey Law Reports, Pierce V. Union District, Vroom, Vol. XVII, 76. 42. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1883–­1884, 6.

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much preferred sending their children to such schools, providing equal opportunities were there granted them for the education of their children, than to send them to the best white school.43 In the same decade a new district was formed around the colored district belonging to Elsinborough District in Salem County by which a nine months’ schooling was assured the children of that locality. It was said that this was satisfactory to all concerned.44 A building which had been begun for colored children several years before in Woodbury was completed in 1889.45 Milford District in Burlington County built a new house for the accommodation of the “few colored children in the district,” at a cost of about three hundred dollars.46 Toward the close of the century Robert Gwynne Jr.,47 superintendent of schools in Salem County, informed the state superintendent that they had seven schools for the exclusive use of colored children taught by colored teachers. He was proud to be able to say that the work of these teachers was uniformly excellent, and in a majority of instances compared most favorably with the work of the schools attended by white children. Not only was the colored teachers’ pedagogical work excellent, but their moral influence in their respective neighborhoods was marked and was “bearing glorious fruit.” Through their influence the colored children were being inspired with a desire for higher education, and for the first time in its history the county had representatives in such noted institutions for colored youth as Howard University, Hampton Institute, Lincoln University, and the school at Bordentown under the care of the state educational authorities. While the schools for colored children were increasing in the southern counties, the remaining schools of this kind in the northern counties were, as a result of the law of 1881, being discontinued. The school in New Brunswick was considered unnecessary when the colored children, under the operation of the new law, applied for admission to the other schools.48 In 1884 at a meeting of the school board in Englewood, the Reverend Mr. Voorhies stated that the trustees had had a meeting the previous evening and were of the opinion it would be unwise or improper for them to refuse the colored children admission to the public schools.49 The colored school which had been established by Friends in Rahway had been placed under the control of the regular school system in 1872.50 This school continued under the Board of Education until 1882, when a situation arose which resulted in the closing of the school. The Reverend Howell had taken his children to the Washington School and demanded that they be admitted. Commissioner Cook had refused their admission because the colored school had been closed on account of smallpox. When the Reverend Mr. Howell came a second time to make the same demand, and was again refused, he considered that he had done his duty in the matter. The Board endorsed the action of Commissioner Cook, who then moved that the principals of all the schools be instructed and directed to receive any and all children of school age irrespective of color residing in their district 43. Ibid., 7. 44. Ibid., 1888–­1889, 75. 45. Ibid., 1889–­1890, 25. 46. Ibid., 1891–­1892, 17. 47. Ibid., 1896–­1897, 184. 48. Minutes New Brunswick Board of Education, 4/28/1882. 49. Minutes Englewood Board of Education, 4/1/1884. 50. Minutes Rahway Board of Education, 4/11/1872.

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and to treat them all in the same manner. The motion was adopted by a vote of four to one, after which the Board directed the secretary to notify the principals of this action.51 Through the sponsorship of Senator Youngblood of Morris County, who introduced the law of 1881, the section of the school regulations governing Morristown, which provided for a separate school for colored children, was repealed.52 The Jerseyman, reporting that the colored school on Spring Street had been discontinued, said that all the children would be placed together without regard to race, creed, sex, or previous condition of servitude.53 Contrary to the tendency exhibited in the northern counties at this time, the Superintendent of Schools in East Orange was authorized by the Board of Education to inquire into the possibility of securing a satisfactory teacher for colored children, in order to aid the Board in the consideration of the wisdom of establishing a separate room for such pupils.54 A few months later the question of employing a colored teacher was discussed and the chairman of the Committee on Teachers was authorized to confer informally with the Reverend Mr. Travis, the pastor of the colored church, regarding the matter.55 Two days later the Board rejected by a five to four vote a recommendation to employ a colored teacher at a salary not exceeding six hundred dollars, to teach separately colored children below the fifth grade.56 The following year there was initiated a move which caused much difficulty between the Board and the colored citizens of East Orange. The superintendent had stated that from twenty-­five to thirty-­five colored pupils of the Eastern School were from two to eight years older than the average of the classes to which they belonged. The result was detrimental to the morals and the educational advancement of the older pupils mentioned. He suggested as an experiment that a superior teacher be secured and a small ungraded class be established in the Eastern School for such backward colored pupils. This plan, as explained, contemplated leaving the remaining colored children of the Eastern and other schools in their present grades and returning the backward pupils to the regular grades after reaching the fifth-­or sixth-­year class. In accordance with this suggestion, it was decided to employ as an experiment a colored teacher for backward colored children in a separate room in the Eastern School.57 Miss Clara W. Burrill, of Washington, D.C., was appointed at a salary of seven hundred dollars to teach this ungraded class.58 A delegation of citizens of East Orange and other places, accompanied by their counsel, appeared to protest the proposed experiment. Mr. Munn, the attorney, set forth his opinion of the legal aspects of the case. After his argument, different members of the delegation spoke and presented a protest and also a petition signed by a committee representing colored citizens.59 These acts resulted in a temporary abandonment of the contemplated project.

51. Ibid., 2/7/1882. 52. Laws of New Jersey, 1886, 437. 53. Jerseyman (Morristown), September 3, 1886. 54. Minutes East Orange Board of Education, 12/21/1897. 55. Ibid., 4/6/1898. 56. Ibid., 4/8/1898. 57. Ibid., 4/10/1899. 58. Ibid., 6/12/1899. 59. Ibid., 7/10/1899.

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In 1905 the superintendent reported there had been under successful operation for a week at Eastern School a class of thirty-­five made up entirely of colored children.60 But the next month there were present in the Board room as many parents as the room would accommodate. Mr. Robert Travis, on their behalf, read a protest and resolutions which had been adopted concerning the segregation of colored pupils in the first and second grades of the Ashland School.61 They failed to gain satisfaction until after parents withdrew their children from schools62 and a protest had been sent to Trenton.63 Following a meeting held March 26, 1906, the Board voted to discontinue the classes over which there had been so much contention.64

Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth The African Education Society of Newark and the national conventions of Negroes had advocated the establishing of schools which would combine training along academic and industrial lines. This philosophy of education was first put into actual operation in America for the training of Negroes after the Civil War, when General Samuel Armstrong began his important work at Hampton, Virginia, and when his apt pupil, Booker T. Washington, epitomized these ideals in the development of Tuskegee Institute.65 The Reverend Walter A. Rice, a Methodist clergyman, attempted to do for the Negro youths of New Jersey what these men were doing for Negroes in Virginia and Alabama. In 1886, with Henry Turner, John Sampson, James Baker, Andrew Garretson, E. Mount Rice, and John Mount, he signed the Articles of Incorporation for an institution under the corporate name of “Technical Industrial Educational Association of New Brunswick.”66 The general purpose of the said institution was To obtain and disseminate information upon industrial education in all its branches; to stimulate public opinion in its favor; to invite cooperation from existing organizations in all forms of industrial and technical education; to train women and girls in domestic economy and to promote the training of both sexes in such industries as shall enable them to become self supporting; to study and devise methods and systems of industrial training and secure their introduction into schools and especially the Public Schools; also when expedient to form day and night classes for such instruction; and to establish and maintain an industrial training school at New Brunswick.67

A certificate of removal was filed in the office of the New Jersey Secretary of State in May, 1890, signifying that the principal office was to be changed from New Brunswick to Somerville.

60. Ibid., 10/9/1905. 61. Ibid., 11/27/1905. 62. Ibid., 2/10/1906. 63. Ibid., 2/17/1906. 64. Ibid., 4/23/1906. 65. Dwight, O. W. Holmes, The Evolution of the Negro College (New York, 1934), 84–­89. 66. Certificate of Incorporation on file in the Office of the Secretary of State, Trenton, Division of Corporations, A-3676. 67. Ibid.

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The name of the corporation was changed to “The Colored Industrial Educational Association of New Jersey.”68 Another certificate of incorporation over the signatures of Walter Rice, William Lynch, John White, John Randolph, Redmon Faucet, John Johnson, and Charles Fisher was filed in the same office in 1896. The location of the school was transferred to Bordentown, where it has remained ever since.69 In 1894 the legislature of New Jersey designated this school as a branch institution to which would be applicable all the laws pertaining to and governing industrial and manual training schools in the state. Rules were made for the appointment of a board of trustees with an outline of their powers and duties. The trustees were to be the governor of the state, who was president ex-­officio, the state superintendent of public instruction, the president of the senate, the speaker of the assembly, the president of the state agricultural college, the trustees of the school district, No. 15, Burlington County, the principal of the Farnum Preparatory School at Beverly, New Jersey; two persons selected by the State Board of Education, and the county superintendent of Burlington County.70 The legislature requested the Association to turn over to the trustees all moneys, real estate, and personal property which it held. An amendment of 1896 provided for a change in the composition of the board of trustees which made for a much smaller and no doubt more effective board.71 In his report of 1897, the State Superintendent made a plea for increased funds for the school. He declared that this school which had risen from humble beginnings and, pursuing “a devious, difficult and well-­nigh friendless way,” had earned for itself a place in the state’s educational system. He saw it as a “star of hope” to the colored citizens and felt the state would do well to give it larger consideration and a more adequate support. Since the preceding year had been one of great difficulty because of the lack of necessary funds, the Superintendent recommended that the limit of the appropriation be increased from five thousand to six thousand dollars and that the school be placed under the control of the state department of instruction.72 The principal of the school, James Gregory, announced that the school was becoming widely known because of the good steady work which it was doing and that it was attracting to itself many patrons and friends. He expressed the hope that the legislature of the state would see the wisdom of providing sufficient funds to enable it to do its work thoroughly and thus to give to the colored youth of the state the training and education which they so badly needed.73 In 1900, in accordance with the recommendation of the State Superintendent, the legislature transferred the control and management of the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth to the State Department of Public Instruction.74 This act forged another link in the chain of separate schools for the use of colored youth.

68. Ibid. 69. Ibid., B-4078. 70. Laws of New Jersey, 1894, 536. 71. Ibid., 1896, 158. 72. Annual Report of the State Superintendent, 1897, 34. 73. Ibid., 314. 74. Laws of New Jersey, 1900, 193.

PART III

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XIII



Recent Investigations If the school is to function at all in the betterment of the social order, it must expose pitilessly and clearly the shortcomings in contemporary society. It should never convey the impression that the democratic ideal has been fulfilled in the United States. To do so would be to draw a heavy ceil over the eyes of youth. george s. counts

As indicated in the Foreword, the period covered by this study ends at 1900, but, since several investigations have been made within the last fifteen years which throw light upon the conditions under which the Negro children of New Jersey are now receiving their education, an examination of these studies was made to determine in what respects the present conditions are similar to or different from those that existed at the end of the nineteenth century. On the one hand the results indicate a continuity of several tendencies which characterized the educational policies, practices, and trends of the last decade of the nineteenth century. On the other hand the data reveal either a reversion to former conditions or the evolution of new practices as means of adjustment to present attitudes and social changes.

Continuity of Former Policies and Practices It will be recalled from the previous chapter that the years which followed the Law of 1881 not only failed to effect an abolition of separate schools in the southern counties but actually witnessed an increase in segregated facilities. In 1925 Lester Granger1 not only found plans for the erection of new separate schools but in some communities found facilities for the education of Negro children that were either inferior or decidedly undesirable. Whereas in the nineteenth century the buildings for colored pupils were separate structures, recent practices had placed these children in such places as the basement of the white school in Swedesboro, a rural town in Gloucester County, or in one wing of a building for white and colored children in Asbury Park. In this latter school a high iron fence partitioned the playground into two sections. A white principal was in charge of the whole establishment, with a “head teacher” in charge of the colored wing. Negro citizens of Beverly, in

1. Lester Granger, “Race Relations and the School Systems,” Opportunity, Vol. III, 327–­329.

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Burlington County, were protesting the erection of a school for their children near the city dump and disposal plant.2 To Granger, race pride might be inspired by a Negro principal and intelligent, interested teachers, but he was convinced that race or personal pride was certainly subjected to terrific strains in cases where the building or school arrangements were such as those noted above. He found it difficult to see how anything but vicious harm could come from such arrangements.3 In this study of 1925 Granger found, as had the contemporaries of the earlier periods of New Jersey’s history, that in northern New Jersey the prevailing attitude was influenced by the cosmopolitan spirit of New York, while southern New Jersey was continuing to follow the leads of Philadelphia and Delaware. Northern New Jersey had felt no need for separate schools and was not interested in them. But from Princeton southward to Cape May, every city or town with a considerable Negro population supported a dual system of education for Negro pupils of the grammar grades. In the high schools the races were mixed. In no town south of Elizabeth was there to be found a colored teacher in charge of a class including white pupils, but classes that were wholly colored sometimes had white teachers in charge of them.4 Whereas Granger found lack of concerted opposition to sporadic attempts at enforcing segregation in suburban communities such as Montclair or East Orange, the previous chapter of this study disclosed a persistent opposition on the part of Negroes in East Orange to any attempts at segregation in the latter part of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries. In subsequent investigations, Ira Reid5 and Eleanor Hill Oak6 not only substantiated, in the main, the findings of Granger but gave an even more detailed picture of the status and trends of policies and practices affecting Negro education in the state. Reid found that from 1919–­1930 the number of separate schools had increased from fifty-­two to sixty-­six, or twenty-­six per cent.7 Mrs. Oak found that by 1935 this number had increased to seventy.8 These figures plainly show that the tendency toward an increase in such schools evident at the end of the nineteenth century has continued to the present period. The dual system of education which resulted in inferior building arrangements and unequal school opportunities for Negro children in both the previous century and in the year studied by Granger continued to present problems in the periods investigated by Reid and Mrs. Oak. Negro children in Princeton were not permitted to attend the junior high school until after they completed the ninth grade. Parents objected to this because Latin was not taught in the eighth grade

2. Ibid., 329. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid., 327. 5. The Negro in New Jersey, Report of a Survey by the Inter-­Racial Committee of the New Jersey Conference of Social Work in Cooperation with the State Department of Institutions and Agencies (Trenton and Newark, 1932). 6. Eleanor Hill Oak, The Evolution of Separate Schools in New Jersey (Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Howard University, 1935). 7. The Negro in New Jersey, op. cit., 37. 8. Hill, op. cit., 35.

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of the colored school as it was in the junior high school. This arrangement also deprived the boys of instruction in shop work.9 The school in Pleasantville, outside of Atlantic City, housed four grades of its colored children in the rear of a building which had been condemned by both state and county boards of education.10 School officials of the city of Salem housed the “overflow” pupils of the Grant Street School in an abandoned club building. When the matter of poor lighting facilities in this school was broached, the Board of Education revealed its hesitancy about spending additional money for Negro children on the ground that the Negro tax payments constituted a very small part of the whole.11 In 1939, in speaking of the striking exhibitions of discrimination against Negro pupils in these same counties, Granger reported that in some of the communities where white pupils were housed in large buildings equipped with modern conveniences, the Negro pupils were segregated in small buildings, lacking conveniences, and in some cases, minimum essentials for adequate instruction, such as gymnasium facilities, shop equipment, charts, maps, and in some instances, even books. Granger also pointed out that in Bergen County there was an average enrollment of 59.7 pupils per room in schools with a Negro population of from 75 per cent upward, in comparison with an average enrollment of 27.1 pupils per room in schools with larger proportions of white pupils.12 In the twentieth century as in the nineteenth, dissatisfaction on the part of Negro citizens made a further contribution to the institution or continuance of separate classes or schools and unequal opportunities for their children. When, in 1930, Negroes learned that all pupils in the new junior high school of Pleasantville would be taught by an all-­white staff, thereby eliminating two or three of their own teachers, they succeeded in having the Negro teachers for these grades retained in the Park Avenue School. This retention resulted in such an overcrowding that a remodeled building in the rear of a confectionary store in the colored section was used for the “overflow” of the lower grades.13 The Barber Avenue School at Pennsgrove in Salem County was said to have been established in 1924 at the request of colored citizens.14 Likewise one of the two separate schools for Negroes in Ocean County was reported to have been initiated by a Negro who desired to secure a position for his daughter. The residents later opposed the closing of this school even though the supervising principal had recommended its discontinuance. This principal was convinced that the colored people were standing in their own light by holding on to this separate school, since the thirty-­nine pupils could have been easily absorbed in the other two elementary schools of the town without causing any difficulty except from the Negro community. Such an absorption, he felt, would rebound to the financial advantage of the town and to the educational advantage of the children.15 The school at Swainton was a one-­room structure containing eight grades with no more than twenty pupils enrolled at any time. The white school there had been closed and in 1932 9. The Negro in New Jersey, Community Report No. XI, 18–­19. 10. Ibid., Community Report No. XXII, 6–­7. 11. Ibid., Community Report No. XXIII, 4–­6. 12. State of New Jersey, Report of the New Jersey Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Urban Colored Population to the Legislature of the State of New Jersey (Trenton, 1939), 39, 41. 13. The Negro in New Jersey, Community Report No. XXLL, 6–­7. 14. Ibid., Community Report No. XVIII, 5. 15. Oak, op. cit., 83.

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the superintendent had recommended the closing of the colored school, but the Negroes had held on to this school in order to retain the one teaching job. Since the population was not over sixty, the conducting of such an ungraded school was disadvantageous to the children and expensive to the district.16 Similar motives were held responsible for the establishing of the separate school in Cinnaminson and the removal of the seventh and eighth grades from the mixed school to the colored school there.17 Several reasons led the Negroes of Pennsgrove to ask for separate schools: the Negro population had increased; Negroes were paying high taxes without receiving any benefits from them; Negro children were being mistreated in the white schools and were being indoctrinated with feelings of racial inferiority.18 The preceding paragraphs clearly show that distinctions and discriminations on account of color which obtained at the close of the nineteenth century have continued to increase. But, on the other hand, the courts of this century have followed the lead of the court which in 1884 upheld the rights of the Negroes as provided in the Law of 1881. Immediately after the opening of the new high school in Trenton, a serious problem arose when special classes of colored pupils were formed in connection with the use of the swimming pool. An adverse decision for the Trenton Board of Education was handed down by the justices, who maintained that boys or girls enrolled in a class in the public schools of the state were entitled to receive instructions without any discriminations predicated upon race.19 When on February 1, 1927, Dover Township transferred all its colored pupils in Mantua Park to a schoolroom which was improvised in a church and which was to be taught by a Negro teacher, the parents of the colored children successfully carried the case to the court.20 Other Negro parents in Trenton, Camden, and Atlantic City have been victorious in insisting on their right to send their children to the nearest school, even if white.21

Manifestations of Newer Trends Whereas the labor conditions following the Reconstruction Period made it increasingly difficult for Negroes to develop vocational skills through apprenticeship training and so stimulated Negroes to meet this need through the establishment of an industrial and manual training school for colored youths, so present labor conditions have influenced the educational opportunities provided for colored children in the public schools. Dr. Egerton Hall,22 realizing that the socio-­economic conditions of the Negro were such as to make education and guidance in their cases a problem of special concern, made a study of the social and economic status of the Negro wage earners in New Jersey in order that better counseling and assistance might be given to the Negro child in his

16. Ibid., 52. 17. Ibid., 70–­7 1. 18. Ibid., 44. 19. The Negro in New Jersey, Community Report No. XXI, 16. 20. Oak, op. cit., 85–­86. 21. Ibid., 89–­90. 22. Egerton Hall, The Negro Wage Earner of New Jersey (New Brunswick, 1935), 49.

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efforts to prepare himself for vocational adjustment. Dr. Hall found the beginning of a number of problems in vocational adjustment in the various schools throughout the state. The policies for training Negroes frequently differed from those affecting white pupils. In Atlantic City, where the problem had been given attention, there was a cooperative effort to bring about the adjustment of Negro boys and girls in specific trades. In Newark the vocational schools, having previously been convinced that the opportunities for placing Negroes were limited, were just then making efforts to study additional occupations into which the boys and girls of this race could be guided. In Elizabeth the girls attended the continuation schools, but no boys were enrolled in the trade courses because it was felt that the opportunities for employment in the skilled and semi-­skilled trades were so limited for them. Dr. Hall concluded that the whole field of occupational guidance and placement in New Jersey was faced with tremendous problems of adjustment. The most advanced step in this direction had been taken by the manual training school at Bordentown, under the supervision of Dr. William Valentine.23 Through an extensive study of vocational opportunities and the intelligent application of certain occupational principles, this school had made it possible to place a larger number of Negroes in the skilled and semi-­skilled trades than any other occupational unit in New Jersey. This was being done without the violation of specific principles of preparation and training. In 1929 seventy-­five per cent of the alumni of the school were following skilled and semi-­skilled occupations.24 This institution had for some time been at work on a plan which would give the pupils the fundamentals for occupational adjustment in several fields rather than in a limited one. This procedure not only met the approval of vocational guidance experts, but promised a surer adjustment of the individual in the economic and social life of a community that might be somewhat distorted because of the general economic picture.25 Dr. Hall pointed out another problem that loomed “on the horizon of occupational adjustment” in the limited opportunities for the training of Negroes in New Jersey. Nowhere in the state could a Negro graduate of a medical school take an internship; nowhere in the state could a Negro girl be trained for nursing.26 Negroes were enrolled in the various state normal schools, but the opportunities for placing them in the public school systems of the state, according to the testimony of the heads of these schools, were somewhat limited. It was frequently as difficult to secure practice teaching for Negro teachers as it was to secure employment for them within the state.27 Although, on the one hand, efforts at placement of Negro teachers in mixed schools has met with no success in many communities, on the other hand, the situation in other communities has been decidedly more encouraging. In 1919 three per cent of the Negro teachers were in the northern

23. A chapter on the outstanding work of Dr. Valentine’s work in Indianapolis has appeared in John Dewey and Evelyn Dewey, Schools of To-­Morrow (New York, 1915), Chapter VIII. 24. Hall, op. cit., 49–­50. 25. Ibid., 50. 26. Negro nurses are now serving in a hospital in Jersey City. 27. Hall, op. cit., 50.

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counties. Eleven years later this proportion had increased to eight per cent.28 In Englewood two colored teachers were employed in a building where the population was rapidly becoming colored. The school officials, however, expressed the opinion that it would be impractical to place them in other schools because of the possible serious objections of white parents.29 Officials of Passaic gave this same excuse,30 while the adjoining city of Paterson, which employed colored teachers on the basis of merit, placed them indiscriminately among the schools of the city.31 Although colored children constituted only five per cent of the school population of Jersey City, this city had the highest number of Negro teachers employed in any system of mixed schools. In 1930 twenty teachers, of whom one was employed in the high schools, were appointed on an equal basis with white teachers and were required to meet the same standard requirements.32 Colored teachers are also employed in the mixed schools of Newark, Elizabeth, Orange, and Hackensack.33 Strangely enough, in Neptune Township, where the colored unit is housed in the building for white children, a colored man was found teaching physical training in both the white and the colored classes.34 Further encouragement is seen in the fact that in 1927 Louis Binder,35 while making a study of leadership among Negroes of Paterson, a northern community, found the status of Negroes in that place to be favorable. There were six colored teachers in the school system, all of whom were doing acceptable work. One teacher in the lower grades was greatly admired by her pupils and the principal informed Binder that the children’s parents thought very highly of her. Colored boys played on the high school football team and were members of the school orchestras and of the junior police. Colored children were seen playing in the streets with the white children and were fraternizing with each other on their way to and from school. In the high school and in the normal school absolutely no distinctions were made between the two groups. In a school enrollment of 1,332 the largest single group of colored children numbered seventy-­ three. Only one of the six teachers was located in this school. The superintendent of schools, the principals, and a number of the teachers interviewed by Binder testified to the very fine ability of the colored teachers. There were evidences in one or two cases of prejudice and ill will toward the colored teachers, but this could not be laid at the door of the teachers concerned.36 Binder also found that the public school teachers did much in the way of training the white children under them to assume a fair-­minded attitude toward their colored neighbors. He cited an instance where the teacher had taught the white children in the class to remove the crutches of a crippled colored boy after he had reached his seat, to place them in the rear of the room, and to return them

28. The Negro in New Jersey, op. cit., 37. 29. Ibid., Community Report No. III, 10–­12. 30. Ibid., Community Report No. VI, 9–­10. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., Community Report No. I, 14–­15. 33. Ibid., Community Report XIX, 34–­39. 34. Oak, op. cit., 79. 35. Louis Binder, The Negro in Paterson (Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Columbia University, 1927), 21. 36. Ibid., 23–­24.

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to him at the close of the day. The children were taught that the colored child was just as deserving of sympathy as if he were white.37 But, while in the new trends positive gains are being made in some municipalities, losses are being encountered in others through decisions and interpretations in respect to the Law of 1881 which permit violations of the spirit of the law without negating the letter of the law. In the previous century state school officials permitted the construction of additional schools for colored children, and the initiation of separate classes for these children in the buildings used by white children. In the present century the officials have on occasion advised local officials to erect a building in the colored section and to transfer the white children out of the district.38 In 1923 the New Jersey Commissioner of Education made the following ruling, which was affirmed by the Commissioner of Education in 1930: The board of education has furnished these colored children proper facilities. It has designated the school at which they shall attend and has furnished them with a regularly licensed teacher. It therefore has acted entirely within its lawful duties and has exercised only its just powers. It does not matter that the board has designated the Fairview School as a colored school and has given it such a name . . . It is no discrimination under the school law for a board of education to make such distribution of the children in the different schools of the school district as in its judgment shall seem best to meet all the requirements of the school laws.39

Another move in this negative direction is seen in the fact that, whereas at the beginning of the century the northern counties were free from practices of segregation in the schools, the recent investigations reveal a tendency to revert to the policies which held in several municipalities before the enactment of the law prohibiting the exclusion of any child from a public school on account of nationality, religion or color. Reid found that in communities where the proportion of the colored population approached or exceeded ten per cent of the total population there was a tendency for the question of segregating Negro pupils to arise.40 In 1939 Granger, who in 1925 insisted that northern counties saw no need for such schools, reported the existence of an all-­colored school in Englewood. In 1938 the citizens of this community “unsuccessfully opposed a decision of the City Council to enlarge the Lincoln School, with an all-­Negro attendance, by adding a junior high school department. Proponents of this plan declared that it was a move to reduce congestion in the present junior high school. Negroes and those who supported them protested that congestion was to be relieved by establishing an all-­Negro junior high school and increasing educational segregation.” Previously, Montclair, through the zoning or districting law, had in 1934 effected an increased separation of white and Negro pupils.41

37. Ibid., 45. 38. Oak, op. cit., 50–­51. 39. Ibid., 28. 40. The Negro in New Jersey, op. cit., Community Report No. IV, 15. 41. State of New Jersey, Report of the New Jersey Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Urban Colored Population . . . , 41–­42.

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Situations such as these and others brought to light by recent investigations indicate that the educational practices of the twentieth century continue the pattern characterized by the marked variations and glaring inconsistencies handed down from the nineteenth century. In a state which has had upon its statute books since 1881 a law stating that no child between the ages of five and eighteen years of age, shall be excluded from any public school because of his or her nationality, religion, or color, with a penalty for the violation of the same, are found an increasing number of completely segregated schools or variations of the same for colored pupils. Now the tendency is moving up into the northern counties, where one locality already has an all-­Negro school. Public opinion which demanded separation of pupils on account of race in the regular classes, could, because of financial reasons, tolerate the presence of these same children in classes in which special subjects were taught, in the higher grades of the elementary school, and in the high school. Stranger yet, such opinion could permit a Negro teacher of physical education to teach white as well as colored classes. In many instances the separate facilities which continue to be found in the southern counties for Negro children were inferior to those provided for white children. Such is generally the case where segregated schools exist.42 In Salem the argument presented for failure to improve poor lighting conditions in the school accommodating colored children could not have been improved upon by a school official in the most backward community of a Southern state, where no attempt is made to veil the feelings of prejudice against Negroes. In the northern counties similar or identical inconsistencies appeared. Segregated housing for Negroes coupled with artificial methods of districting was practically achieving the effect of segregation. Boundary lines were changed or white children were transferred out of school districts which had become predominantly Negroid in population. But important indeed are the positive factors which appear in this varied picture. Such factors indicate the ways by which certain communities are striving to make educational practices consistent with democratic ideals. These factors point the way for other communities whose educational practices are less consistent with such ideals.

42. Horace Bond, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order (New York, 1934). Marion M. Thompson, A Comparative Study of the Efficiency of the Public White and Colored State School System in Sixteen States (Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Howard University, 1928).

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Summary and Conclusions It may, therefore, be said that the various factors leading to segregation do not allow the Negro to be exposed to the same educational or cultural situations to which the whites are exposed in the North. Moreover, the special treatment is not lost in its effect. It serves to create an attitude of mind in both the whites and the Negroes that enforces totally different educational effects. e. george payne

The social and educational history of Negroes in New Jersey as presented in this study appears to divide itself into five fairly distinct periods. 1. The late seventeenth century witnessed the introduction of Negro slaves into the state as a solution to pressing industrial and economic needs. Religious bodies, such as the Reformed Dutch Church and the Church of England, undisturbed by the ruthless imposition of involuntary servitude upon a helpless people, sought the spiritual salvation of these heathens through instruction in the Catechism and admission to the Church. The Society of Friends was led to a gradual realization of the inconsistency in the traffic in human souls by the teachings of a revealed religion and the ethical principle of “doing unto others as you would be done by.” The Friends concerned themselves not only with the spiritual freedom of the Negroes but first, purging themselves of the iniquities of importing, buying, disposing of, or holding mankind in slavery, led the struggle to abolish the institution in the state and the country as a whole. Through their Meetings and the abolition societies whose membership they dominated they attempted to educate Negroes, bond and free, adults and children, in preparation for constructive lives as freedmen. Through their influence the provincial legislature decreed in 1759 that dependent children should be taught to read and write, while in 1788 the legislature ruled that all servants and slaves under twenty-­one years of age should be taught to read. These laws for the benefit of dependent and laboring classes represented the prime interest of the state in education during these years. The consummation of the efforts of the Society of Friends and members of other sects who joined with them in their crusade was realized in the passing by the legislature in 1804 of the bill providing for the gradual emancipation of slavery in New Jersey. 2. The years between 1804 and 1830 was a transition period from a continued oversight on the part of Friends and abolition societies through a heightened interest in the education of Negroes in Sunday schools to a time when Negroes themselves began to initiate movements designed to ameliorate their own condition. It was also a period when leaders in the Presbyterian Church, 225

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convinced of the impossibility of a satisfactory social adjustment of Negroes as freemen in America, founded the American Colonization Society to aid in the colonizing of free blacks in Africa. To prepare leaders for the colony, the African School for the preparation of ministers and teachers was established at Parsippany, New Jersey, in 1816. For ten years this institution maintained a struggling existence. Having concluded that an exclusive education was imperative for Negroes, as a separate race, and fortified with the experiences which attended the management of the African School plus the promise of the use of the Kusciusko Fund, the Synod of New York and the Synod of New Jersey formulated plans to provide for a more widely spread instruction of Negroes at earlier ages on the manual labor plan. Failure to receive the money of the Kusciusko Fund led to an abandonment of the project after the funds which were then available had been utilized in the training of a few promising Negroes. 3. Beginning with the third decade of the nineteenth century, leaders of free Negroes, spurred to action by the attempts being made to expatriate them; by the subversive propaganda being circulated concerning them; by the denial of the rights and privileges considered to be the inalienable rights of citizens; and by the conditions attending those who were still being held in bondage, began to assemble in annual conventions, first in Philadelphia and then in other northern cities, to study the social problems confronting them in America and to formulate programs of action designed to make living in this country more tolerable. The reverberations of these conventions were felt in New Jersey, where antislavery and anti-­colonization societies were formed and where associations were organized to improve the mental capacities of the adults and to provide for the schooling of their children where opportunities for such were lacking. 4. In 1844 the friends of public education in New Jersey saw the realization of their efforts in the provision of the new state constitution that annual appropriations be made for “the support of public schools, for the equal benefit of all the people of the state.” New Jersey had lagged behind other progressive states in this achievement as a result of a policy of religious toleration which had eventuated in laissez-­faire policy concerning education on the one hand and the development of parallel parochial systems of education in the state on the other. Negro children began to share in the funds made available by the state for education in both mixed and separate schools. Both types could be found in practically all sections of the state. A law passed in 1850 authorizing the setting aside of a special school district in the township of Morris for the exclusive use of colored children established a precedent for the legal sanction of such schools. In 1863 the state superintendent of public instruction strengthened this precedent through his interpretation of the schools laws. During the years preceding and accompanying the Civil War period, New Jersey politics were strongly influenced by the slavery issues which were then rocking the nation. The Democrats of New Jersey, who controlled the legislature during the greater part of this period, opposed every movement tending to elevate the status of Negroes in the state and the country. It was the success of the Union armies which finally secured to New Jersey, as well as to the slaveholding states, the complete abolition of involuntary servitude. 5. In the Reconstruction period which followed, the Democrats rejected every one of the Reconstruction Amendments which were passed in New Jersey only by the intervention of the Republican party when it gained control of the legislature. As the public school system developed in this

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period, cities in the northern counties began the elimination of their separate schools through the integration of the colored pupils into the regular schools. In 1881 a situation arose in Fair Haven, when Negroes demanded the right to attend the white school, which resulted in the enactment of a law prohibiting the exclusion of any child from any school because of nationality, religion, or color. But, in spite of the passing of this measure, the Negroes deemed it expedient to accept a separate school in Fair Haven. As a consequence of this law, however, the remaining separate schools in the northern counties were discontinued. In the southern counties not only did those already in operation continue, but new ones were built without protest from the authorities or concerted action from Negroes. In 1886 segregation was further encouraged when, in response to a need not being met through other agencies, a manual training school for colored youth was initiated by Negroes and subsidized by the state. This institution was in 1900 placed under the complete supervision and management of the state board of education. By this move the general pattern of education for Negroes in New Jersey was set. Recent investigations have shown a tendency for segregation of Negro children to increase, not only in the southern counties, but also in the northern counties where the population of the Negro element approaches or exceeds ten per cent of the total population. Provisions of the law of 1881 have been circumvented through the placing of schools in districts of heavy Negro concentration, and the transferring out of the district of the few white children who remained. Discrimination in quality of educational facilities have in the smaller districts tended to follow segregation in school housing.

Conclusions The findings of this study appear to warrant several conclusions concerning the education of Negroes in New Jersey. 1. The earliest opportunities for receiving education were made available to Negroes through the efforts of religious bodies who trained them in the fundamentals of learning as a prerequisite to admission to the Church. Conversion of the Negroes to Christianity was the chief motive in these instances. 2. The Society of Friends and the abolition societies provided school opportunities for slaves and free Negroes on a social, ethical, religious, and civic basis as a preparation for constructive Christian living as freed citizens. There was also the hope that the giving of education to Negroes would cause them to be looked upon with greater favor by the other inhabitants of the state. 3. Religious and philanthropic motives prompted benevolent associations and various individuals to hold schools on Sundays for slaves and free Negroes who were denied this privilege by other agencies. 4. Negroes who had been trained by means of the activities delineated above began themselves to seek the improvement of the members of their race in schools, literary societies, and temperance associations which they organized among themselves. These schools were made necessary by the general apathy of the state in respect to the education of her children, and the existing prejudice against Negroes, about which religious leaders did very little if anything. Religious education,

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which was chiefly a preparation for a life to come, was little concerned with the democratic social applications of Christianity to the problems of everyday living and relationships. 5. The successful fight of the proponents of free public education benefited Negro children, who also shared in the distribution of public facilities for education. Again, prejudice or the ill treatment of Negro children in the mixed schools led to the establishing of many separate schools. Further encouragement to their operation was given by some Negroes because of the opportunities afforded for placement or retention of Negro teachers who otherwise might have been jobless. Such consideration in some instances took precedence over the educational welfare of the children for whose benefit schools really exist. 6. New Jersey has never followed a consistent policy in the practices governing the education of Negroes in the state. From the earliest beginnings, they attended schools with the poor of the white population in some of the established charity schools. During the nineteenth century they attended both mixed and separate schools prior to and following the Civil War. 7. The permissive law passed in 1850 for Morris Township established a precedent for the official sanction of separate schools which was further strengthened by the decision of the state superintendent in 1863 that separate schools could be established where the school officials deemed it wise to institute them. 8. The effect of the law of 1881 was weakened by the immediate acceptance of separate schools by the Negroes of Fair Haven, for whose benefit the law was originally passed. It was further weakened by the request in the same year for a separate school by Negroes in Long Branch. The attitude of the whites against the admission of colored children into the schools, plus the opportunities for teaching jobs for members of their race, together with the influence of General Clinton Fiske, a man of high prestige among them, undoubtedly contributed to this decision on the part of the Negroes. The lack of unanimity among Negroes themselves has also served to confuse the issue and to prevent the adoption of consistent policies in respect to policies governing the education of Negroes in New Jersey. 9. The tendency of North Jersey to follow the lead of New York, and the weakening of the strength of traditional prejudices against Negroes by the heavy infiltration of foreign groups in that area made possible the acceptance of protests against segregation by Negroes in the northern counties and the enforcing of economies in school administration through the elimination of dual systems of education. On the other hand, the tendency of South Jersey to follow the lead of Pennsylvania and Delaware, the more continued homogeneity of population elements, and the migration of Negroes into this section from contiguous states where separate schools were the rule combined to support an opinion making for the acceptance of the separation of the races in the schools. 10. State and local school officials contributed to a further invalidation of the law, which provided against the exclusion of Negro children from schools but did not stipulate that schools were not to be built for their exclusive use, by a tacit supporting of the violation of the spirit of the law through failure to discourage separate schools; or the encouragement of separation through advice or decisions favoring segregation practices which conformed to the letter of the law. Through this policy and the restriction of Negroes to living quarters in certain areas, segregation in the schools has begun to spread to the systems of northern counties.

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11. The maintenance of dual systems of education for whites and Negroes will continue to increase in New Jersey unless contrariwise social forces develop to counteract the opinions and attitudes favoring the separation of the races in the schools. 12. Real contributions to the understanding of the social forces and attitudes with which students of race relations in the schools of New Jersey must reckon in considerations of present and future educational policies and practices in the state can be made through research to determine: the rationale of the opinions of Negroes who oppose and those who propose separate schools for Negroes; the findings of a comparative study of the educational achievements and the social and psychological development of Negro children in separate and mixed schools; the social and racial attitudes of the school officials and teachers in the school system of the state and of the students in the teachers colleges; and a comparative study of the social and racial attitudes of Negro and white children in both the mixed and separate schools.

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Implications for Education Much also defends on the extent to which educators realize that they, like the men and women whose social ideas have been considered in this book, are deeply influenced by a faint of view which they have unconsciously absorbed from their social environment, by a frame of reference which constantly limits their work. Only by recognizing this source of error in their work, only by analyzing the influences which have determined this frame of reference can they hope to rise above the limitations of their class and personal backgrounds and the more or less obsolete ideas and emotional attitudes related to these. Only by so doing can they become whole-­hearted pioneers in the building of a better social order. Even more defends, perhaps, on their realization of discrepancies between aspirations and existing conditions, and on avoiding the methods, within and without the schools, which fast experience has shown to be ineffective in translating the ideal into the real. merle e. curti

“America cannot be governed satisfactorily or administered industrially in the days that lie ahead on the basis of the kind of schooling 80 per cent of the boys and girls now receive,” said Dr. Luther Gulick, director of a three-­year study of the New York State educational system in which two hundred specialists took part. Continuing his comment, Dr. Gulick pointed out that American public school graduates are ill-­equipped to meet the demands of life, that they are not prepared to be useful citizens or to enter community or home life. Few had any protections against mob hysteria, propaganda, shallow prejudice or economic gold bricks. Dr. Gulick maintained the whole school curriculum needed reconstruction “so as to develop the abilities of youth in working together in an intelligent and self-­restrained government.”1 Although the school curriculum may undergo radical reconstruction as a result of such a survey, it is very unlikely that there will be a radical change in the fact that theoretically education in America is primarily influenced by the philosophy of John Dewey. This foremost philosopher holds that education is life; that education is a social process; and that education in America, which must be education for a democracy, must be democratic in its theory and practices. Such a philosophy guarantees to every child the right to have the opportunity to develop to the full extent of his capacity

1. Newark Evening Nevis (Newark), November 29, 1938. Cf. New York (State) University, Regent’s Inquiry into the Character and Cost of Public Education in the State of New York (New York, 1938).

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along socially approved channels. It guarantees to him the right to have his personality respected; to be trained for a shared participation in the life of the community. Education for living in a democracy must concern itself, then, with those objectives which will make for integration in community living on the one hand and for individual efficiency on the other. It has been generally conceded that the prime function of the elementary school is that of integration through the development of common habits, ideals, and attitudes. The task of promoting individual efficiency to the end that each person may be able to make his unique contribution to group living is generally deferred to the periods covered by the secondary and higher levels of training. If the curriculum of the schools in America is to be reconstructed to the end that training will be provided which will insure optimum conditions for gaining experiences in the kind of living which will develop the attitudes, abilities, and skills necessary for constructive group living, a decision must be made as to whether such a program is to embrace all groups in America or whether it is to include in its practices only the members of the dominant group. This will be no easy decision to make. In theory, the answer probably will be, Yes—­but in practice, No. Acceptance of this philosophy on a practical basis means assuming responsibility for planned programs of social engineering designed to effect an improved social order which approaches the ideals of democratic living. It means a substitution of the principle of social telesis, as developed by Lester Ward, for a policy of laissez faire or acceptance of the status quo in a social atmosphere where the weight of social thinking will be on the side of acquiescence in the status quo, or a social order which deviates from the ideals of democratic living in so many instances. To propose more democratic policies or practices for the purpose of counteracting or superseding less democratic policies or practices is to be forced into a fight against vested interests, social prejudices, customs making for economic and social caste, group exploitation, and various forms of intolerances, many of which have an etiology of long history and considerable strength. That these defects along with others exist in the social order as it is now constituted cannot be denied. The vital question stands as to what position American educators will take in revising their programs of education. Will they follow the lead of the community in social philosophy and practice or will they themselves set the lead in molding public opinion along the lines of democratic thinking and practice? If the answer is in favor of the latter alternative, then the problems must be faced as to the means of reaching the goals to be set up for the programs of purposive action. But this is equally true of other forms of engineering. The goals are set, after which the accumulated experiences of man are turned upon the problems to be solved in bringing about the desired result. Scientific students of social sciences have contributed valuable data which could be enlisted in the planning of programs for social action. Consider the bearing which this discussion has upon the subject of investigation in this particular study. If curriculum reconstruction is to follow the survey which has been made, will it be in accordance with the philosophy of John Dewey? If so, what will be the implications for the school systems of New Jersey as adduced from this study? As previously indicated, a consideration of the negative and positive components of the subject under study reveals many tendencies, trends, and practices in connection with the education

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of Negro children in New Jersey. On the negative side, separate schools for colored children in the southern counties have a history of long standing. This investigation has shown that in some instances they evolved during the ante-­bellum period of the nineteenth century from the philanthropic motives of groups interested in the welfare of Negroes, bond and free, and continued as a matter of tradition. In other cases separate schools resulted either from the refusal of white citizens to permit their children to attend mixed schools or from the requests of Negroes for separate schools in order to protect their children from humiliation and to provide teaching opportunities for qualified members of their own race. In recent years there has been a tendency for municipalities in northern counties to initiate discriminatory practices against Negroes where the proportion of the Negro population approaches or exceeds ten per cent of the total population. Residential segregation has played an important part in furthering this tendency. This historical investigation has pointed out as additional negative factors the attitudes of executive officers of the educational system of the state. In spite of the spirit inherent in the law of 1881, these officials have acquiesced in discriminatory practices both through their failure to discourage the existence and institution of separate schools, and through their rulings, interpretations and advices which have permitted the violation of the spirit through mere obedience to the letter of the law. Dr. Egerton Hall, in his study of the Negro wage earner of New Jersey, has shown how the discriminations present in the industrial economy have reflected themselves in the opportunities for vocational training which have been made available for Negro youths. Because of the belief that only a limited number of jobs are open to these pupils, school officials in some instances have either discouraged or refused to permit colored boys and girls to enroll for vocational courses on a basis of equality with other children. The history of education in New Jersey has also revealed that unequal opportunities have been the usual accompaniment of segregated schools. As pointed out in Chapters X to XII of this study, in the nineteenth century this was evidenced in unequal school terms, poorer equipment, and limited opportunities for training in the higher grades. Recent investigations show that at the present time it is still a matter of inferior facilities, limited opportunities to share in the benefits of the reorganized secondary school, particularly on the junior high school level, instruction in ungraded schools, and fewer openings in the field for teacher training and placement. On the other hand this historical study has shown several positive components in the educational provisions made for Negro children. Very significant is the fact that New Jersey has never passed a law demanding the separation of the races in the schools, such as exists on the statute books of approximately one-­third of the states in the Union, nor has she now a permissive law, as is the case with still other states. Legislation passed in 1850 permitting the setting up of separate schools yielded in 1881 to a statute prohibiting the exclusion of children from public schools on account of color. Ever since the last decades of the eighteenth century, Negroes have attended mixed schools in this state. The courts and a commissioner of education have on occasion upheld the provisions of the law of 1881. In theory, then, the state is committed to the principle of the democratic ideal in the education of all of her children.

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Moreover, there are municipalities in the northern counties which admit Negroes to teacher training institutions, provide opportunities for practice teaching, and then place them in teaching positions on the basis of merit rather than color. There are also mixed schools in which the white teachers respect the personalities of their colored pupils and attempt to develop attitudes of tolerance and understanding on the part of white children toward their colored associates. Whereas Dr. Egerton Hall found that nowhere in New Jersey could a colored girl be trained for nursing and Reid found that no Negroes attended New Jersey College for Women, since the early half of the present decade in which those studies were made Negro girls have been admitted to training in a public hospital in Jersey City, a Negro has been placed in a high school in that same city as a teacher, and another Negro girl has been graduated from the New Jersey College for Women.2 During this same period state and local authorities have appointed increasing numbers of Negroes to civil service positions within the state. In order to promote these more positive trends toward equal status it will be necessary for the educators of New Jersey to assume the role of leaders rather than that of followers. The situation is weighted in favor of intolerances toward a racial group and makes for deeply seated prejudices against its members. There is lack of respect for the personalities of members of the race and denial of equal opportunities for self development, for community participation, and in many respects there is an exclusion from contacts with or enjoyments of the cultural components of civilization. A strong degree of social inertia must be overcome if these educators are to lead in a program to bring all the school children of New Jersey within the pale of democratic living. Consideration of the means for attaining this goal must take into account the long history and the background factors out of which these social attitudes have evolved, so that instead of deliberately cutting across what happens in many cases to be feelings or emotions with deep-­seated roots there will be a re-­education of these feelings and emotions along lines that are more constructive and that will make for greater integration on the part of all concerned. It will also be necessary for New Jersey educators to realize that feelings of intolerance and prejudice are disintegrative forces acting upon those who are subject to them as well as upon those against whom they are directed. The need to express one’s feelings of superiority by rejecting another person or refusing to respect his personality on a superficial basis is indicative of, or makes for, a personal disintegration which is injurious to the development of a wholesome personality. The placing of a stamp of inferiority upon a child by discriminatory practices hinders the development within him of an integrated personality and a sense of worth. The segregation of children in childhood does violence to the integrating function of the elementary school and makes more difficult later cooperation in the duties and responsibilities of civic and social living. Prejudices

2. A Negro girl, Julia Baxter, granddaughter of the last principal of the colored school in Newark, was admitted to the New Jersey College for Women in 1934 and graduated with general honors in 1938. She says she met with fine treatment at the hands of the students. The only prejudice exhibited was the refusal of the administration to allow her the privilege of dormitory accommodations.

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against one group of people pave the way for prejudices against members of other groups, thereby rendering the development of unified sentiments and ideals more difficult.3 One point of departure in efforts to remedy these evils might well be self examinations on the part of the educators of the state who influence opinions on matters of educational policies and practices. Where such an examination reveals feelings of intolerance and prejudice, the question is how either to gain a control of these feelings so they will not interfere with the quality of service rendered to those who evoke the feelings, or to analyze them in order to lay the groundwork for their re-­education to permit a tolerance and a respect for the individualities of persons irrespective of nationality, religion, or race. Another point of departure might be, or possibly should be, an examination of the state institutions charged with the responsibility of training the persons who are to engage in the task of educating the children of New Jersey for efficient and constructive participation in a democratic social order. Is a teacher who is so firmly gripped by racial antipathies himself that he cannot accept the presence of a teacher of a different race in the same school with himself prepared to undertake the responsibilities for which he is supposed to have been trained? Can such an individual help others to attain to a stature to which he himself has not developed? If a teacher is unable to accept some of his pupils because their race or nationality differs from his own, are his hands safe ones to trust with the guidance of children into useful and full lives? If education is life, and living demands the ability to get along with people on a plane conducive to the best interests of all concerned, then the New Jersey schools must furnish social milieus in which children will learn to respect the personalities of members of different nationalities and races and to live with such groups in a spirit of mutual cooperation. One of the chief complaints by some Negroes against the mixed schools of New Jersey has been the damage done to the personalities of the children by the attitudes of resentment and hostility on the part of white teachers and children. To the extent that these attitudes and feelings can be re-­educated or controlled within the confines of the immediate community, to that extent will the groundwork be laid for an extension of these capacities to include the nationalities and races of the larger world community. Intolerances, prejudices, and animosities based upon superfluities developed in childhood take their toll in adulthood to the detriment of racial or nationality groups, with results that are only too well known. It is a strange phenomenon which makes it possible for people of education to have so little regard for the sensibilities of others that they are able to subject them to treatment which is usually reserved for criminals, mentally diseased persons, or individuals suffering from contagious or infectious ailments, and which openly relegates them to the category of undesirables or untouchables. But strange as it may seem it is one which exists in the state of New Jersey, and in other places, and one which will prove an inhibiting factor in the, development of the suppressing and the suppressed

3. Cf. Howard H. Long, “Some Psychogenic Hazards of Segregated Education of Negroes,” The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. IV, pp. 336–­350; Charles H. Thompson, “Court Action the Only Reasonable Alternative to Remedy Immediate Abuses of the Negro Separate School,” The Journal of Negro Education. Vol. IV, pp. 419–­434.

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persons. For it certainly is not beneficial to the white children to be trained to despise other children by having them develop feelings of racial superiority. It is a sad commentary upon the educational systems of the state when members of a minority race seek separate schools as a means of escape from stultifying influences which are resultant forces of inhuman practices motivated by undemocratic principles. As pointed out by Dr. Hall, one of these is the tendency by direct or subtle methods to promote and perpetuate an economic caste system by discouraging Negro pupils who seek training for semiskilled, skilled, or professional vocations. Another is the refusal to employ within the school system itself qualified teachers whose only fault lies in the degree of pigmentation of their skins, or the denial of opportunities to do practice teaching or observe in the regular schools for the same reason. Still another is the denial of privileges to participate in any of the curricular or extra-­curricular activities. But a very potent argument in favor of planned action in removing from New Jersey’s schools undemocratic policies and practices, aside from those which have already been given, is that there are instances where these injustices and unfair practices have been eliminated in large degree within some of the municipalities of New Jersey. Negro children attend regular schools without being subjected to discriminating or embarrassing treatment. They have been and are stimulated and inspired to develop their capacities by tolerant, democratic teachers. Children in some instances have been and are being taught a wholesome respect for each other. Student teachers have been and are permitted to practice within the schools and those who graduate are employed on the basis of merit or quality of work done. Children in such schools are being taught or trained for living in a community embracing various nationality and racial groups by experiences in such living within the schools. Provisions for social milieus which will contribute to the education of individuals along channels making for constructive living or personality integration will bear dividends in lowered costs for the remedial measures which are outgrowths of the many social pathologies. The social callousness or intolerance which reduces the employment opportunities of individuals to the lowest economic levels where subsistence wages are being paid initiates a train of social diseases which takes a high toll in group finances and group efficiency. These conditions, accompanied by maladjustments developed in schools, furnish the fertile soil for growth of the dependencies and the delinquencies which sap the vitality of so many communities. A chain is as strong as its weakest link, and the quality of group living which can be attained will be commensurate with the progress made in the constructive or optimum development of the various units or elements which go to make up the group. Educational values must be derived from an analysis of social values. If the curriculum of the schools is to be revised or reconstructed to train its graduates for efficient participation in civic, social, economic, and domestic life, it must be reconstructed on the basis of results obtained from an analysis of social living. Such an analysis is needed to indicate what should be the aims and practices of social living by revealing what constitutes the strengths, the needs, the shortages, and the defects of group living. After such a determination of values the ultimate goals may be established in terms of the more specific aims and objectives of education.

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The contributions of the physical and social sciences can be marshalled to aid in the determination of both the what and the how of educational aims. When this task has been completed the job is still only half done. A cultural lag has always existed between the findings of science and the applications of those findings to the problems of everyday living. After those responsible for the education of New Jersey’s children have determined the direction which curriculum reconstruction must take in order to insure democratic thinking and practice, there will be the vital necessity of educating public opinion within the state to a realization of the worth of the needs and proposed changes of the school curricula. Finally, if children are to be trained in the schools in accordance with the ideals of democratic living and for participation in a community life characterized by democratic thinking and practices, the educators of New Jersey and America will be called upon to assume roles of leadership in telic or purposive planning instead of allowing themselves merely to reflect the sentiments, ideas, and practices of the social groups of which they are members.

Bibliography

general historical works Anderson, Matthew. Presbyterianism: Its Relation to the Negro. Philadelphia, John McGill White and Co., 1897. 263 pp. Author gives an account of his experiences while a student at the Theological Seminary, Princeton. Benezet, Anthony. A Short Account of That Part of Africa Inhabited, by the Negroes. Philadelphia, W. Dunlap, 1762. 80 pp. Bond, Horace M. The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order. New York, Prentice-­Hall, Inc., 1934. 501 pp. A masterful delineation of the conditions circumscribing the education of Negroes in both southern and northern states. Brawley, Benjamin G. A Short History of the American Negro. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. 247 pp. Corwin, Charles. “The Church and the Negroes in Colonial Days.” Tercentenary Studies. Reformed Church in America, 1928. 399 pp. Pictures the conditions of slavery among the Dutch in colonial times. Cromwell, John. The Negro in American History. Washington, D.C., The American Negro Academy, 1914. 284 pp. Contains an authoritative chapter on the convention movement among Negroes. Cubberley, Ellwood P. Public Education in the United States. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919. 517 pp. Cubberley, Ellwood P. Readings in the History of Education. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. 684 pp. Curti, Merle E. The Social Ideas of American Educators. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933. 613 pp. Painstakingly shows how the majority of American educators have accepted and assisted in maintaining the social theories of the periods in which they have lived. Johnson, Charles. The Negro in American Civilization. New York, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1930. 530 pp. Refers to conditions surrounding the education of Negroes in New Jersey. Mazyck, Walter H. George Washington and the Negro. Washington, D.C., The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1932. 180 pp. Includes the story of the Kusciusko Fund. Reisner, Edward H. The Evolution of the Common School. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1930. 590 pp. Spero, Sterling D. and Harris, Abram L. The Black Worker. New York, Columbia University Press, 1931. 509 pp. Washington, Booker T. My Larger Education. New York, Doubleday, Page and Co., 1911. 313 pp. Mentions the “Kusciusko School.” Williams, George W. History of the Negro Race in America, 1619–­1880. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1883. 2 Vols.

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Has a section on Negroes in New Jersey. Woodson, Carter G. The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. Washington, D.C., The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1919. 454 pp. A scholarly account of Negro education in the United States up to the period of the Civil War. Woodson, Carter G. The Negro in Our History. Washington, D.C., The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1922. 616 pp.

new jersey history Beck, Henry. Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey. New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., 1936. 178 pp. Chapter 3 deals with the life of James Still, who trained himself to be a physician in the early part of the nineteenth century. Boyer, Charles S. Early Forges and Furnaces in New Jersey. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931. 287 pp. Mentions Negro slaves who worked in the forges, furnaces, and mines. Clayton, W. Woodford. History of Union and Middlesex Counties. Philadelphia, Everts and Peck, 1882. 885 pp. Connolly, James C. “Slavery in Colonial New Jersey and the Causes Operating against Its Extension.” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, New series, Vol. XIV, pp. 181–­202, April, 1929. Cushing, Thomas and Sheppard, Charles. History of the Counties of Gloucester, Salem-­and Cumberland. Philadelphia, Everts and Peck, 1883. 728 pp. Eaton, Harriet. Jersey City and Historic Sites. Jersey City, N.J., The Woman’s Club, 1899. 144 pp. Elmer, Lucius. The Constitution and Government of the Province and State of New Jersey. Newark, N.J., Martin R. Dennis, 1872. 495 pp. Gardner, D. H. “Emancipation of Slaves in New Jersey.” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, New series, Vol. IX, pp. 1–­21, January, 1924. Gordon, Thomas. The History of New Jersey to 1776. Trenton, N.J., Daniel Fenton, 1834. 339 pp. Hageman, John. History of Princeton and Its Institutions. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1879. 449 pp. Hall, John. Daily Union History of Atlantic City and County. Atlantic City, N.J., Daily Union Printing Co., 1900. 517 pp. Historic Days in Cumberland County, N.J. Bridgeton, N.J., Isaac Nichols, 1907. 257 pp. Describes the bitter feelings against members of the Republican Party because of their espousal of the Negroes’ cause. History of Monmouth County, N.J. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1922. 3 vols. Honeyman, A. Van Doren, editor-­in-­chief. History of Union County. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1923. 431 pp. Hoyt, James. The Mountain Society. New York, C. M. Saxton, Barker, and Co., 1860. 281 pp. Keasbey, A. A. “Slavery in New Jersey.” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, Third series, Vol. IV, pp. 90–­96, January–­April, 1907; pp. 147–­154, May–­October, 1907; Vol. V, pp. 12–­20, January, 1908; pp. 78–­86, April, 1908. Kline, James. “The Flemington Academy.” The Jerseyman, Vol. VII, pp. 17–­19, August, 1901. Kull, Jiving, editor-­in-­chief. A History of New Jersey. American Historical Society, New York, 1930–­32. Written under the auspices of the history department of Rutgers University, this series has more scientific value than any of the more recent studies in this field. Lee, Frances. New Jersey as a Colony and as a State. New York, The Publishing Society of New Jersey, 1902. 4 vols. An interesting history written for popular reading. Fails to cite sources of data. McLean, Alexander. History of Jersey City, N.J. Jersey City, N.J., Jersey City Printing Co., 1895. 462 pp. Magee, James. Bordentown, 1682–­1932, Bordentown, N.J., The Bordentown Register, 1932. 145 pp. Mellick, Andrew. Story of An Old Farm. Somerville, N.J., The Unionist-­Gazette, 1889. 743 pp. A story of the social forces and social life of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Messier, Abraham. First Things in Old Somerset. Somerville, N.J., Somerville Publishing Co., 1899. 170 pp. Murray, David. History of Education in New Jersey. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1899. 344 pp.

b i b l i o g r a p h y 239 Nelson, William and Shriner, Charles. History of Paterson end Its Environs. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1920. 2 vols. New Jersey Archives. Newark and Trenton, N.J., 1900–­1931. 40 vols. Invaluable as a source for materials dealing with the colonial history of New Jersey. New Jersey Historical Society, Collections. Newark, N.J., 1846–­1927. 10 vols. Source materials dealing with New Jersey history. Pape, William and Scott, William. History of Passaic. Passaic, N.J., The News, 1899. 320 pp. Patterson, William and Others. Presentation of a Medal to Thomas Peterson Mundy. Perth Amboy, N.J., Middle­sex County Democratic Print, 1884. Reprinted H. E. Pickersgill, Perth Amboy, N.J., 1935. 18 pp. This man was the first Negro in the United States to cast a vote after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. Pierson, David. History of the Oranges. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1922. 4 vols. Prowell, George R. The History of Camden County. Philadelphia, L. J. Richards and Co., 1886. 769 pp. Sackett, William E. Modern Battles of Trenton. John L. Murphy, Trenton, N.J., 1895. 2 vols. A revealing story of the activities behind the scenes in connection with the legislative proceedings of New Jersey. Schermerhorn, William E. The History of Burlington, New Jersey. Burlington, N.J., Enterprise Publishing Co., 1927. 388 pp. Scott, William J. Passaic and Its Environs. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1922. 3 vols. Smith, Samuel. History of New Jersey. Burlington, James Parker, 1765. 602 pp. An excellent source for the study of the very early history of New Jersey. State Convention of Colored Men of the State of New Jersey. 1865 Proceedings. Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library. Bridgeton, N.J., J. B. Ferguson, 1865. 15 pp. Steward, William and Theophilus. Gouldtown. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1913. 237 pp. The story of a town with a population almost one hundred per cent mulatto. Stewart, Frank H. Notes on Old Gloucester County. Camden, N.J., Sinnickson Chew and Sons Co., 1917. 3 vols. Most of the material taken from records and newspapers. Stewart, Frank. Stewart’s Genealogical and Historical Miscellany. No. 1. Frank H. Stewart, 1918. 32 pp. Contains abstracts of the minutes of the Gloucester County Abolition Society. Thompson, John. Readington Negroes. Address by Rev. John Bodine Thompson at the Readington Anniversary, October 17, 1894. New Jersey Pamphlet Collection, New Jersey Historical Society. 4 pp. Turner, Edward R. “Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790–­1807.” Smith College Studies in History, Vol. 1, pp. 165–­187, July, 1916. Valuable because the conditions which obtained for women during this period held also for Negroes. Walker, Edwin et al. A History of Trenton. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1929. 2 vols. Westervelt, Frances A. Supervising editor. History of Bergen County. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1923. 3 vols. Witherspoon, Rev. John. Miscellaneous Works. Philadelphia, William Woodward, 1803. 4 vols. Dr. Witherspoon gives a description of the state of New Jersey on pp. 303–­312. Woodford, Clayton. History of Bergen and Passaic Counties. Philadelphia, Everts and Peck, 1882. 577 pp. Woodward, E. M. and Hageman, John E. History of Burlington and Mercer Counties. Philadelphia, Everts and Peck, 1883. 888 pp. Woody, Thomas. Quaker Education in the Colony, and State of New Jersey. A Source Book. Philadelphia, The Author, 1923. 408 pp. A valuable and explicit account of the educational activities of the Quakers in New Jersey.

local church histories “A Brief History of Christ Church, Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, N.J.” Pamphlet in the possession of the New Jersey Historical Society. 14 pp. “Church Anniversaries.” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. LVII, pp. 56–­57, January, 1939. Describes a split in the Presbyterian Church at Mendham, New Jersey, over the issue of slavery.

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Clark, Samuel. The History of St. John’s Church, Elizabethtown, N.J. Philadelphia, J. B, Lippincott and Company, 1857. 203 pp. Contains extracts of original documents of missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. First Presbyterian Church of Bloomfield. Old Church on the Green. Bloomfield, N.J., S. Morris Hulin, 1901. 83 pp. Griffiths, Thomas. A History of Baptists in Near Jersey. Hightstown, N.J., Barr Press Publishing Company, 1904. 542 pp. Hall, John. History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, New Jersey. New York, Anson D. F. Randolph, 1859. 453 pp. Hills, George. History of the Church in Burlington, N.J. Burlington, N.J., William Sharp, 1876. 739 pp. History of First Presbyterian Church, Morristown, N.J. Morristown, N.J., Banner Steam Print, 1885. 2 vols. History of St. Michaels Church. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1926. 459 pp. Kanouse, Peter. A Historical Sermon. Newton, N.J., New Jersey Printing Office, 1878. 22 pp. Methodist Episcopal Church. The New Jersey Conference Memorial. Philadelphia, Perkinpine and Higgins, 1865. 512 pp. Mott, George. History of the Presbyterian Church in Flemington, N.J. New York, Wilbur B. Ketcham, 1894. 127 pp. Raybold, G. A. Reminiscences of Methodism in West Jersey. New York, Lane and Scott, 1849. 202 pp. Taylor, Benjamin C. Annals of the Classics of Bergen of the Reformed Dutch Church. New York, Board of Publications of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, 1857. 479 pp.

travel and description Brissot, Jean P. New Travels in the United States of America. London, J. S. Jordan, 1794. 2 vols. Brissot came to America to make a study of the conditions surrounding the slaves and the free Negroes for the benefit of the Antislavery Society which he had organized in France. Carey. American Pocket Atlas. Philadelphia, Lang and Ustick, 1796. 118 pp. Cazenove, Theophile. Journal. Ed, by Rayner Wickersham Kelsey. Haverford, Pa., Pennsylvania History Press, 1922. 103 pp. Pictures the conditions among the slaves, free Negroes, and whites living in Morris and Sussex Counties in 1795. Griscom, John. Year in Europe. New York, Collins and Hannay, 1824. 2 vols. Contains a description of the Fellenberg School. Holmes, Isaac. An Account of the United States of America, Derived from Actual Observation, during a Residence of Four Years in That Republic. London, Henry Fisher, 1823. 476 pp. Kalm, Peter. Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America. Ed. by Adolph Benson. New York, Wilson-­Erickson Inc., 1937. 2 vols. Describes the various classes of servants in the eighteenth century. La Rochefoucault, Liancourt. Travels through the United States of North America; the Country of the Iroquois and Upper Canada in the Years 1795, 1796 and 1797. London, R. Phillips, 1799. 2 vols. Sturge, Joseph. A Visit to the United States in 1841. London, Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1842. 192 pp. A Friend, who came from England to labor in the antislavery cause, gives a good account of the activities of the antislavery societies for that year. “What Morse Thought of New Jersey in 1812.” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, New series, Vol. 10, pp. 449–­450, October, 1925. Winterbotham, William. A Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States and of the European Settlements in America and the West Indies. Newark, N.J., D. Holt, 1795. 4 vols.

autobiographies, biographies and diaries Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774–­1927. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928. 1740 pp.

b i b l i o g r a p h y 241 Brooks, George. Friend Anthony Benezet. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937. 516 pp. Contains letters from and to Anthony Benezet in an appendix of 265 pages. Chambers, Talbot W. Memoirs of the Life and Character of the Late Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1863. 289 pp. Theodore Frelinghuysen manifested much interest in Negro education. Collins, Varnum. President Witherspoon. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1925. 2 vols. Evans, Joshua. A Journal of the Life, Travels, Religious Exercises and Labours in the Work of the Ministry of Joshua Evans, Late of Newton Township-­Gloucester County, New Jersey. Philadelphia, John and Isaac Comly, 1837. 212 pp. Gerry, Elbridge. The Diary of Elbridge Gerry, Jr., 1813. New York, Bretano’s, 1927. 222 pp. Green, Asbel. The Life of Asbel Green. Ed. by Joseph Jones. New York, Robert Carter and Bros., 1849. 628 pp. Green, Calvin. “Rev. Calvin Green’s Diary, August 1, 1790-­December  30, 1843.” Typescript copied from original manuscript; on file in New Jersey Historical Society. 279 pp. Griscom, John. Memoir of John Griscom, LL.D. New York, Robert Carter and Bros., 1859. 427 pp. Hunt, John. “John Hunt’s Diary,” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. LII, pp. 177–­193, July, 1934; pp. 223–­239, October, 1934; Vol. LIII, pp. 26–­43, January, 1935; pp. 111–­128, April, 1935; pp. 194–­209, July, 1935. John Hunt was a member of the committee appointed by the Yearly meeting to consider the case of Cynthia Myers, who had applied for membership in the Society of Friends. Lewis, Joseph. “Journal of Joseph Lewis of Morristown, New Jersey.” Typescript in the possession of the New Jersey Historical Society. 23 pp. Contains manuscript copy of his “observations on the Law Constituting Courts for Trial of Small Causes in 1806.” Joseph Lewis served as clerk of the county from 1782–­1787 and as one of the judges of the court of common pleas from 1800–­1805. Rodgers, John. The Faithful Servant Rewarded. New York, Thomas Greenleaf, 1795. 38 pp. Shaw, G. S. John Chavis. Binghamton, N.Y., Vail Ballou Press, Inc., 1831. 60 pp. John Chavis, a Negro, was reported to have been a student at Princeton under President Witherspoon. Still, James. Early Recollections and Life of Dr. Still. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1877. 274 pp. Copy in Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library. The autobiography of a Negro who became a physician through his own efforts. Woods, David W. John Witherspoon. New York, Fleming Revell Co., 1906. 295 pp. Woolman, John. The Journal and Essays of John Woolman. Ed. by Amelia Gummere. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1922. 643 pp.

legislative, legal and official records Assembly of New Jersey. Votes and Proceedings, 1776–­1881. Committee of Council on the Proposed Alteration of the Constitution of the State of New Jersey. Report. Trenton, Sherman and Harron, 1841. 14 pp. Discusses the question of the persons to whom the franchise should be granted. Congressional Globe. Vols. 63 to 68. Washington, D.C., John C. Rives, 1864–­1869. These volumes deal with the reconstruction period. Elmer, Lucius. A Digest of the Laws of New Jersey 1709–­1855. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1855. Second edition, 984 pp. Journal of the Senate of New Jersey. 1791–­1792; 1849–­1881. Justices and Freeholders of Bergen County. Minutes and Proceedings, 1715–­1795. Bergen County Historical Society, 1924. 239 pp. Tells of the early trials of Negroes in Bergen County. Laws of New Jersey. 1664–­1938. Newark Township. Minutes, 1828–­1870. New Jersey Law Reports. “The State v. Post Spencer.” Vol. 1, 368. New Jersey Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety. Minutes, 1775–­1776. Trenton, N.J., Day and Narr, 1879. 618 pp.

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Discusses the motions pertaining to the New Jersey Constitution of 1776. Stewart, Alvan. A Legal Argument before the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey at the May Term 1845, at Trenton for the Deliverance of 4,000 Persons from Bondage. New York, Finch and Weed, 1845. 52 pp. A passionate plea for the complete abolition of slavery in New Jersey based upon the provision of the new Constitution of 1844. United States Census Report. 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880. Washington, D.C. United States Commissioner of Education. Report, 1870, pp. 223–­224. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1870. Contains a very favorable report on the colored school in Newark. United States Supreme Court, December Term, 1852. Ennis et al. v. Smith et al. 14 Howard 400. Gives a full report of the Kusciusko Fund.

state and local school reports Colored School. “Statement from the Colored School to Township Committee,” in Township Papers, 1829–­1830. On file in the City Clerk’s office, Newark. “Newark Report of the Colored School,” April 12, 1830. “Newark Report of the Colored School,” in Township Papers, 1831–­1832. On file in the City Clerk’s office. Annual Report of the Board of Education and of the Superintendent of Schools of the City of East Orange, New Jersey, July 1, 1902–­June  30, 1903. East Orange, N.J., Burnet Press, 64 pp. East Orange Board of Education. Minutes, 1897–­1916. Elizabeth Board of Education. Minutes, 1855–­1880. Englewood Board of Education. Minutes, 1874–­1885. Nelson, William. Historical Sketch of Schools in Paterson, New Jersey. Paterson, N.J., Board of Education, 1877. 74 pp. Tells also of the founding at Paterson, N.J., of one of the earliest Sunday schools in the United States. Newark Board of Education. Minutes, 1844–­1909. Newark School Committee. Report, July 1, 1836. Common Council, Street & Highways, Committee Re. Reso. 1836–­1850. In Newark city clerk’s office. New Brunswick Board of Education. Minutes, 1854–­1882. Paterson Board of Education. Annual Report, 1869. Rahway Board of Education. Minutes, 1872–­1882. Report of the Committee Appointed at a Public Meeting of the Friends of Education Held at the State House in Trenton, November 11, 1828. Trenton, D. Fenton, 1828. 46 pp. Smith, Elias. The School Interest of Elizabeth, A. D. 1664–­1910. Elizabeth, N.J., 1911. 91 pp. Technical Industrial Educational Association of New Brunswick. “Certificate of Incorporation.” Secretary of State, Division of Corporations, A-3676, B4078. Trenton, N.J. Trustees of the School Fund of the State of New Jersey. Annual Report, 1839. Trenton, N.J., Phillips and Boswell. 53 pp.

reports and records of religious bodies, and related works Account of the Designs of the Associates of the Late Dr. Bray. London, Gilbert and Rivington, 1834. 48 pp. Association of Friends for the Free Instruction of Adult Colored Persons. Annual Report, 1861–­1865. See also The Friend, for years corresponding with Annual Report. This association, which supervised schools in Philadelphia, also conducted a school in Camden. Cadbury, Henry J. “Negro Membership in the Society of Friends.” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. XXI, pp. 151–­213, April, 1936. Cooper, William A. “The Attitude of the Society of Friends towards Slavery.” Camden County Historical Society, Vol. 1, pp. 1–­16, January 15, 1929.

b i b l i o g r a p h y 243 “Germantown Protest against Slavery, 1688.” Original deposited in the Department of Records of the Society of Friends, 302 Arch Street, Philadelphia. Griffin, Edward D. A Plea for Africa. New York, Gould, 1817. 76 pp. Contains a full description of the establishment and program of study of the African School at Parsippany. History of the Association of Friends for the Free Instruction of Adult Colored Persons in Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1890. 31 pp. Humphreys, David. An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, Joseph Downing, 1730. 356 pp. The author of this book had served the Society as secretary for a period prior to the writing of this book. Jones, Rufus. The Quakers in the American Colonies. London, The Macmillan Company, 1923. 603 pp. Gives detailed descriptions of the activities of the Quakers in the different sections or states. Kite, Nathan. A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the Slave Trade. Philadelphia, Joseph and William Kite, 1843. 59 pp. Michener, Ezra. A Retrospect of Early Quakerism. Philadelphia, T. Ellwood Zell, 1860. 434 pp. Contains many extracts from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on Negroes. Miller, Samuel. A Sermon Preached at Newark, October 22, 1823, for the Benefit of the African School. Trenton, N.J., George Sherman, 1823. 28 pp. Mt. Holly Monthly Meeting of Friends. Memorial of a Coloured Man, William Boen. Philadelphia, Sharpless, 1831. 6 pp. John Woolman was interested in this man and arranged for his marriage in a Friends’ Meeting. Certificate of the marriage, dated 1763, is on file at Swarthmore College. Needles, Edward. An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race. Philadelphia, Merrihew and Thompson, 1848. 116 pp. Pascoe, C. F. Two Hundred Years of S. P. G., 1701–­1900. London, The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1901. 1429 pp. The author was keeper of the records for the Society at the time of the writing of this book. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. The Appeal of the Religious Society in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, etc., to Their Fellow-­Citizens of the United States on Behalf of the Coloured Races. Philadelphia, The Society, 1858. 48 pp. A stirring expose of the capture of and trade in Negroes. Philadelphia Yearly Meetings of Friends. Christian Advices. Philadelphia, Kimber and Conrad, 1808. 112 pp. Philadelphia Yearly Meetings of the Society of Friends and Subordinate Meetings. Minutes deposited at 302 Arch Street, Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1681–­1884. Burlington Quarterly Meeting, 1686–­1884. Burlington Quarterly Meeting, Women, 1686–­1884. Burlington Monthly Meeting, 1678–­1884. Burlington Monthly Meeting, Women, 1829–­1871. Salem and Gloucester Quarterly Meeting, 1697–­1794. Salem Quarterly Meeting, 1795–­1884. Salem Quarterly Meeting, Women, 1815–­1851. Salem Monthly Meeting, 1676–­1854. Salem Monthly Meeting, Women, 1835–­1884. Gloucester, Salem, Cape May Meetings, 1745–­1814. Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting, 1795–­1827. Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting, Women, 1815–­1897. Haddonfield Monthly Meeting 1710–­1863. Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, Women, 1696–­1884. Shrewsbury Quarterly Meeting, 1705–­1857. Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting, 1757–­1854. Mount Holly Monthly Meeting, 1776–­1828. Upper Springfield Monthly Meeting, 1783–­1844.

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Evesham Monthly Meeting, 1760–­1827. Woodbury Monthly Meeting, 1785–­1819. Upper Evesham Monthly Meeting, 1794–­1810. Chesterfield Monthly Meeting, 1684–­1793, 1797–­1806. Chesterfield Preparative Meeting, Women, 1796–­1821. East Branch Preparative Meeting, 1800–­1813. Greenwich Monthly Meeting, 1784–­1798. Chester Preparative Meeting, 1785–­1822. Greenwich Monthly Meeting, 1798–­1808. Mansfield Preparative Meeting, 1779–­1846. Great Egg Harbor Monthly Meeting, 1726–­1806. Haddonfield School Account Book. Upper Springfield School Trustees, 1788–­1849. Mansfield School Fund, 1779–­1846. School Society, 1789–­1890. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, Hicksite. Minutes deposited at Swarthmore College: Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting, 11/XII/1862. Chester Monthly Meeting, 8/11/1866, 7/11/1867. Chester Monthly Meeting, Women, 5/VII/1832, 8/III/1849. Westfield Preparative Meeting, 1801–­1884. Chester Preparative Meeting, 22/11/1863. An Epistle from the Yearly Meeting of Friends Held in Philadelphia . . . 1832 to the People of Colour Residing in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Parts Adjacent. Philadelphia, J. Richards, 1832. 8 pp. Presbyterian Synod of New Jersey. Minutes, 1823–­1850. Deposited in Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. Contains the activities at the Synod and the Board of Directors in connection with the African School at Parsippany. Presbyterian Synod of New York. Minutes, 1823–­1826. Deposited in Auburn Theological Seminary, Auburn, New York. Deals with the African School at Parsippany. Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey. Minutes, 1816–­1823. Deposited in Auburn Theological Seminary, Auburn, New York. Deals with the African School at Parsippany. Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. Diocese of New Jersey. Journal of the Proceedings of Conventions, 1821–­1877, Princeton, N.J. One of the activities reported is the maintaining of an African School at Shrewsbury, N.J. Society for the Free Instruction of Orderly Blacks and People of Colour. Minutes of the School Society, 1789–­1890. Deposited in Department of Records, Society of Friends, 302 Arch St., Philadelphia. Correspondence addressed to the Society, Nos. 2, 4. Manuscript Minutes of the Camden School Committee. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Annual Report, 1704–­1783. London. An Account of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, Joseph Downing, 1704. 23 pp. An Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, Joseph Downing, 1706. 97 pp. A Collection of Papers Printed by Order of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, John Downing, 1712. 66 pp. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, “Correspondence.” Series A, 26 vols.; series B, 25 vols. Copies in Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Thomas, Allen. C. The Attitude of the Society of Friends toward Slavery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Particularly in Relation to Its Own Members. Haverford, Pa., The Knickerbocker Press, 1897. 36 pp. Contains a copy of the “Germantown Protest against Slavery, 1688.” Thomas, Allen C. A History of the Friends in America. Philadelphia, The John C. Winston Company, 1919. 285 pp.

b i b l i o g r a p h y 245 Thompson, Thomas. An Account of Two Missionary Voyages by the Appointment of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The One to New Jersey in North America. London, Benjamin Dod, 1758. 24 pp. Thompson, Thomas. A Letter from New Jersey Giving Some Account and Description of That Province. London, Printed for M. Cooper in Paternoster-­row, 1756. 26 pp. Vibert, Faith. “The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Its Work for the Negroes in North America before 1783.” Journal of Negro History, Vol. XVIII, pp. 171–­212, April, 1933.

slavery, antislavery societies, and petitions American Anti-­Slavery Society. Annual Report, 1833–­1837, 1857–­1859. New York, 1834–­1861. American Conventions of Abolition Societies. Minutes, 1794–­1831. Bergen County. “Petitions to the Legislature, Requesting the Repeal of the New Jersey Abolition Act 1804.” MSS on File at State Library, Trenton, N.J., January 4, 1806. Burlington County. “Petition to the Legislature for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery 1796.” MS on file at State Library, Trenton, N.J. Burlington and Hunterdon Counties. “Petition to the Legislature for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in New Jersey, May 1792.” MS on file at the State Library, Trenton, N.J. Citizens of Paterson. Address to the Legislature of New Jersey. Paterson, N.J., Day and Warren, 1841. 12 pp. A plea in behalf of the children born to slaves after July 1, 1804, and of the slaves still in bondage. Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, Begun in the Year 1774, and Enlarged on the 23rd of April, 1787. Philadelphia, Joseph James. 1787. 15 pp. Copy in the New York Public Library. Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimke-­Weld, and Sarah Grimke. Ed. by Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Diamond. New York, D. Appleton-­Century Co., 1934. 2 vols. Morris County. “Petitions to the Legislature Requesting the Repeal of the New Jersey Act of 1804.” MSS on file at State Library, Trenton, N.J., January, 1806. New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of New Jersey Relative to the Manumission of Negroes and Others Holden in Bondage. Burlington, N.J., Isaac Neale, 1794. 32 pp. Shows the superficial basis upon which some of the slaves in New Jersey acquired their freedom. New Jersey Society for the Abolition of Slavery. “Testimony to the Legislature in Favor of the Law for the Gradual Extinction of Slavery, 1804.” MSS on file at the State Library, Trenton, N.J. New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. The Constitution, Burlington, N. J, Isaac Neale, 1793. 16 pp. New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Burlington Branch. Minutes, 1792–­1809. Deposited in Quakerana Collection, Haverford College, Haverford, Pa. Pracaness, Saddle River Township, Bergen County. “Pracaness Petition to the Legislature Requesting the Repeal of the New Jersey Abolition Act, 1804.” MSS on file at State Library, Trenton, N.J., January 13, 1806. Turner, Edward. “The First Abolition Society in the United States.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 92–­109, 1912. Describes the formation of the abolition society of Philadelphia, its history, and its decline as the antislavery societies came into existence.

dissertations and theses Anderson, Lewis F. History of Manual and Industrial School Education. New York, D, Appleton and Co., 1926. 251 pp. Baker, Paul E. Negro-­White Adjustment. New York, Association Press, 1934. 267 pp. Burr, Nelson. “The History of Education in the State of New Jersey from Earliest Times to 1870.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1934. 3 vols.

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To be published as part of a history series on New Jersey. Detailed presentation of social forces and attitudes affecting education in New Jersey. Christian, Howard. “Samuel Cornish.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Howard University, Washington, D.C., 1936. 71 pp. Cooley, Henry. A Study of Slavery in New Jersey. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1896. 60 pp. This is the most complete history of Negro life in New Jersey. Dixon, Robert S. “Education of the Negro in New York, 1853–­1900.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, City College of New York, 1935. 90 pp. Drake, Thomas. “Northern Quakers and Slavery.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1933. Fox, Early Lee. The American Colonization Society, 1817–­1840. Baltimore, Md., Johns Hopkins University Press, 1919. 231 pp. Hall, Egerton. The Negro Wage Earner in New Jersey. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University, 1935. 115 pp. Harney, Julia. “The Evolution of Public Education in Jersey City.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1931. 272 pp. Holmes, Dwight O. W. The Evolution of the Negro College. New York, Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1934. 221 pp. Kemp, William W. The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. New York, Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913. 279 pp. Knapp, Charles M. New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Geneva, N, J., Humphrey, 1924. 212 pp. Presents a very detailed picture of the political arena in New Jersey in which issues on the Negroes are discussed. Long, Claramae B. “History of Negro Education in New York City, 1701–­1853.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, City College of New York, 1935. 86 pp. Nichols, Robert F. “Presbyterian Church and Slavery in New Jersey.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Rutgers University, 1919. 45 pp. Oak, Eleanor Hill. “The Evolution of Separate Schools in New Jersey.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Howard University, 1935. 97 pp. Pharr, Julia M. “The Activities of the Society of Friends in Behalf of Negro Education.” Master’s thesis, Howard University, 1937. 142 pp. Short, Harriet R. “Negro Conventions Prior to 1860.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Howard University, 1936. 80 pp. Thompson, Marion M. “A Comparative Study of the Efficiency of the Public White and Colored State School Systems in Sixteen States.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Howard University, 1936. 80 pp. Wesley, Charles H. Negro Labor in the United States, 1850–­1925. New York, Vanguard Press, Inc., 1927. 343 pp. Williamson, Etta L. “The History of the Separate Public Schools for Negroes in Pennsylvania.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Howard University, 1935. 112 pp.

miscellaneous books and reports Cornish, Samuel and Wright, Theodore. The Colonization Scheme Considered. Newark, N.J., Aaron Guest, 1840. 26 pp. Bitterly opposes the American Colonization Society’s efforts. Dewey, John and Dewey, Evelyn. Schools of To-­Morrow. New York, E. P, Dutton and Co., 1915. 316 pp. Devotes a chapter to the splendid work done in Indianapolis by William Valentine, now principal of the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown, N.J. Minutes and Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of the People of Colour. Philadelphia, 1831. 20 pp. Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library. Minutes and Proceedings of the Second Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color in These United States. Philadelphia, 1832. 36 pp. Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library. New Jersey Conference of Social Work, and New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies. The Negro in New Jersey. Trenton and Newark, N.J., 1932. 116 pp. Community Reports Nos. 1–­23. Mimeographed. Complete set at Newark Public Library.

b i b l i o g r a p h y 247 A detailed survey of the conditions under which Negroes in New Jersey were living during the year 1930–­1931. New Jersey Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Urban Colored Population. Report to the Legislature of the State of New Jersey. Trenton, N.J., 1939. 128 pp. Report of the Proceedings at the Formation of the African Education Society of the United States. Washington, D.C., James C. Dunn, 1830. 16 pp. Smith, Samuel S. An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species. Philadelphia, Robert Aitken, 1787. 215 pp. Significant because of the environmentalist conception which the author held at that early period. State of New York. Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York. Albany, N.Y., J. B. Lyon Co., 1902. 7 vols.

periodicals and newspapers African Repository. Published by the American Colonization Society. Washington, D.C., 1826–­1893. 68 vols. Contains items of information on the education of Negroes in America and Africa. Anglo African. New York, 1859–­1860. Burr, Nelson. “The Development of Education in New Jersey to 1871.” New Jersey Historical Proceedings, Vol. LI, pp. 253–­260, July, 1933. A summary of a larger history of education in New Jersey. Centinel (later Sentinel) of Freedom. Newark, N.J., 1800–­1881. Contains information on Sunday schools, the African School, the Colonization Societies, the schools of Newark, and sentiments on slavery. Colored American. New York. (1837–­1840.)* “The Courts and the Negro Separate School.” Symposium in The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. IV, 1–­464 pp., July, 1935. Daily State Gazette. Trenton, N.J. March 8, 11, 18, 1881. Presents the discussion which took place in the Assembly on the bill prohibiting the exclusion of any child from any school on account of nationality, religion, or color. The Emancipator and Journal of Public Morals. New York. 1833–­1838. The Emporium. Trenton, N.J. 1823–­1833. Freedom’s Journal. New York. (1827–­1828.)* The Friend. Philadelphia. Vols. XXXIV-­XXXIX. Contains reports and articles on the Camden School for Adult Colored Persons. A complete index of articles which have appeared in The Friend is in the Quakerana Collection, Haverford College. Granger, Lester. “Race Relations and the School System.” Opportunity, Vol. III, pp. 327–­329, November, 1925. Hunterdon County Democrat. Flemington, N.J., March 15, 22, 1881. Discusses the “Fair Haven School War.” Jersey City Advertiser and Bergen Republican. Jersey City, N.J., July 3, 1838. Mentions the infant school for Negroes. Jerseyman. Morristown, N.J., December 18, 1885; September 3, 10, 1886. The Journal of Negro History. Lancaster, Pa., Association for the Study of Negro Life. Washington, D.C., January, 1916. Monmouth Democrat. Freehold, N.J., March 10, 17, 24; April 7, 14, 17; May 5, 1881. Discusses in detail the “Fair Haven School War.” Monmouth Inquirer. Freehold, N.J., March 24, 31, 1881. Discusses the “Fair Haven School War.” Morristown Record. Morristown, N.J., September 26, 1936. Tells of the closing of the colored school. New Brunswick Times. New Brunswick, N.J., March 18, 1881. Discusses the “Fair Haven School War.” Newark Evening News. Newark, N.J., July 21, 1914. Tells of the African School and the patriotic record of an ex-­slave.

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New Jersey State Gazette. Trenton, N.J., 1778–­1799, (1798–­1837),* 1848–­1858, 1861–­1863. Oak, Vishnu V. and Oak, Eleanor H. “The Illegal Status of Separate Education in New Jersey.” School and Society, Vol. XLVII, pp. 671–­673, 1938. Porter, Dorothy B. “The Organized Education Activities of Negro Literary Societies, 1828–­1846.” Journal of Negro Education, Vol. V, pp. 555–­576, October, 1936. Stuart, William. “White Servitude in New York and New Jersey.” Americana, Vol. XV, pp. 19–­37, January, 1921. Shows the relationships of the labor situation to conditions in Europe in addition to describing the status of the white servants in these two states. “Negro Slavery in New Jersey and New York.” Americana, Vol. XVI, pp. 347–­367, October, 1922. Relates Negro slavery in New Jersey to industrial problems. Trenton Daily True American. Trenton, N.J., 1858–­1868. An organ of the Democratic party which set forth the antipathies of that party toward the Negro. Trenton Federalist. Trenton, N.J., 1805–­1812, 1821–­1824. Trenton Weekly State Gazette. Trenton, N.J., March 3, 10, 17, 24; April 21; May 12, 1881. Discusses the “Fair Haven School War.” Evans, Charles. American Bibliography. Chicago, Blakely Printing Company, 1863–­1904. 12 vols. An exhaustive bibliography of printed works published in the United States from 1639–­1820. Griffin, Grace, “Writings on American History,” in American Historical Association, Annual Report, 1909–­1910, pp. 491–­739, 427–­657; 1911, Vol. 1, pp. 529–­761; 1919–­1929, supplement; 1930–­1931, Vols. 2 and 3; 1933. The Journal of Negro Education. Washington, D.C., Howard University, April, 1932—­. Published quarterly. Bibliographies on Negro Education in each number. United States Office of Education. Bibliography of Research Studies in Education, 1930–­31. Bulletin No. 16, 1932. Section on Negroes, pp. 375–­380. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932. Work, Monroe. A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America. New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1928. 698 pp. *Dates given in parentheses indicate incomplete files.



New Jersey Laws and the Negro

I. Importance of the Study New Jersey is a state in which are found, so far as Negroes are concerned, practices that many people believe to exist only in the southern area of the country. The chief difference between the conditions existing in this Middle Atlantic state and those found in the more Southern ones is that in the latter, theory, as represented by legal enactments, and practice form a far more consistent pattern. The diversity of practices found in New Jersey raises the very pertinent question as to what really constitutes the legal basis for social living here. In certain sections of the State there are mixed schools entirely, while in other areas there are separate schools for Negro and white children. In some public places there are equal accommodations for both races while in others there is either total discrimination against Negroes, or separate provisions are made for them. The very acuteness of the situation in Southern States has forced the problems existing there upon the attention of Negroes and those members of the white race who believe in a social philosophy which holds that equal opportunities for all persons regardless of religion, race, or color should exist in a country dedicated to the ideals of democratic living. Some of these persons have formed inter-­racial commissions. Groups of southern white women have appealed to constituted authorities to blot out lynching. College students of both races meet for mutual discussion. But in New Jersey where it is generally believed by so many people that problems concerning Negroes have been equitably solved, citizens give little attention to practices which differ only in minor degrees from many upon which attention is now focused in Southern States. It is this difference which may make the situation for Negroes in New Jersey very critical. This difference may be contributing toward an increase rather than a decrease of discriminatory practices. Fair minded people are concerned about segregation of and discriminations against Negroes for several reasons. In the first place, such practices are unjust because they impose upon the members of this race a badge of inferiority. In the second place, these acts assign them to the category of criminals, mental defectives, and other undesirables. In the third place, these practices result in either a spurious sense of superiority or a feeling of contempt toward Negroes on the part of white people. Such attitudes have a dwarfing effect upon the personalities of those members of the 251

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white race who feel the need to express themselves in such manner. Feelings of inferiority and resentment on the one hand and of superiority and contempt on the other provide social milieus which render less possible balanced and well integrated personalities among the members of both groups. Racial antagonisms also tend toward an isolation of Negroes from many cultural contacts that make for a more abundant life. They deprive individuals of opportunities for training for legitimate occupations. They shut some Negroes out of vocations for which they are prepared. They assign others to living quarters that are breeding places for social, physical, and mental diseases. They send impressionable children to schools that are ill equipped to carry out the functions for which schools are supposed to be established. Such conditions create an ever widening gap between democratic theory and practice. It is exceedingly important, then, for a State whose group unity and efficiency depend upon the personal and social adaptations of all of its members to give serious attention to any factors that threaten the optimum adjustment of a segment of its citizenry. But persons or groups concerned about problems arising from racial discriminations can plan constructive programs for their amelioration only if they are conversant with the factors surrounding their existence. In order to gain a knowledge and understanding of these factors, it is usually necessary for students of social problems to go beyond a survey of present conditions. Social practices frequently have roots that run far back into the history of people. An historical study of the genetic development of institutions and laws lays a foundation for their revision if such is what the demands of present social living require. It is the purpose of this study to reveal the status of Negroes in New Jersey as defined by the laws concerning them which have been enacted from time to time. It is, of course, understood that statutes do not reveal a total picture of the motives, feelings, or attitudes of one element toward another. Seldom do laws represent the unanimous opinion of the whole population since most legislation is enacted by a majority vote of a small number acting for the whole. Many laws pertaining to Negroes in New Jersey have resulted from the agitation of strong pressure groups. Others constitute compromises between strong conflicting interests. But the important fact remains that legislative enactments serve as definitions of relationships and rights until they are repealed or superseded by other acts. These laws constitute the framework in terms of which decisions concerning Negroes within the State are made. Consequently a study of these statutes will reveal whether or not changes in relationships between Negro and white elements represent steps toward or away from the ideals of democratic living. A study of the laws pertaining to Negroes passed by the Colony and State of New Jersey lends itself to four divisions: the period from 1664 to 1776 when New Jersey was a proprietary and then a royal colony; the period from 1776 to 1804 when the fight of the abolitionists gained sufficient momentum to insure the passage of a law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery in the State; the period from 1804 to 1865 which marked a transitional era from the year in which the State provided for the freedom of all Negroes born after July 4, 1804, to the year when the Federal Government prohibited involuntary servitude in any section of the United States; and

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the period from 1865 to the present day during which the Negroes of the State have been supposedly entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. This study, then, proposes to present the details of this chapter of the legal enactments of this country and of inter-­racial relationships between whites and Negroes.

II. Early History A review of the early history of New Jersey shows that prior to 1664 scattered settlements had been made in New Jersey by the Swedes and the Dutch. The Dutch wrested control of the Swedish settlements from the Swedes but later were forced to yield to the claims of the English. Charles I of England gave to his brother, James, Duke of York, an area of land which included what is now the State of New Jersey. The Duke of York, in turn, made Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret proprietors of the new colony. The Swedes and Dutch continued to live peaceably on their lands because of their willingness to transfer their allegiance from their former sovereigns to the king of England. Scotch, Irish, French Huguenots, Germans, Quakers and settlers from neighboring colonies helped to increase the population of New Jersey. In 1676, the Quinpartite Deed1 divided the colony into East Jersey and West Jersey. This agreement set up two distinct provinces, each of which governed itself by different laws. Most of the towns were located in East Jersey while large plantations, owned mainly by Quakers, were found in West Jersey. When, in 1702, as a result of many difficulties, the administration of the two provinces was yielded to Queen Anne, the two Jerseys were united into a single province once more. There remained, however, the eastern and western divisions of the colony with the legislatures meeting alternately in first the one and then the other of these sections. The New Englanders who settled in East Jersey brought with them their traditions of theocracy and puritanical codes of morals which were reflected in their laws. The Dutch who settled chiefly in Bergen, Somerset, and Monmouth Counties contributed a major share of the opposition to abolitionists’ efforts. In the beginning, the Dutch had resisted the introduction of the slave trade, but the inadequate supply of cheap and plentiful labor finally convinced them that slavery was the most practical solution to a pressing economic problem. Once established, slavery continued to flourish until New Jersey had earned the distinction of having the largest slave population of any northern state with the exception of New York. Great Britain contributed definitely to this growth in the slave population by her persistent opposition to the imposition of import duties which were calculated to restrict the slave trade.2 The Quakers who settled mainly in West Jersey exerted strong influences upon the social practices and laws of New Jersey. Their aversion to slavery stimulated an active campaign in behalf of the education and manumission of Negroes. 1. New Jersey Archives, vol. 1, 205–­219. 2. Marion M. Thompson Wright, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey (New York, 1941), p. 3.

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It is not known when Negroes first entered New Jersey but their presence is inferred from the first concessions made to prospective settlers.3 These concessions provided that seventy-­five acres of land be allowed for each weaker servant or slave included in the household of those who accompanied the first governor to New Jersey.4 But Mellick5 definitely establishes the existence of Negro slavery in New Jersey when he tells of the sixty or seventy slaves that Colonel Richard Morris had about his iron mill and plantation as early as 1676. In 1675, a law governing slaves bears additional testimony to the presence of Negroes in the colony. Much of the legislation passed for the next one and one-­quarter centuries represented attempts to regulate relationships between Negro slaves and the white segment of the population.

III. Laws Passed from 1675 to 1776 During the proprietary period, 1664 to 1702, it was East Jersey that passed the laws dealing with Negroes. West Jersey distinguished herself by omitting the word slave from her enactments. The laws passed by the eastern division established and protected rights of ownership in those held in bondage; provided for maintenance of slaves; prohibited the sale of strong drink to Negroes and Indians; imposed restrictions upon the handling of guns by slaves; and set up machinery for handling crimes committed by Negroes. When, in 1702, the two Jerseys united and pledged allegiance to Queen Anne, many significant and far reaching bills resulted. Definite encouragement was given to promotion of the slave trade. When Queen Anne’s concern for the salvation of the souls of black men encountered an obstacle in the contention that if Negroes were baptized they would cease to be slaves, her parliament passed a law declaring that the Christianizing of a slave did not change his status. One law deprived free Negroes of the right to own real property. Another placed heavy restrictions upon manumissions. Still another made a jury trial for Negroes no longer mandatory. But interestingly enough, in the midst of these negative enactments, toward the end of Queen Anne’s reign there appears the beginning of more positive provisions in the passage of a law aimed at restricting the trade in human beings. For almost thirty-­two years, 1714–­1746, there appear to have been few new laws regulating the lives of Negroes. Then came laws pertaining to: the sale of intoxicating liquors; meeting in large assemblies; use of hunting traps weighing more than three and one-­half pounds; imposition of duties upon the slave trade; restrictions upon manumissions; and the trials of Negroes accused of crimes.

The Proprietary Period In 1675 the first law governing slaves was enacted. It imposed a penalty of five pounds and any other damages decreed by the court upon any inhabitant who transported an apprentice, servant, or slave; and a penalty of ten shillings for each day’s “entertainment or concealment” upon any person 3. The following unsupported statement appears in a local history: “As early as 1628, mention is made of blacks owned as slaves in this colony.” William J. Scott, Passaic and Its Environs (New York, 1922), p. 179. 4. Laws of New Jersey, 1664, Learning and Spicer, pp. 20–­22. 5. Andrew Mellick, Story of an Old Farm (Somerville, 1899), p. 115.

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who knowingly harbored or entertained an apprentice or slave that had absented himself from his master’s service.6 Eight years later, the legislative council ordered that a message be sent to the Indian Sachems concerning a conference with them about their entertainment of Negro servants.7 In 1682, another act named the races of men held in bondage when it levied a penalty of five pounds for the first offense and ten pounds for the second offense upon anyone buying an article from a Negro or Indian slave or servant without the permission of the owner. The persons to whom such sales were tendered were to whip the guilty parties. In return for this service, the law required the owner to pay a reward of half a crown.8 In this same year, 1682, the lawmakers manifested their solicitude for the welfare of those held in slavery by ordering all masters and mistresses having Negro slaves, or others, to allow them “sufficient accommodation of victuals and clothing.”9 A law passed in 1685 prohibited the sale of rum or strong drink to Negroes or Indians unless there was a “moderate giving to a Negro for necessary support of Nature, or to an Indian in a fainting condition (without selling or taking any reward for the same).”10 Another cause for action grew out of complaints that inhabitants were injured by slaves having the liberty to carry guns and dogs into the woods to hunt swine. Consequently, in 1694, the lawmakers prohibited slaves from carrying guns, pistols, or dogs into the woods unless accompanied by the owner or by a white man with the consent of the owner. No person was to allow slaves to keep hunting equipment without the owner’s mark of identification nor was anyone to lend, give, or hire guns and pistols to slaves.11 This same act forbade any person to harbor a slave in his house for a space of two hours. Anyone finding a slave five miles from the owner’s abode without a certificate of permission was to pick up the slave and be rewarded by the owner in proportion to the distance the slave had traveled.12 The following year, 1695, brought forth an act which decreed that “when any Negro, Negroes or other slaves, shall be taken into custody for felony or murder or suspicion of either that three justices of the peace of the county where the act is committed, one being of the quorum, shall try said slave or slaves and upon conviction of twelve men of the neighborhood pronounce the sentence appointed for such crimes and sign execution.” In the case of crimes involving stealing swine, cattle, turkeys, geese, other poultry or provisions, upon conviction before two justices of the peace, one being a quorum, the owner was to pay the value of the stolen goods within ten days to the injured party. The owner was to pay also for the public whipping of not more than forty stripes of the guilty slaves.13

6. Learning and Spicer, Laws of New Jersey, 1675, p. 109. 7. Journal of the Governor and Council, 1683, p. 22. 8. Learning and Spicer, Laws of New Jersey, 1682, pp. 254–­255. 9. Ibid., p. 237. 10. Ibid., 1685, p. 512. 11. Ibid., 1694, pp. 340–­342. 12. Ibid. Slaves who had learned to write used to forge their own passes. See New Jersey Archives, vol. xxiv, p. 400, and vol. xxv, p. 267. 13. Laws of New Jersey, 1695, pp. 356–­357.

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The act cited above is significant in that it sets up special machinery for handling cases involving slaves. Prior to this time, the same general laws and trial procedures governed slaves and freedmen. There is also a distinction in penalties imposed upon slaves and freedmen. Since the slave owned no property which could be levied upon to satisfy judgments, his punishment was usually corporal. Another point in favor of this type of penalty was the fact that incarceration would have deprived the owner of the services of his slave. The stipulation that the justices of the peace were to act with twelve lawful men of the neighborhood prompted Williams,14 a Negro historian, to declare that this right of trial by jury did much toward elevating the character of the Negro in New Jersey. As mentioned previously, all of the laws discussed above were passed by East Jersey. Not only did West Jersey omit the word slave from its laws15 but in the fundamental laws which are characterized by the breadth and vision of their Quaker authors declared that: “In courts of justice for trial of causes, civil or criminal, all inhabitants to come freely into, and attend and hear any such trials, that justice may not be done in a corner, nor in any covert manner; being intended and resolved by the help of the Lord, and by these our concessions and fundamentals, that all and every person or persons inhabiting the said province shall, as far as in us lies be free from oppression and slavery.”16

Period of Queen Anne’s Reign The years between 1702 and 1714, which marked the reign of Queen Anne, witnessed the development of new tendencies in respect to slavery. Whereas up to 1702, the colonists had recognized slavery as an institution, they had done little toward promoting the slave trade. But Queen Anne, in her instructions to Lord Cornbury, asked for an annual accounting of the slaves in the province. She also charged him to take care that payment be duly made and within competent time to the Royal African Company, so that the province might “have a constant and sufficient supply of merchantable Negroes at moderate rates in money or commodities.”17 Queen Anne further instructed Lord Cornbury to secure passage of a law providing the death penalty for the willful killing of Negroes or Indians, and a “fit penalty” for the maiming of them.18 The Sovereign Lady’s solicitude for the salvation of the souls of the slaves was manifested in her request that Lord Cornbury was, with the assistance of the Council and the Assembly, to find out the best means to facilitate and encourage the conversion of Negroes and Indians to the Christian religion.19 When Her Majesty’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts encountered an obstacle to the catechizing of Negroes in the contention that if Negroes were baptized they would cease to be slaves, the Venerable Society followed the recommendation of Elias Neau, catechist to the Negroes and Indians of New York, and sponsored a bill in Parliament “for the 14. George Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, 1619–­1880 (New York, 1883), vol. 1, p. 283. 15. These laws mentioned servants and forbade the selling of rum to Negroes and Indians. See Laws of New Jersey, 1676, pp. 283–­285. 16. Samuel Smith, History of New Jersey (Burlington, 1765), p. 521. 17. Laws of New Jersey, 1702, p. 640. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., p. 642.

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more effectual conversion of the Negroes and others in the plantations.”20 In 1704, to encourage the Christianizing of Negroes and Indians, New Jersey decreed that baptizing a slave did not set him free as some believed. The legislature declared that this belief was groundless and prejudicial to the inhabitants of the province.21 The act passed in 1704 to regulate Negro, Indian and mulatto slaves reenacted earlier legislation, established new regulations or substituted harsher penalties for earlier impositions. Enactments dealing with the sale of goods stolen from owners; the punishment of slaves found ten miles from home; the infliction of the death penalty upon slaves convicted of felony or murder continued in force. This act decreed forty lashes for Negroes stealing to the value of six pence or above; forty lashes and the burning of a T with a hot iron on the most visible part of the left cheek near the nose for thefts of amounts between five and forty shillings. The constable was to receive five shillings for whippings and ten shilling for burnings. And should any constable have scruples concerning his duty he was to forfeit forty shillings for neglect of such duty. Any Negro convicted of ravishing or attempt at the same was to be castrated. The convict was to remain in the gaol at the expense of the owner until the “execution” was performed.22 Then came a provision of wide import. It stipulated that “all the children that have been or shall be born in the country of such Negro, Indian or mulatto slaves, as have been formerly, or may hereafter be set at liberty, and all their posterity shall be and are hereby forever afterward rendered incapable of purchasing or inheriting any lands and tenements within this province.”23 An act passed in 1713 provided that no manumitted Negro, Indian or Mulatto slave was to enjoy, hold, or possess any house, houses, lands, tenements, or hereditaments within the province, in his own right in fee simple or fee tail but that the same was to escheat to “Her Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors.”24 In a mighty stroke, Queen Anne deprived freed Negroes or their children of the right to hold property with the privileges pertaining thereto. Denial of the right to hold property meant denial of the right to vote or hold office. In 1693 a Burlington County inhabitant had willed twenty acres of land to his Negro boy when he became twenty-­four years of age.25 These laws nullified such provisions. But interesting indeed is the manner in which these laws were circumvented by one man in Gloucester County who leased land to Negro Quosh for 999 years.26 A resident of Monmouth County bequeathed to his Negro man six pounds and the use of the upland south of Layway Creek which he had given to his son John.27 At the same time that the colonists were imposing these severe limitations upon Negroes, an act of 1713 attempted to counteract the encouragement that Queen Anne had given to promotion of the slave trade by imposing a duty of ten pounds on all slaves imported or brought into the 20. S. P. G., An Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, 1706), p. 61. 21. Laws of New Jersey, 1704, Bradford, p. 8. 22. Laws of New Jersey, 1704, Bradford, p. 8. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 1713. 25. New Jersey Archives, vol. xxiii, p. 14. 26. Ibid., vol. xxxiv, p. 357. 27. Ibid., p. 251.

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colony from June 1, 1716, for a period of seven years. This did not debar an owner from bringing in a slave from another province.28 It was hoped that such an impost would encourage the importation of white servants for the “better peopling of the country.” Another act of the same year, 1713, revised previous enactments and imposed new restrictions. Slaves were permitted to appear as witnesses at the trials of other slaves. Evidently the jury trial which had evoked such glowing praise from Williams29 was no longer mandatory since this act stated that an owner could demand a jury trial and had the right to challenge jurors.30 For each slave executed, the owner was to receive thirty pounds if a male and twenty pounds if a female.31 Corporal punishment superseded castration as a penalty for rape. Interesting also was the fact that the penalty for striking a freeman was to be invoked only if the injured party was a Christian.32 And then began those obstacles to manumission against which Quakers and abolition societies fought so strenuously during the latter half of this century. The initial law decreed that: Whereas it is found by Experience, that the free Negroes are an idle sloathful people, and prove very often a charge to the place where they are, Be it therefore enacted . . . That any master or mistress, manumitting and setting at liberty any Negro or Mulatto slave, shall enter into sufficient security unto Her Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, with two sureties, in the sum of two hundred pounds to pay yearly and every year to such Negro or Mulatto slave during their lives the sum of twenty pounds. And if such Negro or Mulatto slave shall be made free by the will and testament of any person deceased, that then the executives of such persons shall enter into security as above, immediately upon proving the said will and testament, which if refused to be given, the said manumission to be void and of none effect.33

It was this stipulation that blocked the manumission of many slaves, especially among the Quakers, where the movement against possessing slaves was gathering momentum. Numerous owners were unable to post the bonds required. The regulations of this act evidently took care of most of the problems concerning Negroes for many years. It seems that no further legislation of this type appeared until the year 1746.

The Pre-­Revolutionary Period A law passed in 1746 revealed that the colonists did not permit the enlistment of slaves without the permission of the owners during the French and Indian Wars.34 That Negroes did fight in the Revolutionary War is evidenced by manumissions granted by appreciative legislatures to the confiscated slaves of those who fought with the British.35

28. Bradford, Laws of New Jersey, 1713, pp. 81–­82. 29. Supra, p. 164. 30. Laws of New Jersey, 1713, p. 29. 31. Ibid. It was this stipulation that Brissot challenged. See Jean P. Brissot, New Travels in the United States of America (London, 1794), vol. i, pp. 235–­236. Cf. Wright, op. cit., p. 42. 32. Laws of New Jersey, 1713, p. 30. 33. Ibid., p. 32. 34. Ibid., 1746, Allison, p. 35. 35. Infra., p. 19.

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In 1751, the legislators passed a law reiterating former restrictions against selling intoxicating liquors to servants, Negroes or mulatto slaves without the permission of their owners.36 Evidently Indians were becoming too scarce to warrant mention of them as in previous instances. The fear which gripped so many slave owners about this time as a result of actual or rumored Negro plots manifested itself in a section of the law above which prohibited Negro and mulatto slaves from meeting in companies exceeding five or running about at night. This act did not imply that they were not to attend church or “Meeting” or attend “Divine Services” or bury the dead if the owner’s consent had been given.37 In 1757, an act prohibiting the use of steel traps weighing more than three and one-­half pounds provided for another of those differential penalties. A white person incurred a penalty of five pounds or three months’ imprisonment in case of default. In addition he was to reimburse all damages which any person sustained because of the trap. But a constable was to inflict thirty lashes on the bare back of a slave convicted under this law.38 The desire to populate the colony with white servants, who when freed could better integrate themselves into the life of the province, helped to motivate the passage of three laws restricting the importation of Negro slaves between 1762 and 1769, as it had done in 1713. The act of 1762 complaining that “whereas the provinces of New York and Pennsylvania, have each laid duties on the importation of Negroes, and this province being situate between them both, and there being no duty here, exposes this government to many inconveniences, and prevents industrious people from our Mother Country and Foreigners, to settle among us; which calls aloud for a remedy,” provided a duty of two pounds for slaves imported into the eastern division and six pounds for those imported into the western division. The differential duty reflects the influence of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends which included New Jersey. The Friends were fervently attacking the buying and selling of Negroes.39 To enable those who imported slaves to “contribute some equitable proportion of the public burthens,” the Act of 1767 raised the levy to ten pounds for each imported Negro.40 The legislature increased the levy to fifteen pounds in 1769. This same act marks a partial victory for the Quakers who had fought continuously for an easing of the restrictions on manumissions in that it would be necessary to post only a bond of two hundred pounds for each freed slave. It also obligated owners to maintain slaves not manumitted according to law, but if an owner became insolvent and incapable of maintaining slaves who were unable to support themselves because of sickness or otherwise, the slave was to be “esteemed of the poor of the colony and entitled to the same relief as white servants are by the laws.”41 Because of the inconvenience attending the trying of Negro slaves in special courts, a law passed in 1768 provided that these trials were to be held in the regular courts. Slaves convicted of capital 36. Ibid., 1751, Allison, pp. 191–­192. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 1757, p. 55. 39. Minutes of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1754, pp. 51–­53. Cf. Ezra Michener, A Retrospect of Early Quakerism (Philadelphia, 1860), pp. 342–­345; Wright, op. cit., pp. 13–­18. 40. Laws of New Jersey, 1767, Parker, p. 13. 41. Ibid., 1769, p. 9. This relief included a ruling that minors who were apprenticed, as was the custom with indigent children, be taught to read and write. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, Nevill, 1758, p. 228.

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crimes were now to suffer death without benefit of clergy. This law allowed a little more discretion to the justices in the matter of crimes involving thefts exceeding five pounds, felony, and burglary in that the justices could impose other penalties in lieu of the death penalty.42 These laws concerning Negroes appear harsh but it must be pointed out that such severity was the tenor of the age, especially among those who brought their New England heritage to this colony. For example, the custodians of public conduct restrained free men from drinking in taverns or breaking the “Lord’s Day,” or “night walking” after nine o’clock. Such offenders were punished by fines, whippings, imprisonment or placement in stocks. The death penalty was provided for children who “smite or curse their parents.” A review of these enactments leads to the generalization that the legislation of this period was characterized by desires to: protect colonists in their rights to the ownership and services of their slaves; provide for the humane treatment of freedmen and slaves; maintain correct morals; preserve life and property; prevent free Negroes from becoming property owners; encourage first and then restrict the importation of Negroes; and to increase the white element of the population. It will now be interesting to see what the next period brought forth in the form of legislation pertaining to Negroes.

IV. Period of Democratic Idealism During the years immediately preceding and following the Revolutionary War, the citizens of New Jersey were too engrossed with problems centering around the Stamp Act, the Declaratory Act, taxation without representation, Committees of Correspondence, Observation, and Safety, the Continental Congress, the Provincial Congress and the handling of William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin and last of the royal governors, to give much attention to Negroes. But such legislation as they did enact contained provisions of wide import for members of this minority group. The Constitution of 1776 laid a basis for Negro suffrage. There were laws which emancipated Negroes who had served in the Revolutionary War. Friends succeeded in establishing the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, an organization that proved a boon to so many Negroes. Other laws of this period, 1776–­1804, restricted the movements of free Negroes; prohibited the removal of slaves from the State; required masters to teach their servants and slaves under the age of twenty-­one years to read; abolished the differential treatment of Negroes before the courts; liberalized manumission requirements; codified existing laws dealing with Negroes; and finally provided for the gradual emancipation of slaves. The period of the Revolutionary War was one of great principles and convictions. Freedom of contract; freedom of ideas; liberty; the possession of inalienable rights dominated the social thinking of the day. So strong was the influence of these concepts that they tended to embrace all people. There were many in New Jersey who realized that slavery was inconsistent with the beliefs of the times; that it was essential for their own well being to refrain from denying liberty to others

42. Ibid., 1768, Parker, p. 37.

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if they desired it for themselves. Some even felt that to hold a portion of the people in slavery might bring down upon their heads the displeasure of God Himself. It was during this period that the Friends, under the leadership of Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia and John Woolman of Mount Holly, New Jersey, first purged their own ranks of slavery and then set out to effect its abolition in the other States. In 1776, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting instructed the local meetings to deny the privilege of membership to those who persisted in holding their fellowmen in bondage. Then they initiated the organization of societies to promote the abolition of slavery.43 Governor Livingston, convinced that the practice was inconsistent with the principles of Christianity and humanity among people who idolized liberty, asked the New Jersey Assembly of 1778 to provide for the manumission of the slaves. The war demands led the assembly to request him to withdraw his request at that time. He did so but advised that he intended to push the matter with all his power until it was effected. The Constitution of 1776, drawn up in two days after the colony had declared its independence from Great Britain, granted suffrage to all persons worth fifty pounds, proclamation money. Under its provisions Negroes, women, and aliens enjoyed the franchise until a definitive law was passed in 1807 restricting the suffrage to free white male citizens of the state worth fifty pounds proclamation money.44 Three acts reflected the temper of the times when appreciative legislatures freed Negroes who had fought in the war after their masters had joined the Tories. An act passed in 1784 freed Peter Williams of Middlesex County who had served the State and the American cause with first the State troops and then the Continental Army from 1780 until the end of the war.45 In 1786, the legislature, “desirous of extending the blessings of liberty,” freed Negro Prince who “had shewn himself entitled to their favourable notice.”46 Three years later another act manumitted Negro Cato because he had rendered essential services to the State and the United States when his master joined the enemies of the United States.47 A law passed in 1794 emancipated certain Negro slaves who had been the property of the late William Burnet. It appointed guardians for the younger children and provided from the estate of the deceased for the adults so they would not become public charges.48 During 1786, the legislature enacted a very real piece of anti-­slavery legislation when it prohibited the importation into New Jersey of slaves who had been imported into the country since 1776. In

43. For accounts of this story read: Thomas E. Drake, Northern Quakers and Slavery (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1933); Michener, op. cit.; Nathan Kite, A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the Slave Trade (Philadelphia, 1843); Wright, op. cit., chapters iii-­v. 44. Lucius Elmer, The Constitution and Government of the Province and State of New Jersey (Newark, 1872), p. 48; Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey (Northampton, 1916), Smith College Studies in History, pp. 165–­187; Mary Philbrook, “Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey prior to 1807,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. lvii, no. 2, pp. 87–­97; Laws of New Jersey, 1807, p. 14. 45. Laws of New Jersey, 1784, p. 110. 46. Ibid., 1786, p. 368. 47. Ibid., 1789, p. 538. 48. Ibid., 1794, p. 894.

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this instance the humanitarian took equal rank with the economic motive in the preamble which insisted that “Whereas the principles of justice required that the barbarous custom of bringing the unoffending Africans from their native country and connections into a state of slavery ought to be discountenanced, and as soon as possible prevented; and sound policy also requires, in order to afford ample support to such of the community as depend upon their labor for their daily subsistence, that the importation of slaves into this state from any other state or country whatsoever, ought to be prohibited under certain restrictions.”49 The act did this and more. It prohibited abuse of slaves. It provided for the manumission of able bodied slaves between the ages of twenty-­one and thirty-­five without further personal obligation. But manumitted slaves, convicted of felony or any crime or offense above petit larceny, or if convicted more than twice of petit larceny, or other offense equally criminal or injurious to the community, were within one month after being released to move out of the State and remain in exile for life or a term of years determined by the Court. Any such person found in the State after he should have been gone or before the expiration date of his exile was to be sold for the time remaining of the banishment period.50 This law also forbade a Negro manumitted in any other State to travel or remain in New Jersey. No Negro manumitted in New Jersey was to go out of his own county where he was freed without a certificate from two justices of the peace of that county or township, countersigned by the clerk of the county under the seal of the Court.51 In 1788, a petition from the Quakers effected a revision of this law to the further advantage of the slaves.52 This enactment placed additional restrictions upon the slave trade; prohibited the removal from the State of slaves without their consent or that of their guardians; stipulated that all criminal offenses of Negroes, slave or free, were to be “enquired of, adjusted, corrected and punished in like manner” as were the criminal offenses of the other inhabitants of the State; and that every owner of slaves was to cause every slave or servant while under the age of twenty-­one to be taught to read, with a penalty of five pounds being imposed for neglecting this duty.53

The Abolition Society In 1792, the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery appointed a committee to take measures for the establishment of an abolition society in New Jersey. The committee reported subsequently that it had succeeded in organizing such a society at Burlington.54 The New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery filed with the State legislature numerous petitions pleading for the freeing of the slaves55 and did much to secure for the Negroes through the courts

49. Ibid., 1786, p. 239. 50. Ibid., pp. 239–­240. In 1801 a law was passed permitting the judge to banish slaves convicted of certain crimes from the state or the United States. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, 1801, pp. 77–­78. 51. Ibid., p. 242. 52. Minutes Meeting for Sufferings, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 16/10/1788 and 18/12/1788. 53. Ibid., 1788, pp. 486–­488. 54. Edward Needles, An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage and for Improving the Condition of the African Race (Philadelphia, 1848), p. 40. 55. Several of these original petitions are on file in the State Library at Trenton, New Jersey.

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the rights granted to them by the laws.56 Lucius Elmer57 pointed out that Joseph Bloomfield, one time governor of the State and representative to the Congress of the United States, was an active member and president of this society which protected Negroes from abuse and aided their manumissions by legal proceedings. Continuing, Elmer said writs of habeas corpus were sued out, and many Negroes claimed as slaves were declared by the Supreme Court of the State to be free. “Indeed,” says he, “it appears by a pamphlet published by the Society, that it was held that a mere promise of the master to free his slave, was sufficient.” It appears that such decisions impelled inhabitants of the State to petition the legislature to prevent the liberation of Negroes by the Supreme Court without the intervention of a jury.58 Elmer declared that these decisions probably produced the Act of 1798, regulating slavery and prescribing a formal mode of manumission which remained in force until a law in 1804 altered it in part.59 The Act of 1798 which codified the laws relating to Negroes was very lengthy and covered all phases of Negro life.60 The abolition society which had sought unsuccessfully the upward and downward extension of the ages of manumissions sent to the legislature many petitions urging the abolishing of slavery; tried in the Act of 1798 to effect the gradual abolition of slavery; and finally saw its efforts consummated in a law passed February 15, 1804, providing that the offspring of all slaves born after July 4, 1804, should be free.61 The persistent up hill fight of the abolitionists finally achieved a signal success. Let us see what the period of transition from partial freedom to complete emancipation held for the colored inhabitants of New Jersey.

V. A Period of Transition, 1804–­1 865 The Act of 1804 providing for the gradual emancipation of slavery did not end the problems of those who were concerned about the welfare of the Negroes. Some citizens sought a repeal of the law itself. Abuses grew out of that section of the Act of 1804 which attempted to provide for abandoned children. A law passed in 1807 sought to abolish Negro suffrage. Other laws were passed in efforts to put teeth into enactments forbidding the removal of slaves from the State. Two laws made free Negroes secure in their property rights. A resolution marked the beginning of official attempts to expatriate emancipated Negroes. A new constitution proved to be reactionary in regard to the idealism of the Revolutionary period. Still other laws manifested an interest in education and the inclusion of Negroes within the framework of settlement laws.

56. The Constitution of the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (Burlington, 1793). The original minutes of this organization are on file in the Quakerana Collection, Haverford College. 57. Lucius Elmer, op. cit., pp. 123–­124. Lucius Elmer was a justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. 58. Votes of the Assembly, 1791, p. 12; 1792, p. 24; 1793, p. 142. 59. Elmer, op. cit., p. 124. 60. Laws of New Jersey, 1798, pp. 364 ff. 61. Ibid., 1804, pp. 252–­254. Cf. Wright, op. cit., chap. v.

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Citizens of Bergen and Morris Counties, unwilling to accept the mandate of the new law of 1804, petitioned the legislature to repeal it. They considered its provisions unconstitutional and burdensome, in that they deprived the petitioners of the protection of property rights in persons and imposed upon the petitioners an excessive tax burden in the requirement that they support the children of slaves who were to be born free. Fortunately the legislature turned deaf ears to these cries.62 The Act of 1804 had provided that the children of slaves born after July 4, 1804, were to be apprenticed to the owners of the mothers until they reached the age of twenty-­five years if a male and twenty-­one years if a female. If these owners did not wish to avail themselves of the services of such children, they were privileged at the expiration of one year to declare this intention and yield them to the trustees or overseers of the poor. These custodians were to bind out these infants at the expense of the State, the amount not to exceed three dollars per month.63 Abuses of this provision resulted in such large sums of money being withdrawn from the treasury that the legislature amended this part of the act in 180664 and 180965 and then finally repealed the provision in 1811.66 Another law passed in 1808 made mandatory the advertising in public newspapers, one in the eastern and one in the western part, of the abandoned children so that people would know where to secure such children.67 Violations of the law68 prohibiting the removal of slaves from the state without either their consent or that of their parents were responsible for legislation designed to put teeth into the earlier law. In 1812 the legislators made it possible for a bond to be required and for a governor or a person administering the government to issue a proclamation for apprehending persons guilty of breaking this law.69 Isaac Holmes,70 an Englishman, telling of his travels in America, writes that, “In New Jersey, a few years since, it was legal for masters (provided they had the consent of the slaves), to remove them to any other State; and many outrages on humanity were committed under the sanction of this law. At that time, slaves were selling at New Jersey for about three hundred dollars each, which in New Orleans were worth seven or eight hundred dollars; and the traffic of slaves in consequence became considerable. “Justices of the peace at that time were found base enough, in New Jersey, to attest that slaves had consented to be moved, when in many instances they had never examined them. To prevent the continuance of this traffic, the legislature of New Jersey interfered, and put a stop to these

62. Petitions from Morris and Bergen Counties, 1806 (on file in the State Library, Trenton). Cf. Wright, op. cit., pp. 61–­62. 63. Laws of New Jersey, 1804, pp. 252–­253. 64. Laws of New Jersey, 1806, p. 668. 65. Ibid., 1809, p. 200–­201. 66. Ibid., 1811, pp. 313–­314. 67. Ibid., 1808, pp. 112–­113. 68. Supra, p. 175. 69. Laws of New Jersey, 1812, pp. 15–­18. 70. Isaac Holmes, An Account of the United States of America, Derived from Actual Observation, During a Residence of Four Years in That Republic (London, 1823), p. 324.

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proceedings; and at present any person removing a slave from that State, has to give a bond (in heavy penalty) that he shall be returned.” A memorial from inhabitants of Middlesex County praying for an efficient law to “prevent kidnapping and carrying from the State blacks and other people of color”71 stimulated the lawmakers to prohibit their removal unless the master had lived in the State five years and planned to move permanently; the slave had been owned by him five years previously; the master had obtained a license to carry out the slave who was of full age and had given his consent before a judge in a private examination; and unless further, the master was going on a journey to another part of the United States; the slave had been sentenced for crime; or the slaves belonged to travelers passing through the State. Neither could slaves be transferred to non-­residents.72 In 1820, the Reverend John Boyd secured the passage of a law which permitted him to remove from the state Sam, about 21 years, Dinah, about 17, and Ned, about 15, if they of their own will consented to go and if the wife of Sam gave her consent for him to go.73 That Queen Anne’s denial to Negroes of the right to hold property had in time been invalidated was evidenced in 1832 by the action of the legislature in behalf of Sharp Halsey. Joseph Halsey had freed his slave, Sharp, around 1803 by an instrument which had become lost. The freedman had bought and sold property. He requested a clarification of his status. The state, ruling the transactions valid, declared “that the said Sharp Halsey be, and he is hereby declared to be entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of a free colored man of this state; may hold estate, real and personal, in his own right, and convey and dispose of the same by deed, will or otherwise.”74 In 1842, York Mulford was likewise declared to possess these rights.75 Paralleling these movements directed toward amelioration of the conditions of slaves and freedmen was another movement designed to encourage the emigration of Negroes to other countries. The Reverend Robert Finley,76 one of the founders of the American Colonization Society established in Washington in 1816, with other leaders of the Presbyterian Church, the most numerous sect in New Jersey at that time, encouraged the emigration of emancipated Negroes to Africa. In 1823, the Reverend Samuel Miller77 of the Princeton Theological Seminary advocated the colonization of the Negroes “because of the impossibility of their being able to remain in this country with the whites on terms comfortable to either since they would be treated and made to feel like inferiors.” The Board of Directors of the African School at Parsippany appointed by the Presbyterian Synod of New Jersey made clear that it was not attempting to educate Negroes for American Society, “but preparing them to go home.”78

71. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, 1818, p. 7. 72. Laws of New Jersey, 1820, pp. 3–­6. 73. Ibid., 1820, p. 139. 74. Ibid., 1832, p. 108. 75. Ibid., 1842, p. 49. 76. Historical Notes on Slavery and Colonization (Elizabeth-­Town, 1842), p. 18. Cf. Wright, op. cit., p. 79. 77. Samuel Miller, A Sermon Preached at Newark, October 22, 1823 (Trenton, 1823), p. 13. Wright, op. cit., p. 87. 78. Minutes of the Synod of New Jersey, 10/19/1825. Also Wright, op. cit., p. 89.

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The Reverend Doctors Miller and Finley and others crusaded for many years in behalf of the colonization movement in New Jersey.79 In 1822, the Newark Sentinel of Freedom carried statements which voiced the approvals of the Presbyterian Church, General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church and the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia for this movement.80 In 1824, these crusaders succeeded in persuading the legislature to adopt a resolution supporting a system of foreign colonization that would in due time effect the entire emancipation of the slaves in this country, and furnish “an asylum for the free blacks without any violation of the national compact or infringement of the rights of individuals.” This resolution requested the governor to forward copies of the resolutions to the executives of each State and to the representatives of New Jersey in the Congress.81 But the proponents of this movement encountered many protests from Negroes. Especially virulent were the Reverends Samuel Cornish and Theodore Wright. Anticolonization meetings condemned attempts to colonize Negroes in Africa and pledged support to William Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionists.82 One newspaper acknowledging a protest by Negroes against colonization attempted to give assurances that there was nothing to fear.83 In 1851, the New Jersey Colonization Society extended an invitation to the members of the assembly to attend one of its meetings which was being held that night in the city hall. The invitation was accepted.84 In 1855, an act to encourage the emigration and settlement in Liberia of the free people of color of New Jersey provided that an act approved March 24, 1852, appropriating money to the New Jersey Colonization Society be revived and extended for five years from the date of expiration. It also authorized the treasurer to pay the society the unexpended appropriations of 1853, 1854, and 1855 to be used for building houses and necessary expenditures for the reception and accommodation of emigrants previous to arrival in Liberia.85 Citizens interested in the welfare of the Negroes continued to seek legislative assistance in their fight to protect the rights of freed Negroes and to secure the freedom of those still held in bondage. An act passed in 1804 simplified and clarified the rules governing the acceptance of instruments of manumission and threw further safeguards around those deeds that had been or would be executed.86 Another act passed in 1837 attempted to protect emancipated Negroes from fraudulent claims through the provision of jury trials and the stipulation that the judge before whom a claim against a supposed fugitive was made, call in two other judges to assist in handling the case.87 In

79. Newark Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), 1/28/1817; 7/14/1818;6/8/1824; 12/7/1824; 12/21/1824; 3/29/1825; 6/24/1828. These are only a few of the issues reporting news on this movement in New Jersey. 80. Ibid., 6/14/1822. 81. Laws of New Jersey, 1824, p. 191. 82. Wright, op. cit., pp. 103–­107. 83. Newark Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), 1/14/1817. 84. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, 1851, p. 115. 85. Laws of New Jersey, 1855, p. 321. 86. Laws of New Jersey, 1804, p. 460. 87. Ibid., 1837, pp. 134–­136.

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1844, a law which was designed to confirm the manumission of certain slaves made valid the manumission of slaves when only one instead of two witnesses was present.88 In the years 1847 and 1849, the legislature passed resolutions directed against the further extension of slavery. The first resolution pleaded that slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, be forever excluded from the territories to be annexed.89 In the second resolution the legislature, representing the views and opinions of the people of New Jersey and believing the institution of slavery to be a great moral and political evil which, if unrestrained by the general government, was calculated to sap the foundations of our social and political institutions, resolved “that while we would refrain from all manner of interference with the institution of slavery in the states where it constitutionally exists, yet we would peaceably but firmly resist by all constitutional means, its further extension.” The law makers specifically urged that slavery be prohibited within the bounds of New Mexico and California, and further resolved that “the existence of the traffic of slaves in the District of Columbia is inconsistent with the theory of our national institutions, and a reproach to us as a people, and ought, in the opinion of this Legislature, to be speedily abolished.”90 An extremely interesting sidelight of this resolution lies in the very special concession to the slave-­holding interests of the Southern States. The various laws and petitions to the legislature pertaining to Negroes during this period bear ample testimony to the conflicting interests centering around the colored population. While there were those who sought their release from their spiritual and physical shackles there were others who resisted with all their might activities designed to put to an end any and all forms of involuntary servitude. The latter group consisted mainly of persons who possessed ties with the Southern section of the country through feelings of sympathy motivated by strong economic bonds. It is reported that these resolutions caused considerable debate among the voters of Cumberland County and that men who participated in meetings were denounced as “wooly heads” or “negro lovers.”91 In 1834, a mob attacked the Reverend Dr. W. R. Weeks, pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey, while he was delivering a lecture on “The Sin of Slavery.”92 In Jersey City, where the general feeling was adverse to the slaves and to the abolitionists, the churches closed their doors to all who wished to speak for the slaves or who denounced the attitude of Congress and the courts in connection with the Fugitive Slave Law.93 The Newark Sentinel of Freedom carried editorials and articles supporting slavery and expressing sympathy with the South on this issue.94 Atkinson95 tells us that “Newark though situated at the North was essentially a Southern work shop. For about two-­thirds of the century the shoemakers of Newark shod the South, its planters and its plantation hands, to a large extent. For generations the bulk of the carriages, saddlery,

88. Ibid., 1844, pp. 138–­139. 89. Ibid., 1847, pp. 188–­189. 90. Ibid., 1849, pp. 334–­335. 91. Isaac T. Nichols, Historic Days in Cumberland County, N.J., 1855–­1865 (publisher missing, 1907), p. 9. 92. Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), 7/15 and 29/1834. 93. Alexander, MacLean, “The Underground Railroad in Hudson County,” The Historical Society of Hudson County, vol. 1. 94. Sentinel of Freedom, 11/4/1834; 9/8 and 22/1835. 95. Joseph Atkinson, The History of Newark (Newark, 1878), p. 239.

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harness and clothing manufactured in Newark found a ready and profitable market south of Mason and Dixon’s line. And so it was to a greater or lesser extent with all our other industries. Newark was therefore substantially interested in the South.” He says that a publicist of the day insisted that the “band of mercenary and unprincipled men” engaged in southern trade who had been foremost in bringing about the defeat of Governor Pennington in his race for Congress “could not have worked more heartily to carry out the wishes of their Southern masters” if “they had been slaves themselves, and every morning had been lashed into humility.” The above instances help to explain why Chief Justice Hornblower96 failed in his attempt to secure an inclusion of a clause putting an end to slavery in the Constitution of 1844 which declared first of all that “all men are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.” True to his conviction, Justice Hornblower gave a dissenting vote in the case of The State vs. Post and The State vs. Van Beuren when in reply to the contention of the petitioners that the new constitution abolished slavery, the Supreme Court ruled that first, the relation of the master and slave existed by law, when the present constitution of the State of New Jersey was adopted; and second, that the Constitution had not destroyed that relation, abolished slavery, or affected the laws in relation to that subject existing at the time of its adoption.97 It was a law passed in 1846 which stated that “slavery in this state be and it is hereby abolished, and every person who is now holden in slavery by the laws thereof is made free, subject, however, to the restrictions herein after mentioned and imposed.” These restrictions and obligations made the slaves apprentices for life. Such apprentices could not be discharged without the approval of the apprentices and could not be sold without the consent of the apprentices.98 During this period citizens not only sought complete freedom for the remaining slaves but also interested themselves in the welfare of the offspring of slaves born after July 4, 1804. In 1841, citizens of Paterson complained to the legislature that the children of African descent attained their majority at an age later than that agreed upon for white children; that these children were employed at tasks which failed to prepare them to earn a livelihood after they had completed their terms of service; that inadequate provisions were made for their education. Under the conditions then prevailing, it was cheaper for many masters to pay the fines, if it were exacted of them, than to have the children instructed in reading.99 The only remedy which they saw for a system which deprived children of the love and care of their own parents was to free completely these children and to liberate the slaves so that such of them as had children might be restored to the guardianship of

96. Biographical Encyclopedia of New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1877), p. 77. 97. The State v. Post, the State v. Van Beuren in Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of New Jersey, May Term, 1846, Spencer, vol. 1, pp. 368–­386. 98. Elmer, A Digest of the Laws of New Jersey, 1709–­1855 (Philadelphia, 1855), 2nd Ed., pp. 758–­767. 99. In 1823, some one raised the question as to whether or not any one had ever invoked the law requiring masters to teach their slaves to read. The law made it the duty of collectors who visited every household once a year to check on whether this law was being adhered to. The Trenton Federalist (Trenton), May 26, 1823. Quoted from The New Brunswick Times.

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their children, “a right which ought never to have been taken from them, for it is one which they hold by the appointment of the God of nature.”100 In 1845, in a legal argument before the Supreme Court of New Jersey, Alvan Stewart,101 placing the number of those in bondage at 4,000 persons, described these servants as “property, in its base sense, slaves for years, the parents deprived of all jurisdiction of their offspring, all direction of their education, and paternal tenderness.” The law confined these poor servants, and obliged them to live with those who had owned and abused the mother who bore them, and was still continuing to hold their parents until death as slaves. The master could sell this servant and horse together. “This servant woman at 15, and the male-­servant at 18, contract marriage, and when the woman is 19, and the man 22 years of age, having three little children, the father is sold to one end of the State, and the mother to the other; their little children left in the street, the marriage relation broken, the paternal and maternal relation dissolved; these little ones not to see their parents for two years or more; the husband cannot see his wife or babies for two years to come. Call you this being born free?” Continuing, Stewart insisted that the new constitution could never be honored or respected until there was meaning, power, and vitality in those blessed words of justice, truth, mercy, freedom, safety, etc. These evils the slavery law attempted to correct when it decreed that the children hereafter born to slave parents were to be absolutely free from birth and discharged of and from all manner of service whatsoever.102 An enactment passed in 1853 endeavored to provide for such colored servants as might become paupers when no longer in the employ of former masters. The legal settlement of such a servant was to follow that of the former master and all charges for his support were recoverable from such person or his estate.103 Anti-­slavery protagonists continued to petition the legislature concerning slavery. Inhabitants of Gloucester County asked in vain for a repeal of all laws pertaining to slavery and the arrest of persons escaping from slavery.104 A petition from Passaic sought the passing of a resolution on slavery.105 Other New Jersey citizens requested the legislature “to instruct the senators in Congress from this state relative to the right of petition and to use their endeavors to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia or resign their seats.” They further resolved that “this and other petitions of a similar nature be referred to a select committee to report resolutions to this House, either in conformity to the prayer of the petitioners, or the reasons why the petition should not be granted.”106 Other legislative acts of this period reflected the interest in the enlightenment of the minds of the Negroes as well as an interest in the freedom of their bodies. It was the African School at Parsippany that precipitated an act concerning the African Education Society in 1826. The sponsors

100. Address to Legislature of New Jersey in Behalf of the Colored Population of the State by Citizens of Paterson (Paterson, 1841), pp. 1–­12. 101. Alvan Stewart, A Legal Argument Before the Supreme Court of New Jersey at the May Term, 1845, at Trenton for the Deliverance of 4,000 Persons from Bondage (New York, 1845), p. 26. 102. Elmer, op. cit., p. 759. 103. Laws of New Jersey, 1853, p. 374. 104. Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly, 1849, pp. 493, 516. 105. Ibid., 1850, pp. 533, 602. 106. Ibid., pp. 626, 754.

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of this school had set out to train Negroes as preachers and teachers to work among their people in America, Haiti, and Liberia, particularly the last two. Experiencing difficulty in locating pupils with sufficient academic background to enable them to pursue the higher branches of learning, these sponsors sought to provide training in the rudiments of learning for a larger number. They secured from Benjamin Lear promise of assistance from the Kosciusko Fund of which Lear was trustee. The above law authorized the incorporation of persons interested in promoting the establishment of educational facilities for Negroes. Unfortunately legal entanglements prevented the money of the fund from becoming available so that only a few Negroes were given some education in Newark, New Jersey.107 The Society of Friends was responsible for two other laws in this field. With funds made available by the will of Isabel Hartshorne in 1792, members of this society established a school for Negroes in Rahway.108 Laws passed in 1849109 and in 1863110 gave to this school the money it would have received from the public school fund if it had been a public school. In 1850, citizens of Morristown petitioned for a law providing for the education of colored children in Morris Township. The law which resulted from this move established a legal precedent for the education of Negroes in separate schools.111 In 1863, the state superintendent of public instruction was able to use the Constitution of 1844 as one basis for his statement that no section of the law nor any decision of the courts had deprived colored children of the advantages of public school instruction and the law of 1850 as a basis for his contention that schools may be established for the special benefit of colored children.112 Charles Knapp113 has effectively described New Jersey as the battleground on which many political and social issues were fought during the period preceding and following the Civil War. These issues in many instances centered around the Negro questions which plagued the inhabitants of the State. New Jersey Democrats, speaking of the Emancipation Proclamation, declared that while they fought secession in the field, they must fight abolitionism and radicalism at the ballot box. They termed emancipation as unjust, impolitic, fanatical, and unconstitutional.114 During 1862 and 1863 petitions against the immigration of Negroes into the State engaged the attention of both houses. A bill, introduced in 1863 and providing that any Negro coming into the State and remaining ten days was to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction was to be transported to Liberia or the West Indies, passed the assembly and reached a third reading in the senate.115 Another bill proposed the imposition of a fine of five hundred dollars and imprisonment for five years on any one enlisting Negroes in the army in New Jersey.116 Members 107. Wright, op. cit., chap. VIII. Cf. Laws of New Jersey, 1826, pp. 89–­90. 108. Ibid., pp. 123–­124. 109. Laws of New Jersey, 1849, pp. 4–­5. 110. Laws of New Jersey, 1863, p. 101. 111. Ibid., 1850, pp. 63–­64. 112. Report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1863, pp. 41–­42. 113. Charles Merriam Knapp, New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and Reconstruction (Geneva, N.J., 1924). 114. Ibid., p. 73. 115. Ibid., p. 92. 116. New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 105.

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of the Democratic party suggested that the State secede and enter the confederacy. Senator Wright’s son took his father from a sick bed in Newark to Washington to cast his vote against the Civil Rights Bill.117 The end of the Civil War culminated the efforts of those agencies which had tried to effect an end to involuntary servitude in New Jersey. All Negroes in New Jersey were now physically free. The next period deals with the laws passed concerning them as citizens of the state.

VI. Negroes as Citizens The conflicts which characterized the period just described carried over with equal intensity into the Reconstruction era. The resolution proposing ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment was rejected in the senate by a vote of twelve to eight characterized by a split strictly along party lines, since every Democrat voted against it. It was not until January, 1866, that New Jersey ratified this amendment, after it had already become a part of the Federal Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified by the same Republican legislature that had approved the Thirteenth Amendment. But when a Democratic majority was returned to the legislature in 1867, a joint resolution was passed rescinding the previous ratification of that amendment. A legislature controlled by this same party rejected the Fifteenth Amendment, which a later body controlled by Republicans passed. Interestingly enough, although the Fifteenth Amendment was not ratified by New Jersey until 1871, the first Negro in the United States to vote after the adoption of this amendment was Thomas Peterson Mundy in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.118 That the Civil War and Reconstruction did not settle major problems concerning free Negroes is evidenced by several laws purporting to assure to the members of this race equal opportunities for the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of citizenship. One such law attempted to abolish segregation in the schools. Several dealt with matters pertaining to the Bordentown School. Another fought segregation in cemeteries. Still others attacked the problems of civil rights and inciting of racial antagonisms. It was a situation which arose in Fair Haven with respect to educational opportunities that stimulated the passage of a law in 1881 forbidding the exclusion of any child from a public school because of religion, nationality, or color. As a result of this enactment, separate schools for Negroes disappeared in the northern counties but little change resulted in the southern counties where the majority of such schools had developed.119 The courts have subsequently upheld the rights of parents to send their children to white schools where their exclusion was shown to have been based on color.120 But state officials of public instruction have nullified the spirit of this law through 117. Ibid., p. 147. 118. Presentation of a Medal to Thomas Peterson Mundy, Address by Hon. William Patterson and Others, Perth Amboy, New Jersey (Perth Amboy, 1884). 119. Wright, op. cit., chap. XII. 120. Pierce v. Trustees 46 L. 76, affirmed 47 L. 348; Patterson v. Board, Board of Education in New Jersey Miscellaneous Reports, Soney and Sage, 1934, p. 179; Egerton E. Hall, The Negro Wage Earner of New Jersey (New Brunswick, 1935), p. 75; Eleanor Hill Oak, The Development of Separate Education in the State of New Jersey (unpublished Master’s Dissertation, Howard University, 1936), p. 27; Gladys Peterson, The Courts and the Negro

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adverse decisions in cases brought before them.121 Such decisions have in some instances been based upon the statement that a child was not to be excluded from a school because of color rather than that there should be no distinction because of color. Consequently schools have been built exclusively for Negro children with the approval of the State Department of Public Instruction. At the present time segregated facilities for colored children are increasing rather than decreasing. This segregation often accompanies inferior educational opportunities from point of view of quality and quantity.122 Several enactments dealing with education for Negroes center around the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth at Bordentown. The Reverend Walter A. Rice attempted to do for Negro youths in New Jersey what was being done for other youths by Samuel Armstrong at Hampton and Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. In 1886, he founded the institution which is now incorporated under the name above.123 In 1884, the legislature designated this school as a branch institution to which would be applicable all the laws pertaining to and governing industrial and manual training schools in the state. Rules were made for the appointment of trustees with an outline of their powers and duties and the surrender of property to the trustees.124 In 1896, an amendment effected a smaller board of trustees.125 The following year provision was made for an annual appropriation of $5,000 to the school from the state.126 In 1900, the legislature placed this institution under the control and management of the State Board of Education.127 During the same year another law passed making it legal for the New Jersey Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to sell and convey real estate that it had or might possess to the Colored Industrial Educational Association of New Jersey.128 In 1884, two acts attempted to combat segregation and discrimination. The first decreed that no cemetery, corporation, association owning or having control of any cemetery or place of burial for the dead was to refuse to permit the burial of any deceased person therein because of the color of such deceased person.129 The second law provided “that all persons within the jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theatres and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.” It also provided that “no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall be

Public School (unpublished Master’s Dissertation, Howard University, 1934), pp. 36, 58. 121. Oak, op. cit., pp. 28–­30. The Commissioner of Education of New Jersey ruled against Negro citizens of Montclair, New Jersey, when they protested a move which they interpreted as being designed to segregate Negro children in the schools of that town. 122. Wright, op. cit., chap. XIII. 123. Ibid., pp. 178–­180. 124. Laws of New Jersey, 1894, p. 526. 125. Ibid., 1896, p. 158. 126. Ibid., 1897, p. 127. 127. Ibid., 1900, p. 193. 128. Ibid., p. 540. 129. Laws of New Jersey, 1884, p. 83.

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disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of this state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The penalty for infringement of the first section was the payment of $500.00 to the aggrieved party in addition to being deemed guilty of a misdemeanor for which the offender was to be fined from $500.00 to $1,000.00 or imprisonment from thirty days to one year. For violation of the second section, the guilty party was to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be fined not more than $5,000.00.130 An amendment to this law in 1917 was slightly more definitive in respect to the places of public accommodation, resort, or amusement, which were not to discriminate against Negroes. The punishment for disobeying the law now extended to persons “aiding or inciting denial” of accommodations. But the penalty of $500.00 was no longer to be paid to the aggrieved party but to the Overseer of the Poor.131 This was surely a strong concession to opposing interests. In 1921 another amendment was even more definitive than that passed in 1917 and extended considerably the scope of the provisions of the law itself. The penalty of $100.00 to $500.00 for the civil offense now was to go to the State while the fine for the criminal offense was not to exceed $500.00. There was now nothing to prevent those judgments of six cents which represented moral victories only. An alternative was imprisonment not exceeding ninety days or both fine and imprisonment. In this case the imprisonment could be less than one day. So although the law became more inclusive, the punishments were less severe. However, this amendment did provide for the injured party’s recovering from the judgment the cost of the action and attorney’s fees not exceeding $50.00.132 In 1935, the regulation pertaining to attorney’s fees provided for payments of not more than $100.00 nor less than $20.00.133 The present law defines the civil rights of New Jersey citizens as follows: 1. All persons within the jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey shall be entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any places of public accommodations, resort or amusement, subject only to conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons. No person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent or employee of any such place shall directly or indirectly refuse, withhold from or deny to any person any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges thereof, or directly or indirectly publish, circulate, issue, display, post, or mail any written or printed communication, notice or advertisement to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any such place shall be refused, withheld from or denied to any person on account of race, creed or color, or that the patronage or custom thereat of any person belonging to or purporting to be of any particular race, creed or color is unwelcome, objectionable or not acceptable, desired or solicited. The production of any such written or printed communication, notice or advertisement, purporting to relate to any such place and to be made by any person being the owner, lessee, proprietor, superintendent or manager thereof, shall be presumptive

130. Ibid., 1884, p. 339. 131. Ibid., 1917, pp. 220–­221. 132. Laws of New Jersey, 1921, pp. 468–­470. 133. Ibid., 1935, p. 762.

274 e s s a y s evidence in any civil or criminal action that the same was authorized by such person. A place of public accommodation, resort or amusement within the meaning of this act shall be deemed to include inn, tavern, road house or hotel, whether conducted for the entertainment of transient guests or for the accommodation of those seeking health, recreation or rest, any restaurant, eating house, or any place where food is sold for consumption on the premises; or any place maintained for the sale of ice cream, ice and fruit preparation or their derivatives, soda water or confections, or where beverages of any kind are retailed for consumption on the premises; garage, and all public conveyances operated on land and water; as well as the stations and terminals thereof; public bathhouses, public boardwalk, public seashore accommodation; theatre, or other place of public amusement, motion picture house, airdrome, music hall, roof garden, skating rink, amusement and recreation park, fair, bowling alley, gymnasium, shooting gallery, billiard and pool parlor; dispensary, clinic, hospital, public library, kindergarten, primary and secondary school, high school, academy, college and university, or any educational institution under the supervision of the regents of the State of New Jersey. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to include any institution, club or place of accommodation which is in its nature distinctly private, or to prohibit the mailing of a private communication in writing sent in response to a specific written inquiry.

Although on numerous occasions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the state had reminded white citizens that it was their privilege and duty to enroll in the military service of the state, no efforts had been made to encourage a like participation on the part of the colored citizenry. In fact, as previously mentioned, there had even been attempts to exclude Negroes from military services. Nevertheless colored citizens did serve in the armed forces of the state and nation, and several pieces of legislation during this period reflected the determination of Negroes to qualify for efficient service in the state militia. In 1895, it was enacted that “in addition to the forces hereinbefore authorized there shall be allowed four companies of colored infantry, one each to be stationed at Camden, Trenton, Newark and Jersey City.”134 A law passed in 1930 provided for the organization of a colored battalion of infantry which was to become a part of the state militia.135 Another bill in 1932 authorized pay for armory drill and field training to officers and enlisted men of the colored battalion of the state on the same basis as presented by the Federal Government for national guard troops.136 Two years later the legislature authorized the adjutant general to “organize and equip” a combined machine gun and headquarters company composed of colored citizen soldiers of Mercer County and vicinity with headquarters at Trenton, and a company of infantry composed of colored citizen soldiers of Camden County with headquarters at Camden, both to be part of the colored battalion of militia.137

134. Laws of New Jersey, 1895, p. 274. 135. Ibid., 1930, p. 567. 136. Laws of New Jersey, 1932, pp. 267–­268. 137. Ibid., 1934, p. 224.

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In the following year, 1935, the legislature provided for the establishment of colored citizens’ rifle companies at Trenton and Camden as parts of the colored battalion.138 In 1933, it was deemed necessary to protect Negro workmen from discrimination on jobs contracted in behalf of the state or subdivisions of the state. This law prohibited discrimination and intimidation on account of race, creed or color in the employment of laborers or workmen and mechanics by contractors or subcontractors doing work or furnishing material for the State of New Jersey or any county, city, township, or any other municipality.139 In 1942, the exigencies of war provoked a further extension of this prohibition to forbid discrimination by industries engaged in defense work because of race, color or creed.140 Since the discretion permitted appointing officers in the selection of workers from the civil service lists enabled them to pass over qualified Negroes, interested groups fought and won the battle to make it obligatory for such officers to submit a statement under oath setting forth their reasons for not appointing persons with higher grades. These reasons were not to be because of race, color, political faith, or creed.141 In 1935, the legislature passed a measure that was designed to protect all minority groups from activities that might result in animosities toward such groups or their members. It made it illegal to use means for “creating or intending to create hatred, violence or hostility against people of this state by reason of their race, color, religion or manner of worship.” This was not to be done through printing certain propaganda, printed matter, records, pictures, or signs.142 Negro citizens of East Orange used this law as a basis for protesting against the showing of the film, The Birth of a Nation, on the grounds that it would incite hatred against Negroes. In December, 1941, the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey ruled this law as unconstitutional on the grounds that it was too vague and that it violated the constitution of the State of New Jersey and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The Court insisted that it was an abridgement of the right of free speech.143 The nullification of this law makes it necessary for citizens interested in promoting and maintaining improved relationships among various groups to pin their faith in a law passed in 1938 which set up the Goodwill Commission of the State of New Jersey. This enactment authorized the governor to appoint a permanent commission of not more than fifteen residents of the state to act as representatives of their racial and religious groups in the interest of fostering racial and religious amity and understanding.144

Commission on the Urban Colored Population In 1938, the state authorized the appointment of a temporary commission to study and report on the condition of the urban colored population. Two reports made in 1939 and 1940 have set forth 138. Ibid., 1935, p. 929. 139. Ibid., 1933, pp. 747–­748. 140. New Jersey Session Law Service (Newark, 1942), p. 111. 141. Revised Statutes of New Jersey, Cumulative Supplement, 1937–­1938, 1939, 1940, p. 92. 142. New Jersey Laws, 1935, pp. 372–­376. 143. State v. Klapprott, 127 N. J. L., N. J. Advance Reports and Weekly Law Review, vol. xix, no. 50, pp. 396–­405. 144. Revised Statutes, etc., op. cit., p. 521.

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the findings and recommendations of this body.145 In 1941, an enactment created a permanent Commission “to examine, report upon and formulate measures to improve the economics, cultural, health and living conditions of the urban colored population of this state in order to secure to the urban colored population equal opportunity with the general population thereof for self support and the economic and cultural development to the extent, if any, that such opportunity does not now exist.”146 The refusal of a road house to admit a Negro couple directed there for shelter by an air raid warden during a blackout stimulated the chairman of the commission with the assistance of other Negro leaders to sponsor successfully a law designed to prevent a recurrence of this type of discrimination. This law makes it a misdemeanor to refuse a person access to a place of shelter during an air raid alarm for reason of race, creed or color. It appears that New Jersey is the first state to take official cognizance of the fact that shelter facilities have been refused Negroes during practice blackouts.147

VII. Conclusions This study seems to warrant the conclusion that the social attitudes which have made necessary and the social attitudes which have stimulated the passage of laws pertaining to Negroes during the past sixty years have roots which run far back into the early beginnings of the history of New Jersey as a colony and as a state. In opposition to those people or groups who have sought to and did lower the social status of Negroes, there have been others who have struggled to enable Negroes to be men among men. The latter group has succeeded in securing laws designed to ameliorate and protect the social status of the colored population. The former group has in many instances vitiated the spirit and letter of such statutes. Social reformers, social workers, and educators interested in working toward the integration of democratic ideals and practices in respect to all citizens regardless of color must surely give attention to the history of social attitudes pertaining to Negroes in New Jersey. They will, then, need to decide to what extent educational procedures will need to accompany or be substituted for new laws or revisions of former enactments. But the fact remains that the legal definitions of social relations between Negroes and whites have raised the status of Negroes from one of involuntary servitude to one in which they are entitled to full enjoyment of the civil and legal rights guaranteed to all citizens. Interested persons will need to consider steps by which these legal definitions can be effectively implemented. It is important to note that the laws pertaining to the Bordentown School and the state militia make for distinctions and separations because of race. A commentator on the law which set up the colored militia remarked that New Jersey, in 1895, made provision for four companies of

145. Report of the New Jersey State Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Urban Colored Population, 1939. Second Report of the New Jersey Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Urban Colored Population, 1940. 146. Ibid., p. 238. It is hoped that in the near future a similar step will be taken in the interests of the rural colored population of the state. Many of these people have been and do live under most deplorable conditions. 147. New Jersey Herald News (Newark), October 3, 1942, October 10, 1942.

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colored infantry presumably meaning that they should be all colored and kept separate from the other troops. Whereas the amendments to the civil rights law extended the areas of social contacts covered by its stipulations, the change in penalties appears to have been designed to discourage suits under the law by providing that damages be paid to an agent other than the injured party. Consequently a desire to fight for fundamental rights will have to serve as an incentive to action in cases involving the violation of this law. Persons interested in securing equality of opportunities for colored children and colored teachers through legal procedures will have to seek laws which prohibit distinctions as well as discriminations because of race in the education of Negro children and the training and employment of Negro teachers, principals, supervisors and administrative officers in public school systems. William J. Ellis, Commissioner of the Department of Institutions and Agencies, stated that “despite protective laws, personal privileges for Negroes in New Jersey are increasingly more limited, while segregation, instead of lessening, has tended to increase.”148 It is exceedingly important that Negro leaders within the state consider the full implications of the following challenging words of William Sackett published in 1914: All the laws of the State are not for all the communities. There are some they are glad to obey; there are others to which they can never be forced to yield. The statute books of New Jersey—­of all the states—­are cumbered with enactments to which no one ever thinks of paying attention. Some state officials, armed with no better answer to a popular discontent than that such and such is the law and they must enforce it, do not seem to realize that it is physically possible for them to enforce only part of it, and that if they could enforce it all, as it is written in all the statutes, and were to undertake to do it, their people would lead them to the nearest river and throw them overboard. A general system of laws cannot be drawn, with such infinitesimal detail, and such plastic closeness as to meet the particular little local needs and views and interests of each of the communities. So the consequence is that the State makes a great variety of laws, and the communities pick from the mass those that please them, and do not repudiate the rest, but just forget to pay attention to them.149

148. Oak, op. cit., p. 31, cited from the United States Daily, 1/17/1933. 149. William E. Sackett, Modern Battles of Trenton (New York, 1914), vol. ii, pp. 374–­375.

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Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–­1875 I. A Dramatic Historical Event “Attorney J. Oliver Randolph, delegate to the New Jersey Constitutional Convention,” according to the New Jersey Herald News, “captured the attention of the nation here last Wednesday in historic Rutgers University’s flag draped convention hall when, as the lone Negro delegate, he affixed his signature to the all important document designed to give to the citizens of the state a better and more progressive instrument of government.”1 The presentation of the constitutional draft by Dr. Robert C. Clothier, President of Rutgers University and Chairman of the Constitutional Convention, to Alfred Driscoll, Governor of the State, culminated the herculean task accepted by the eighty-­one men and women who had been selected to draft a state charter to supersede the one containing the general principles which had guided governmental procedures in this commonwealth for one hundred and three years. It epitomized the efforts of those of liberal convictions to include in the basic code provisions for the protection of those minority groups who were subjected to infringement of their rights and privileges as citizens. It represented a milestone in the battle of Negroes to wipe out the discrimination and segregation which had prevented their becoming wholly assimilated into the communities in which they lived. The draft of the new constitution accomplishes these goals through the provision holding that: No person shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil or military rights nor be discriminated against in any civil right or segregated in the militia or public schools on account of religious principles, race, color, ancestry or national origin.2

With these words, New Jersey established a significant precedent in American history. It is the first time a state has made provision in its basic charter against segregation in the militia and public schools. It even surpasses New York’s constitution which had been considered a model in its statement on the bill of rights. Many people in New Jersey had set such a statement in their constitution 1. Newark New Jersey Herald News, 9/20/1947. 2. State of New Jersey, A New Constitution for the State, p. 4.

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as a desirable goal for this State. The 1938 revision of New York’s charter lays the foundation for the protection of human rights in the following words: No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. No person shall, because of race, color, creed, or religion, be subjected to any discrimination in his civil rights by any other person or by any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state or any agency or subdivision of the state.3

New Jersey has this distinction because of the shrewd tenacity, and persistently determined activities of Oliver Randolph, a graduate of the Law School of Howard University. As a true spokesman for his race, he implemented the requests of the New Jersey Herald News, leading Negro organizations, and other civic groups that wanted to see the development of a constitution which would represent a realization of democratic ideals. The clause promising so much to minority peoples was not easily attained. Despite presentations of leading citizens and organizations, the initial draft of this section was disappointing because it dealt in generalities which could mean so many things to different people. Carrying the fight from the committee room to the convention floor, Randolph arguing for a “spelling out” of fundamentals reminded the delegates that since the adoption of the Constitution of 1844, many changes had come about. A race had been emancipated; the right of suffrage had been extended to Negroes and women; and conditions had arisen requiring the protection of all persons in their enjoyment of civil rights. Because of the peculiar situation existing in the southern section of the state, it had also become necessary to forbid segregation in the public schools through a constitutional provision. Separation of the races had already been outlawed by legislation. Placing such a prohibition in the basic charter would end the litigation which had been instituted from time to time in the courts. Such a clause would also be in line with modern thought regarding fair play, equal justice, and democracy. Pleading with the delegates to make New Jersey the torchbearer in the fight for justice, democracy and social progress, the veteran politician pointed out that by enacting particular bans on separate schools and militia units in the basic code, the State would go beyond the lead of New York’s anti-­discrimination clause.4 A heated two day debate followed. After a final appeal by the Negro delegate to insert a real clause in the constitution which could not possibly be misconstrued by the courts, the convention adopted the recommendation by a fifty-­one to eighteen vote.5 The acceptance of the new constitution was a dramatic event in the history of Negroes in New Jersey. Just how significant this basic code is in the development of Negro life in this state can be realized only through an understanding of the bitter fight of the group to win first the freedom of their persons and then the right to exercise the privileges of freemen. This battle has been of long duration, but it has been replete with incidents of high human and historical interest. The contest in New Jersey has been part and parcel of the struggle in the national arena. In the early years of the

3. New Jersey Herald News, 7/19/47. 4. Ibid., 8/30/47. 5. The New Jersey Afro American, 8/30/47.

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Republic, Negroes realized the effectiveness of the elective franchise in efforts to win the rights of freemen. The following account will depict the forces and men who played important roles during this period of the long struggle for human rights. Such, a study shows that the events leading up to the extension of the franchise to Negroes may be divided into three main chronological periods: the years from 1776–­1807 when votes were cast by classes of people who were denied the ballot in the other states; the period from 1807 to 1844 during which the legislature passed a law limiting the suffrage to white male citizens, twenty-­one years of age, worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate, and during 1844 when a new constitution was adopted to take the place of the one which had been so hastily drawn up at the time the colonies declared their independence of Great Britain; and finally the era from the adoption of the new charter to the year 1875, when the Legislature voted to remove the word “white” from the section of the basic code dealing with suffrage.

II. The Early Years of the Republic Wesley6 reveals that during the period of the making of the constitution of the federal government and those of the states there was much negligence and confusion concerning the enfranchisement rights of the Negro element of the population. In the haste with which many of these constitutions were drafted, there resulted many vague statements of the qualifications of voters that created doubt as to the real intent of the framers or left loopholes which extended the suffrage to people who had not previously exercised the right of franchise. According to Wesley, Negroes had voted in some sections of the country during the colonial period. Likewise they had performed other duties of citizenship such as serving in the militia or paying taxes. Although little of a decisive nature was done in the way of making first class citizens of free Negroes, nevertheless, the loose construction of some of these constitutions resulted in Negroes’ exercising the privilege in several states, including New Jersey. Here the Constitution was written with great speed. The committee which was appointed on June 24, 1776 reported its first draft on the 26th. The basic charter was discussed on the 27th and adopted on the 2nd of July without further consideration.7 In respect to suffrage, the new Constitution provided: That all inhabitants of this colony of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate, in the same, and have resided within the county, in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in council and assembly; and also for all other public officers that shall be elected by the people of the county at large.8

6. Charles H. Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution Making, 1787–­1865,” The Journal of Negro History, vol. xxxi, no. 2, April, 1947, pp. 143–­169. 7. Minutes of the Provincial Congress and Council of Safety, 1775–­1776, pp. 474–­489. 8. General Statutes of New Jersey 1709–­1895, XXII.

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Taking advantage of the liberal interpretation of this article, certain classes of people voted who had not been known to exercise previously the privilege of franchise. Not only did Negro men vote but both white and Negro women. This is the earliest instance of voting by women in the United States.9 Negroes and women continued to go to the polls until a hotly contested election resulted in the passage of a law in 1807 restricting the franchise to “white males.” A noted historian, Edward Turner,10 has recorded the phenomenon of female suffrage in New Jersey from 1790–­1807. Although the framers of the Constitution may not have intended to include women in the voting population, there are incidents which indicate that the idea was quite acceptable to the men in control of the State’s affairs. The Society of Friends had consistently maintained the essential equality of women with men. When, in 1790, a bill revising the election law for certain counties was being discussed in the assembly, a Friend of West Jersey insisted that women had the right to vote. To please him, the committee reported a measure which referred to voters as “he or she.” The provisions of this act were extended to other counties somewhat later.11 On another occasion, when a motion was made to amend the election of representatives to Congress in order to assure the right of widows and unmarried women to suffrage, the amendment was rejected on the ground that the Constitution clearly guaranteed this right to “maids or widows, black or white.” Two years later a proposal to limit voting to free white males was easily rejected.12 It is not apparent that many women used the privilege of franchise until after 1790. During an election in 1794 which constituted a lively contest between John Condict of Newark and William Crane of Elizabeth, seventy-­five women’s votes were cast.13 In the presidential election of 1800, women, especially where the Society of Friends was in strength, voted in considerable numbers throughout the state.14 Griffiths says that at first only single women voted. Later married women joined them at the polls, Negro as well as white.15 In Hunterdon County, a citizen was chosen to the Legislature by a majority of two or three votes which had been cast by colored females.16 Governor Pennington is said to have escorted a “strapping negress to the polls where he joined her in the ballot.”17 In 1802, a petition to the Legislature to set aside an election in Trenton included among its charges that Negroes and actual slaves, aliens, persons not worth fifty pounds, and married women voted. The election was not set aside.18 In another election in which the Federalists of Essex County were accused of receiving among other votes known to be illegal those of “negro wenches,” the complaint was that they were “negresses supported by charity.”19 9. Edward R. Turner, “Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790–­1807,” Smith College Studies in History, vol. 1, No. 4, July 1916, p. 170. 10. Ibid., pp. 165–­187. 11. Ibid., pp. 167–­8. 12. Ibid., 174. In accordance with the laws regarding property in operation at this time, married women were unable to hold property, in clear estate. 13. Thomas S. Griffiths, A History of Baptists in New Jersey, Hightstown, N.J., Barr Press Publishing Co., 1904, pp. 254. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Joseph Atkinson, The History of Newark, N.J., Newark: William B. Guild, 1878, p. 143. 18. Votes and Proceedings of the Twenty-­Seventh Assembly of the State of New Jersey, First Sitting, p. 73. 19. Turner, op. cit., p. 174.

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In discussing the uncertainty which existed as to the intent of the Constitution, Turner maintains that this had to do not only with women but with Negroes as well, and conceivably with slaves and servants also. This was during the period when the Friends of Pennsylvania and other nearby states were exerting themselves to the utmost to improve the condition of the colored people and were beginning to argue for their economic and political equality with the whites. Whereas in Pennsylvania there was probably little voting by Negroes at this time, in New Jersey it was not infrequent, and sometimes unquestioned. It was not until 1790 that the law explicitly forbade the vote to servants and slaves.20 In 1793, a complaint was made that a Negro had been permitted to vote who had no legal residence and whose declaration that he had been freed in another state had been accepted as sufficient proof of his eligibility to vote. The implication was that a Negro who was able to show clear proof of his freedom and legal residence was entitled to suffrage.21 In the years, 1776–­1807, many of the instances of voting by Negroes came to light through contested elections, which caused widespread public comment. Because of the feeling existing among the Democrats that Federalists were making use of Negroes in their efforts to win at the polls, the Democrats resisted in many cases the extension of suffrage to Negroes. Where the franchise was being exercised by them, Democrats sought to impose restrictions on their use of this privilege. Following the election of 1806 in which fraudulent balloting was said to have been rife, action was taken to restrict the suffrage to free white males. In this contest, according to accounts, women and girls, black and white, married and single, with and without qualifications, voted again and again.22 Condict, who was almost defeated in an election in 1794 by women’s votes, was particularly active in sponsoring legislation to eliminate the fair sex and Negroes from the electorate. Insisting that no one could suppose that the framers of the constitution intended under the term “all inhabitants” to include married women, Negro slaves, and aliens of every description as entitled to suffrage, he maintained that the right construction must be considered in light of the spirit of the time. Since, if women, Negroes, and aliens were entitled to vote, it would naturally follow that they would be eligible to hold office, Condict declared that no one could possibly infer that the authors meant to entrust the armies and the direction of the State to women, Negroes or aliens. These men, he said, meant to include the free white male citizens.23 It was during the debate on this subject that Condict made a startling statement. He noted in connection with the election of 1802 in Hunterdon County that “the vote of a negro slave, herself the property of another slave, elected one of the Hunterdon members on that occasion, produced an equality of parties in the legislature, and deprived the state of a governor for a year.”24 A restrictive law was passed by a thirty-­one to five vote in an assembly dominated by Democrats. But it was not a party measure as leading Federalists for it from Burlington and Middlesex Counties gave their support. The amendment to the election law stated:

20. Ibid., 178. 21. Henry Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1896, p. 54. 22. Turner, op. cit., p. 182. 23. Trenton True American, 11/23/07. 24. Ibid.

n e g r o s u f f r a g e i n n e w j e r s e y , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 7 5 283 Whereas doubts have been raised, and great diversities in practice obtained throughout the state in regard to the admission of aliens, females, and persons of color, or negroes to vote in elections, as also in regard to the mode of ascertaining the qualifications of voters in respect to estate. And Whereas, it is highly necessary to the safety, quiet, good order and dignity of the state, to clear up said doubts by an act of the representatives of the people, declaratory of the true sense and meaning of the constitution, and to ensure its just execution in these particulars, according to the intent of the framers thereof;—­Therefore, Sec. 1. Be It Enacted, by the council and general assembly of this state, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That from and after the passing of this act, no person shall vote in any state or county election for officers in the government of the United States or of this state, unless such person be a free, white male citizen of this state, of the age of twenty-­one years, worth fifty pounds proclamation money, for at least twelve months immediately preceding the election.25

With the adoption of this law passed an interesting era in the history of Negroes in the United States and the State of New Jersey. Although, in supporting legislation restricting suffrage to white males, it was declared that the interpretations of the Constitution permitting the use of the franchise by women and Negroes was contrary to the intent of the framers of this document, there were those who were quite willing for these classes of the population to have the ballot as indicated by the provisions in some counties that the voters be referred to as he or she. When on one occasion it was suggested that voting be limited to white males, the proposition was defeated. On another, when it was desired that the prohibition of the vote to females be specifically denied, it was contended that this was unnecessary because the Constitution gave them that right and included blacks as well as whites. These actions were in line with the contentions of Frank Kingdom, noted educator and radio speaker of New Jersey, that the citizens of this State had always been at odds in regard to major issues; that the State had never been wholly Republican or permanently Democratic; and that the same attitude was evident during the Revolution when the Tories and Patriots were of equal strength.26 But Negro suffrage and the fight for it did not end here.

III. Transition Years, 1807–­1 844 For the first quarter of the nineteenth century, little is found regarding the matter of suffrage as far as Negroes are concerned, but this was a transition period of great significance for colored people in New Jersey. In 1804, due to the activities of the Society of Friends and other liberal persons, the Legislature had passed a law providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the State. The Society of Friends and Sunday School groups had made possible the extension of education in the common branches to members of the darker race. Burning issues arose around the subject of inter-­racial relationships. The Colonization Society was organized to effect the emigration of

25. Acts of the 32nd General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, p. 14. 26. Newark Evening News, 2/3/1938.

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free Negroes to Africa. In the early thirties, the Convention Movement began among colored people. Negroes initiated programs of their own to bring about the emancipation and advancement of members of their race. In 1844, a revised constitution was adopted limiting suffrage to free white males. During the period 1807 to 1844, many discussions by white people as to what should be done about the Negroes in the State took place. A number of them were uncompromising in their desire to see slavery abolished from the earth. There were some who, on the other hand, wanted to see the institution destroyed but did not relish the sight of free Negroes in their midst. Several white leaders held that Negroes could not possibly attain the stature of real men as long as they remained in this country since it was impossible for them ever to hope to live on a basis of equality with whites. These leaders thought the most Christian-­like act would be to make it possible for colored persons to return to the land of their fathers where they could realize their full potentialities. Others were firm believers in slavery and fought every attempt to bring about its abolition in either the State or the Nation. Still others who did not want slavery in New Jersey were convinced that in order to promote harmony in the country at large, questions pertaining to bondage should be left to the discretion of the people involved. Many citizens opposed the extension of slavery to areas where it did not already exist. In view of these differences of opinion, bitter verbal clashes were provoked by issues pertaining to Negroes. The Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law, the efforts of slave-­holding interests to expand their sphere of influence, all brought forth acrimonious discussion in the press and on the floor of the Legislature. The Colonization Society represented one of the attempts to solve the Negro problem. Influential citizens who could see no hope of free colored persons living in this country on a basis of equality with white people urged that they be assisted in returning to Africa. New Jersey men were among the original sponsors of this effort. The branch of the society in this State included among its membership individuals outstanding in position and prestige. Judge Lucius Elmer,27 authority on the Constitution and laws of New Jersey and for many years a member of the Legislature, addressing an annual meeting of the Society in 1825, held that the principal need was to afford an opportunity for free people of color to escape that state of degradation to which they were necessarily subjected in New Jersey. He believed this condition to be beyond the correction of “domestic palliatives and internal regulations.” He saw them as people condemned to a position of hopeless inferiority because of their origin, the indelible mark of their condition imposed by their color, the barriers to unions with whites and the impossibility of their ever obtaining an equality of rights and privileges as American citizens. The generation of free born blacks who were fast rising up in the State still remained the same despised and degraded race as their parents. The right of suffrage which they possessed for many years subsequent to the Revolution had been taken from them at the risk of violating the provisions of the Constitution. Elmer was sure no one wanted to restore the scenes of former times surrounding the exercise of the franchise. Emancipation had not, he continued,

27. Trenton True American, 9/3/25.

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and could not confer the full right of citizenship upon the person emancipated. He could acquire property, and maintain a suit, but he could not be a juror or judge, even in a controversy with one of his own color. The laws by which he was bound were enacted without his participation, and often with but little regard to his interests. His freedom of movement, the only thing of which he could boast, would make it possible for him to seek a climate more congenial to his nature—­one where his dark complexion and personal peculiarities were common to all. Addressing the same meeting, Samuel Bayard,28 one time President of the Board of Trustees of the Theological Seminary of Princeton University, said that many whites emigrated to escape doing work done in the State by free blacks because of the odium attached to such labor. Consequently the white population was remaining static while the colored was increasing. He predicted that in a century there would be 320,000 more Negroes than were in the state at the time. After noting with ominous words that a large proportion of the latter would then have become owners in fee of land; would be paying taxes; would have been made liable to military duty and service on the roads, he raised these prophetic questions: Will they be content to endure every burden, while they enjoy hut few privileges? Will they be content to have questions of life and liberty decided by white Jerseymen, when perhaps, from mutual antipathy, an impartial trial will be impossible? Shall they vote? Shall they be entitled to Representatives?

These questions, insisted Bayard, may be answered in the “din of insurrection.” It is the duty, philosophy, and wisdom, he continued, to provide for probable evils—­not to wait until danger is imminent, and then wake up and commence preparation when it is too late for anything but conflict. The supporters of the colonization movement enlisted the assistance of the Legislature in carrying out their objective. Appropriations were made by this body to aid in the expatriation of free Negroes.29 The Convention Movement among Negroes which began in the early thirties brought together men from various parts of the country to discuss means for improving the conditions of their people. In their deliberations, they pointed out the need for gathering data on the status of the members of their race; for encouraging good habits among them; for seeking the release of those still in bondage; and for securing the rights due those who were free. These gatherings served as training grounds in parliamentary procedure and as laboratories for developing those abilities and skills which were to enable them to take an intelligent part in the battle for first class citizenship in the State and the nation. Negroes from New Jersey were among the representatives sent to these conferences. Their leadership made itself felt during the days prior to and following the Civil War.

28. Ibid., 9/17/25. 29. Marion Thompson Wright, “New Jersey Laws and the Negro,” Journal of Negro History, vol. xxviii, No. 2, April, 1943, p. 181.

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As one of the outgrowths of the Convention Movement, free Negroes in New Jersey initiated a struggle for inclusion in the electorate of the State. Following a statement in the Gazette in 1841 that the Legislature of New Jersey was to be petitioned for the unconditional immediate emancipation of all the blacks and for investing them with the right of suffrage, the year 1842 brought many petitions from Westfield, Rahway, Elizabethtown, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, Princeton and New Brunswick for the privilege of participating in elections. When Mr. Congar presented one of these memorials, he said that he felt “bound to present it, however he might be opposed to the object.”30 All of the appeals were laid on the table in spite of the fact that the two branches of the law making body were in control of the Whigs who were more tolerant than Democrats where Negroes were involved. The State Convention of Abolitionists in New Jersey urged the people to vote for individuals who were opposed to the enslavement of a portion of the population and to the conferring of exclusive privileges on the basis of birth or personal appearance. The manner in which the suffrage had been treated, extending it in one direction and contracting it in another, proved that citizens of New Jersey held every one of their rights at the mere will of an accidental majority. The address called for a written constitution which would guarantee equal rights to all men, which could secure as far as possible the making of equal laws and the administration of equal justice to all persons, and which would effectively restrain the Legislature from tampering with the “Sacred Right of Suffrage.” Such a constitution should secure to every man after a proper residence the right to vote in elections and thus to participate in making the laws by which he was to be governed, taxed, and made liable to punishment.31 Around the second quarter of the century, rising dissatisfaction with the Constitution began to crystalize into definite demands and recommendations for its revision. Under the title, Defects of the Constitution, Paterson32 raised many questions pertaining to deficiencies in the basic charter. In discussing the meaning of the principle of “more equal representation,” Paterson declared that interpretations were left to the Legislature which should unquestionably be fixed by the Constitution. If the law making body should think that it was consistent with this principle to admit women and colored people to the “privilege of representation,” it would no doubt think correctly and there was nothing in the Constitution to prevent their passing a law to make this possible. In another issue, Paterson observed that the fourth article of the Constitution fixed the qualifications of voters, and provided that none should vote who was not worth fifty pounds. This article, he insisted, had been abolished by a statute which was clearly unconstitutional—­“for if the Legislature can abolish a part of the constitution, it can abolish the whole, and nothing is gained by having a written constitution.” A restoration of this article which did not prohibit women, Negroes and aliens from exercising the important privilege of suffrage would at once have disfranchised “thousands of patriotic citizens whose poverty would prove their disqualification.”33

30. Trenton State Gazette, 1/14/42. This paper will hereafter be referred to as the Gazette. 31. State Convention of Abolitionists in New Jersey, Address to the People, 1/12/41. 32. True American, 12/31/25. 33. Ibid., 6/17/26.

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These views indicate the temper of the times in respect to granting the franchise to women or Negroes. These classes of the population were not included in the noble sentiments expressed concerning the implementation of the democratic ideal with reference to voting. The Committee of Council on the Proposed Alteration of the Constitution of the State of New Jersey asked in whom the elective franchise should be vested. In reply to what it considered would be the answer of one class of people that the right of suffrage is universal and inalienable, this Committee said that such language should never disgrace the halls of the Legislature, much less should it profane that “sacred charter”—­the Constitution of New Jersey. The report contended that if there was to be no examination of fitness or qualifications, then women, children, Negroes, mulattoes, paupers, slaves, and convicts had a right to vote, and no one had a right to exclude them, because “if it was their right, society had no right to prevent the execution of that right.”34 In 1844, a convention was called to draft a new constitution. Unfortunate for those interested in the extension of the elective franchise to Negroes, Mr. Thomson, a Democrat of Mercer County, was chairman of the committee dealing with the section on suffrage. The recommendation of this group was accepted without debate. An article extended the franchise to Every white male citizen of the United States, twenty-­one years old who had been a resident of the state for one year and in the county for five months before election except non residents quartered in military or naval positions—­garrisons, barracks, place or station or paupers, idiots, insane persons or persons convicted of crime which now excluded him from being a witness unless pardoned or restored by law to the right of suffrage.35

Questions raised as to the legality of restricting the franchise to white males were now quieted by the adoption of the new Constitution. In this instance, Negroes suffered a setback in their fight for the privileges of freemen. They now had to reckon with a constitutional provision rather than a legislative enactment. The former is always more resistant to change, but this fact did not daunt their determination to secure what they considered rightfully theirs.

IV. Intensified Battles for Emancipation and the Rights of Citizenship Chief Justice Hornblower failed in his attempts to have the new Constitution end all servitude in the State. The fight continued until 1846, however, when a law was passed abolishing slavery for those who had been born prior to 1804. An act in 1804 had provided for the gradual emancipation of those who had been born after July of that year. This new legislative measure did not mean that the people covered by it were entirely free. Those who were still in servitude were now made apprentices for life. At least, they could not be sold. During this period many discussions in the press and the Legislature revolved around Negroes. The Fugitive Slave Law, the Compromise of 1850, the Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas-­Nebraska Bill,

34. Report of the Committee of Council on the Proposed Alteration of the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, 2/29/41. 35. General Statutes of New Jersey 1709–­1895, p. xxvi.

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Secession, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Reconstruction Amendments, the extension of suffrage to Negroes—­all stimulated heated arguments which caused tempers to rise and insinuations to fly. The humanitarians battled to have their darker brothers treated as real men, while their opponents, mostly of the Democratic Party, threw their support behind the fortunes of the slaveholders in the South. One Jerseyman proposed that the State secede from the Union. Democrats, for the most part, opposed the war, and at one time passed resolutions recommending its termination. Negroes in an attempt to protect themselves organized the Equal Rights League. The battle for equal suffrage for all men increased in vigor, until finally the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution conferred political rights upon Negroes. The year, 1849, ushered in a determined campaign to extend suffrage. In accordance with a motion made at a previous meeting in Salem and adjacent counties, leaders assembled in the Mount Pisgah African Methodist Episcopal Church to discuss further the matter of participating in elections. After listening to the reading of an appeal for the right of suffrage which had been presented by a delegation from Dutchtown, the body decided to hold a convention in Trenton.36 The determination and courage shown in the efforts to win the right to vote can be gleaned from the following extracts from the North Star: We learned with pleasure that the colored people of New Jersey are beginning to call for their rights as men and citizens of the state. The following petition has been circulated and sent into the Legislature, but has been laid on the table without action. Our friend, the Rev. Charles W. Gardner, from whom we received it, informs us that through the coming summer, they hope to send lecturers into the field to stir up the state on the subject, and procure a more general and united action. We hope the design will be executed and will result in a greatly increased interest in the subject among all classes of people.37

This petition itself shows how prophetic were the questions raised by the Reverend Mr. Bayard in his address to the New Jersey Colonization Society in 1825 when he asked what would happen if free Negroes continued to increase in number, acquire property, pay taxes and contribute their services to the State: To the Senate and House Assembly of the State of New Jersey, at Trenton Assembled. Gentlemen: We, the undersigned petitioners of the State of New Jersey, being free colored citizens of the above-­mentioned state, have for a long time felt grieved, that we are, by a provision in the laws of this our state, deprived of the elective franchise; and therefore do most respectfully petition and earnestly pray your honorable body to take the subject into consideration at your present session, and use your influence to have the laws so altered in respect to us, as to remove the disability and grant us the right of elective franchise, in common with, and under the same provisions of other free citizens of this state.

36. North Star, 2/2/49. 37. Ibid., 4/7/49.

n e g r o s u f f r a g e i n n e w j e r s e y , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 7 5 289 And we are induced respectfully to ask this right, upon the following considerations: First. Because we are taxed in common and equally with other citizens, which tax we have paid, and are willing so to do without complaining. Second. We ask it because our ancestors were among the pioneers of our country, and we are native born citizens, and have never by insurrection, mobs, or tumults, committed any act whereby the public peace or safety was endangered. Third. Because we are now making as rapid improvements in moral, intellectual and political science as any other portion of the laboring class in the state, by maintaining churches, schools, temperance and beneficial societies, giving support to the general diffusion of knowledge by contributions to support the press in the expenditure of several thousand dollars annually throughout the state, for newspapers, periodicals, etc. Fourth. Because it is a right granted to foreigners of the same class who have been in the country from two to five years, and whose situations and prejudices in favor of the land of their nativity do not permit them to be as well acquainted with republican institutions as we, the native born citizens of this state. Fifth. Because it is contrary to the genius and prosperity of any republican country to oppress her own home born sons; it being a law in the universal government of God, that he who doeth a wrong to his neighbor shall receive an evil to himself, and inasmuch as true republicanism is based upon the laws of universal suffrage, it is a violation of this law, and consequently pernicious to the fundamental principles of republican institutions to withhold a common right from any class or portion of an unoffending people. Sixth. Because it is unconstitutional; the framers of the constitution having pledged their honor, lives, and property never to submit to taxation without representation, having carefully guarded this right by an article prohibiting any state in the union from making it legal to disqualify any of her tax-­paying citizens for the exercise of the right to choose their representatives. Seventh. And lastly, we ask it from a full conviction that the improvements of the age, the philanthropy of the state, and the good sense of our rulers have all looked forward for such a movement and were waiting for those most concerned therein, to enter upon the measure, and the work would be accomplished. All of which we most respectfully submit to the wisdom, justice and truthfulness of your honorable body, and we shall most sincerely pray, God save the commonwealth.38

Still the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature reported adversely on this petition.39 But the colored people were not easily discouraged. The meeting which had been planned earlier in the year for Trenton was held in the Mount Zion Church on August 21, with the Reverend Mr. Woodlin acting as chairman. The delegates included Robert Steward of Swedesboro; Joshua Woodlin, Leonard Shields, Alexander Brown, Gideon Lewis and David Stevens of Burlington County; Murray Wells, Samuel Harrison, of Newark; Dr. J. S. Rock of Salem; Mansfield Herbert,

38. Ibid. 39. Minutes of the Assembly, 2/8/49, p. 600.

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George Shreve, the Reverend Mr. George McMullen, Robert Thomas, Benjamin Stewart and H. A. Burton of Mercer County; Lewis Conover of Monmouth County; and Ishmael Locke of Camden County. This Convention passed several interesting resolutions among which were the following: 2. That the grand subject to which the whole attention of the house is called, is that of the best mode of endeavoring to obtain the right of franchise for coloured persons in the State of New Jersey. 3. That the best mode of obtaining the right of franchise is by petitioning the State Legislature through the people. 4. That we be careful to obtain the signatures of white citizens separately and apart from those of coloured citizens. 8. That the copies of Petition shall, with the signatures thereon, be returnable to Trenton during the first week of the session of the Legislature, so as to be passed up to that honourable body as soon as possible after the commencement of the next session thereof. 9. Resolved that we call upon every delegate here assembled and also upon every well disposed citizen of this State and elsewhere, to aid the cause to the utmost of their abilities, by exerting themselves for the purpose of obtaining as many signers as may be possible to the following form of Petition, to send in to our State Legislature at its next session.

Form of Petition To the Honourable, the Senate and the House of Assembly of the State of New Jersey, at Trenton assembled. We, the undersigned, citizens of the State of New Jersey, hereby respectfully petition your Honourable body to take the lawful measures to so amend the Constitution as to leave out the word “white” in Article 2nd, Right of Suffrage, Section 1st, of the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, so as to grant the Right of Franchise to all citizens, thereof, irrespective of colour.40

The Convention further resolved that it was the purpose of the members of the body never to cease petitioning the Legislature until their prayer for equal rights had been granted. At the end of the meeting, a solemn benediction was offered by the Reverend Mr. Catto and the “assemblage returned in peace and harmony to their homes.” The Reverend Mr. Woodlin, Ishmael Locke and the Reverend Mr. Catto who had been authorized to send out a broadside to the citizens of New Jersey issued the following appeal:

An Address From the Coloured Convention, assembled at Trenton, on the 21st and 22nd days of August, 1849.

40. Proceedings and Address of the Coloured Citizens of N.J. Convened at Trenton August 21st and 22nd, 1849, pp. 5–­6.

n e g r o s u f f r a g e i n n e w j e r s e y , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 7 5 291

To the Citizens of New Jersey We, the undersigned, on behalf of the aforesaid Convention, do make and promulgate this appeal to all the people in common throughout this our native State:—­ Being endowed, under the blessings of a beneficent Providence and favourable circumstances, with the same rationality, knowledge and feelings, in common with the better and more favoured portions of civilized mankind, we would no longer deride you and ourselves by exhibiting the gross inconsistency, and by so far belying the universal law and the great promptings of our nature; cultivated as we claim to be, as to have you longer suppose that we are ignorant of the important and undeniable fact that we are indeed men like unto yourselves. Knowing then, that these things are so, you will naturally be led to suppose that with the same kind of teaching, and under the same influences, we should necessarily have the same kind of feeling and the same general ideas in common with yourselves. And inasmuch as you have declared, and we have learned the fact—­that all men are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. And that all political power is inherent in the people; and that they have the right at all times to alter or reform the same, whenever the public good may require it. Therefore we now appeal to you in the face of your assertions, and in respect of your justice, your patriotism, your intelligence, your honesty and love of liberty—­and in remembrance of your accountability to Him from whom cometh every good and perfect gift—­requesting that you will use your influence, each for himself, in assisting us in this our purpose of obtaining for ourselves and our posterity, the blessings and perquisites of liberty in the exercise of the elective franchise, or right of suffrage; which we respectfully ask as a right belonging to us in the character of men; but heretofore witheld as an attache of color, in the conservative spirit of some, and the ignorance, envy and prejudice of others. In conclusion, we would only say that, with our knowledge of the eminent standing of the highest virtues of which humanity is capable—­the religion, morality, intelligence, jurisprudence and good citizenship, generally evinced in this our native State—­we confidently expect a majority of your signatures to our petitions wherever presented; and we verily believe that the day is not far distant when New Jersey shall be hailed as the first consistent reformer of human rights in the Western World. Signed, Rev. Woodlin, of Burlinton ″ W. T. Catto, of Trenton ″ I. Locke, of Camden On Behalf of the Convention.41

41. Ibid., pp. 8–­9.

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The delegates and other citizens of the State did their work well. On January 24, 1850, Mr. Hageman presented a “memorial of a public meeting” of the colored residents of the city of Trenton and elsewhere, in favor of the elective franchise being extended to them, accompanied with petitions on the same subject from inhabitants of the counties of Gloucestor, Cumberland, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth and Salem. A week later three more petitions came in from Gloucestor County and elsewhere.42 Further evidence of the quality of the arguments advanced in favor of this cause by Negroes is found in the logic and persuasiveness of the folowing address by Dr. J. S. Rock, abolitionist, dentist, and physician who did yeoman service for this fight in New Jersey. Citizens, in addressing you in favor of a disfranchised portion of the legal tax-­payers of New Jersey, I feel, from the success our enterprise has already been crowned with, that intelligence, humanity and justice, may be styled characteristics of the citizens of this State. Knowing, then, that I am speaking to an intelligent and human people, who believe in that noble sentiment set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created free and equal,” etc. I take the liberty of speaking freely to you, being one of the disfranchised, and I do not believe your hearts are so callous as not to listen to the voice of the oppressed. Although the above Declaration declares that “all men are created free and equal,” those noble words, in their common acceptation, do not and cannot apply to the disfranchised people I am now speaking of; because, indirectly, you deny the disfranchised are men. You say that all men are created free and equal, and at the same time, you deny that equality, which is nothing more nor less than denying our manhood. If we are not free and equal, (according to the Declaration of Independence), we are not men, because “all men are created free and equal.” We confess there is something about this we never could understand. We are denied our rights as men, at the same time are taxed in common with yourselves, and obliged to support the government in her denunciations. If we are not men, why are we dealt with as such when we do not pay our taxes, or when we infringe the laws? Whenever we become delinquent in the one, or a transgressor in the other, there is then no question about our manhood; we are treated as men, to all intents and purposes. If we are men, when our taxes are due, and men when we transgress the laws, we are men when our taxes are not due, and when we do not transgress the laws. There are many reasons why colored men should be enfranchised. We have been reared in this State, and are acquainted with her institutions. Our fidelity to this country has never been questioned. We have done nothing to cause our disfranchisement; on the contrary, we have done all a people could do to entitle them to be enfranchised. It is said, “there is not sufficient intelligence” amongst us to warrant the restoration of those rights, and that we are not sufficiently acquainted with the government, etc.; but they do not say we do not have sufficient intelligence and knowledge of the government, to warrant us to pay our taxes, because we cannot thoroughly understand how the money goes!

42. Minutes of the Assembly, 1/31/50, p. 480 and Trenton True American, 1/3/50.

n e g r o s u f f r a g e i n n e w j e r s e y , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 7 5 293 If we, who have always been with you, do not understand something of the regulations of this country, how miserably ignorant are the thousands of voters who arrive in this country annually, who know nothing of this government, and but little of any government! There is no just plea, and apology for you to shut every avenue to elevation, and then complain of degradation; what else can be expected, while we are looked upon as things, and treated worst than unthinking animals? In the Revolution, Colored soldiers fought side by side with you in your struggles for liberty; “and there is not a battle-­field from Maine to Georgia, which has not been crimsoned by our blood, and whitened by our bones.” In 1814, a Bill passed the Legislature of New York, accepting the services of 2,000 colored volunteers. In the battle on Lake Erie, Commodore Perry’s fleet was manned chiefly by colored seamen. Many black sailors served under Commodore McDonough when he conquered Lake Champlain. Many were in the battles of Plattsburgh and Sackett’s Harbor. Gen. Jackson called out colored troops from Louisiana and Alabama, and in solemn proclamation attested to their fidelity and courage. But some of our enemies say, we “had better go to Africa.” We ask, Why? They say, we “cannot rise in this country, the prejudices are too strong to overcome;” that we had better be “kings among beggars, than beggars among kings.” As neither of the positions is enviable, we will not quarrel about the beggarly or kingly conditions. We think these titular philanthropists who try to make the people believe we can never rise in this country, and that money must be raised, by appropriation or otherwise, to expatriate us, would do well to hold their peace—­give their extra change to the poor, emigrate to the country of their forefathers as quickly as possible, and take their incendiary reports along with them. They say, “this is not our country.” We would ask, Whom does it belong to? If this country is yours, and was gained by conquest, then we are particeps criminis, and are equally entitled to the spoil. Africa is urged upon us as the country of our forefathers! If this is good sophistry—­and we think it will pass—­then it follows that all men must go to the country of their forefathers: in this case, the blacks will go to Africa, and the whites to Europe; and where will the mixed races go? We suppose, in such an event, they would occupy the inter-­medium—­that is, the Mediterranean Sea! What would become of the Indians? Would they go to the country of their forefathers? If so, where is it? This sophistry is not designed to aggrandize any but the descendants of European nations: Africa is the country for the Africans, their descendants and mongrels of various colors; Asia the country of the Asiatics; the East Indies the place for Malays; Patagonia the country for the Indian; and any place the white man chooses to go. HIS country! The country a man is born in, is his country; and the humanity that would oppress a colored man for a white man’s sake, is not humanity for us; and the man that will refuse to assist suffering humanity, on account of color, is undeserving of the name of man. Think no longer that we cannot understand and act as men. We do not need another man’s ears to enable us to hear, or another man’s reason to enable us to think, or another man’s legs to enable us to walk. The faculties and senses are bestowed upon us as upon yourselves; and the

294 e s s a y s man who favors a system that prohibits us from hearing a lecture, or seeing an exhibition—­that restrains our reason, by shutting up the avenues of information, and that prevents us from passing certain (imaginary) lines to visit a sick mother or a dying wife, do transcend the proper bounds of men, and belie that noble sentiment that declares “all men are free and equal.” Our design, in speaking frankly, is not to upbraid you, but to show you our maltreatment, and ask you to ameliorate our condition, by giving us our rights. We apprehend no unkind feelings from intellectual people. Ignorance and prejudice are the monsters we have to grapple with. Your present happiness and prosperity in this country, result from your having the Elective Franchise. If you were deprived of it as long as we have been, you would be degraded also. We ask this privilege that we may be prosperous and happy. We never could become rivals. The meagre proportion that we bear to you in numbers, is a sufficient guarantee against rivalry. We are willing to stand by the people of this country, among enemies and friends, in prosperity and adversity, in peace and war; all we ask is to be treated as MEN.43

The continuous assault against the injustices perpetrated in the refusal to extend the franchise to Negroes began to bear fruit. The petitions had been referred to the Judiciary Committee and contrary to previous years the Committee brought the following report which made a strong plea for the extension of the franchise to the respondents: The Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, with the assent of the majority of the same, to whom were reported the several petitions asking a change in the Constitution of this State so as to extend the right of suffrage to the colored part of the population, begs leave to Report: By the Constitution, any specific amendment thereof may be proposed in the Senate or General Assembly, and, if agreed to by a majority of both houses, it shall be entered upon their respective journals, and referred to the next legislature. If a majority of both houses shall again ratify the same, it shall be submitted to the people of the State for the concurrence. In accordance with this provision of our State Constitution, the petitioners have prayed that this legislature would take the preliminary steps to effect a change, by which the colored, as well as the “white male citizens,” shall be empowered to exercise the elective franchise. The petitions, numerously signed and couched in respectful terms, have had the deliberate consideration of the committee; and whilst frequent changes in our fundamental law are deemed undesirable, perhaps positively detrimental, the justice of the prayer of the petitioners constrains a favourable response. The Constitution of this State was so recently formed, that the proposition of an amendment of that instrument, under which our commonwealth is advancing with unprecedented prosperity, so soon after its formation, produced a hesitancy in its recommendation. But upon a subject like this, the question of expediency gives way before that of justice and right. Besides in the various plans of progress which have worked the recent legislative action of this State, there are evidences of material changes in the opinions of the people. And it is believed, that

43. North Star, 2/8/50.

n e g r o s u f f r a g e i n n e w j e r s e y , 1 7 7 6 – 1­ 8 7 5 295 the gradual manner in which this amendment must prevail, if adopted at all, secures to it a just discussion of its merits prior to its concurrence on the part of the citizens themselves. The doctrine of universal suffrage has become so firmly established, that it would seem needless to refer to the many arguments which demonstrate its justice with convincing force, were it not so often virtually denied through prejudice or ignorance. The principles of human freedom should be released from abstractions, and should apply equally and beneficially upon all; and governments, founded upon these principles, should recognize the whole of their subjects as alike entitled to the enjoyment and protection of the great and inherent rights, which are the common lot of all mankind. It is true that the people may, in convention from wise motives of policy declare to whom shall be entrusted the franchise of the ballot box, and the preservation of a State may demand the guards of legislative enactments to be thrown around the exercise of this right. But any restrictions thereof as to a particular class, either on acount of fortune, birth or color, is in direct violation of nature’s bill of rights, and of the Magna Charta of our boasted liberty. There is a constitutional argument in favor of the proposed amendment. Many eminent jurists have given utterance to the opinion that there is a conflict between the provision of our State Constitution, which is sought to be amended, and the second article of the Constitution of the United States. The latter provides that “citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.” And yet, in the face of this feature of our general governmental compact, the framers of the Constitution of New Jersey have erected an absolute bar to the citizens of Rhode Island (if free persons of color), in their enjoying or exercising the rights of citizenship, upon their removing within our limits. That such conflict does exist, is apparent, but the recommendation of the proposed amendment does not alone rest upon this constitutional interpretation. It is urged by higher and more important considerations—­those of human rights. No doubt in the minds of many, these suggestions will start forbodings as to the tendency of an agitation in behalf of an unfortunate race, who are resident among us, through no crime of their own, and whose whole history is but a record of the inhumanity of man towards his fellow man. Questions of pregnant import, growing out of the efforts to benefit and assert the rights of the negro, are now agitating the public breast. But, whilst not intending to sympathize with the fanatical sectional attempts, that threaten the stability of the Union—­on the contrary, seeking to sustain, with unwavering fidelity, all the compromises of the Constitution, at the same time it is a deliberate conviction, that there should not be longer witholden from a long oppressed and downtrodden portion of the community, those rights to which they are entitled as the gift of Heaven, and in the enjoyment of which they would cease to be, as they now are, aliens in their native land. This large class of this community has the claim of nativity; they were born in our midst; they were nurtured by our sides, and they have grown up within the borders of our State. And if the fact of being native born be any reason why the right of suffrage should be conferred on the “white male citizen,” it should be held of equal force in its application to men of color of mature age. By the genius of our institutions and the liberality of our laws, we hail the immigrant from

296 e s s a y s his native shores to our midst; and whatever may be his case, his country, or his color, save black, only we freely confer upon him the citizens immunities after a short residence of five years. But why make the distinction in regard to the sons of Ethiopia exclusively? Why debar them more than the refugees of some foreign clime—­even the serfs of Russia, were they to seek this land as their home—­from casting their votes in the ballot box, and thus making choice of the rulers they must obey? Emphatically, why when they can claim, with the white man, this as their own, their “native land”? Surely, reason cannot respond in justification. If their condition is now miserable and degraded, (and such it undoubtedly is)—­a result of the unfavourable circumstances of their position in society, as much so as that the deformities in the vegetable kingdom are produced by an uncongenial clime and a barren soil, extend to them this act of long deferred justice, and it will tend to elevate them, as well in their social as in their political standing. As a consequence, we shall witness the gradual progress of a once despised race in their career of intelligence and action. Forced now to bear the expenses of government without sharing in the responsibility—­subject to taxation without representation—­amenable to laws of our State with no voice in their enactment—­entitled by nature, by the Constitution, to the inherent and unalienable rights of man, with no power to protect them, save that which is imposed upon them without their consent—­these petitioners have a just cause of complaint. Their prayer is reasonable and right. They solicit the boon of having something to say in the choice of law makers. In this respect, they resemble the situation of our venerated forefathers, when they laid the same petition at the foot of a despot’s throne. They were rejected, and, being unheeded, they raised the tone of revolution so loud as to cause the ear of tyranny to tingle, and its seat of power to totter. And as the result, they promulgated to a gazing admiring world, the great doctrines of taxation and representation-­ loyalty and the right of suffrage—­which are now American axioms, interwoven with our national character, and lying at the foundation of our proud institutions. But these truths apply in principle with equal force to the disfranchised of our own State as they did to the enthralled of ’76. And if so, shall not their prayer be heard? It is their right, and should be granted; and it is consequently recommended that the Constitution of this State be amended by striking therefrom that feature, which recognized color as a prohibition to the exercise of the elective franchise.44

The State Gazette, commenting on the report, said it was “very well written and could not fail to command the attention and respect of the public.”45 But the committee’s splendid effort failed to gain positive action on the part of the Legislature. Some members suggested that if Negroes were to be denied the right to vote, then they should not be required to pay taxes. Opponents of the franchise for this group insisted that they should pay taxes for real property because of the protection and service they received. The report was refused a second reading by a close vote of 21–­23. The chairman, Mr. Day, successfully moved that his report be accepted and the committee discharged from further consideration thereof.46 44. Minutes of the Assembly, 1850, pp. 68–­672. 45. Trenton State Gazette, 2/28/1850. 46. Ibid., 3/1/1850, 3/8/1850.

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A rather novel petition from a citizen came before the Legislature. The bill asked that New Jersey secede from the Union on the ground that it was impossible for a Negro to travel in the South without danger to his liberties and life; and that Northern men dared not express their honest convictions without being exposed to harm. All of this was contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution. The proposal then described the progress of slavery in the South. A spirited discussion followed on the propriety of considering the petition since it was felt by some that it was treason to suggest that the State secede from the Union. Other members of the body defended the right of petition. Finally the memorial was returned to the author of the bill by a vote of twenty-­six to thirteen.47 Dr. J. S. Rock could not understand the purpose of the petition and wondered what the person offering it had in mind. He asked if New Jersey was so much better than the other slaveholding states that she should desire to separate from them. He then went on to ask several pertinent questions. Would such a separation diminish her prejudice against Negroes? Would it emancipate her slaves? Would it open her seminaries, colleges and universities to colored people? Would the pulpit, the bar, and the legislative halls be opened to those who were worthy without distinction of caste? Dr. Rock did not think so. He then declared that “we do not love New Jersey because she is our home; neither do we venerate her because she is our country. She has never treated us as men. When she ‘shakes off the old man and his deeds,’ then we will begin to trust in her. She has always been an ardent supporter of the ‘peculiar institution’—­the watchdog for the Southern plantations; and unless she shows her faith by her works, we will not believe in her.”48 Dr. Rock then said that he did not understand the petitioner’s objective and asked for more light. In reply to Dr. Rock, Alfred Campbell of Trenton, repeated the statements in the petition and said that it was degrading for a state glorifying in freedom to remain in partnership with states dedicated to the perpetuation of slavery. The northern states through their alliance with the Southern section had extended the territory coming under the influence of the slave states. Through various compromises, the slaveholders were permitted representatives in Congress on the basis of their slave population and were given the right to hunt and seize slaves on the soil of New Jersey. In cases of emergency, they could even demand the aid of the State in the suppression of any attempt by slaves to secure the freedom which was their natural right and of which they were unjustly deprived. He insisted that so long as the people of this State consented to these compromises, so long will they be morally and politically responsible for all the cruelties and horrors of the slave system. He pointed out that the reasons were the same as those given when it had been proposed that Massachusetts pursue the same course. New Jersey should secede from the Union and so discontinue doing evil. As the matter stood, she was still to be considered a slave holding state because although she had changed her slavery in name at least to apprenticeship she still refused to treat her citizens as men and closed the doors of opportunity to them. Campbell did not consider that these lapses constituted valid objections to petitioning New Jersey to withdraw her support from the “peculiar institution” and to cease acting as a watchdog for the southern plantations. 47. North Star, 2/23/49. 48. Ibid.

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The petitioner called attention to the fact that at the time of the presentation of his proposal, the Legislature had before it several memorials praying that the privilege of the elective franchise and the right to hold office be conferred on colored men. These petitions pointed the way and afforded an opportunity to the State to “shake off the old man and his deeds.” Instead while she refused to receive his petition, she declined to grant the reasonable requests of the other. Thus the State had “shown her faith by her works and that faith disentitled her to the confidence or love of any friend of liberty or humanity.”49 The turn of political affairs in the State tended to accentuate the unfavorable conditions surrounding Negroes complained of by Rock and Campbell. In 1852, the Democrats came into power after having been a minority in the Legislature for eighteen years. The Trenton Democratic paper hailed this rise to leadership as a “Glorious Victory.” This paper extended the hand of fellowship to the South declaring that New Jersey stood by her rights—­the Constitution and the Union.50 For many years after the Democrats gained control of the Legislature, there is a lack of evidence in the reports of legislative proceedings that Negroes attempted to secure action on suffrage by that body. Knowing the attitude of the members of this party, they probably felt that it would avail them nothing to continue their efforts in this direction at this time. It was in 1863, that colored men in Trenton mustered up enough courage to ask that the State Constitution be amended so they could vote.51 A year later, Trenton Negroes sent in another petition.52 In 1866, colored citizens from Essex, Cumberland, Mercer, Burlington and Atlantic Counties and from the city of Rahway requested the Legislature to strike the word “white” from the Constitution.53 All of these prayers were tabled without action. In 1863, the Legislature gave far more attention to the so-­called Banishment Act. In response to many petitions for measures to prohibit the “influx of freed Negroes” from other states, an act providing that any Negroes or mulattoes coming into the State and remaining in it for ten days, should upon conviction be transported to Liberia or some island in the West Indies where slavery did not exist. The bill authorized the governor to pay the expense not exceeding fifty dollars for each case arising under the act. The measure passed the assembly and reached a third reading in the Senate.54 The Sentinel of Freedom, writing a strong editorial against the proposal, warned that the fear was based on exaggerated statements. The editor hoped it would not pass since such a law would he so entirely at variance “with the liberality and the justice which has ever characterized the legislature of the State.”55 In his inaugural address of the same year, Governor Parker declared the Emancipation Proclamation to be unconstitutional and to be designed to prolong the war if made an issue. He did not consider it wise to free the slaves at this time. If it was to be achieved at all, it should be done as it

49. Ibid., 3/16/49. 50. Trenton Weekly True American, 11/7/51. 51. Gazette, 3/24/63. 52. Newark Sentinel of Freedom, 3/29/64. 53. Gazette, 1/19/66, 2/2/66. 54. Douglass Monthly, 4/63. 55. Sentinel of Freedom, 3/3/63.

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had been accomplished in New Jersey by voluntary act of the states where it existed. The Legislature following the lead of their Democratic governor introduced a series of resolutions against the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring it null and void. Senator Holsman supporting the Peace Resolutions, insisted that the Emancipation Proclamation was a gross violation of the Constitution and merited and should receive the condemnation of that Legislature.56 Through the Peace Resolutions, the Democrats attempted to support a movement to end the Civil War. The proponents of this idea contended that the purpose for which the war was being prosecuted was in contravention of the Constitution in that it was attempting to free the slaves. Slaveholders were protected in their property rights in Negroes by the basic code of the Nation. The Sentinel of Freedom viewed the introduction of these proposals as a humiliating event for New Jersey.57 Conflict of attitudes toward Negroes is further seen in the presentation of an act to enable Union County to raise bounty money to pay soldiers. One section of the bill prohibited the payment of any of this money to colored recruits. Through opposition on the part of some of the members to such discrimination, this section was deleted. Mr. Brickley, speaking in favor of the colored soldiers, stated that seven colored volunteers from New Providence (the only recruits that township had raised) had received the bounty and it had been credited to the county. He thought it bad taste to exclude members of this race from these benefits.58 When in 1864, another bill to prohibit the use of money raised for war purposes to be used for employing Negro soldiers, was introduced, Senator Scovel, who has an excellent record on matters pertaining to colored persons, attacked the measure saying it was in conflict with the laws of Congress and the policy of the Government. Senator Brickley, calling attention to the fact that in the Negro population there was a source of power which should be used, said the objection to this was mere prejudice. He quoted from the records of the Revolution to show that Negroes were used as soldiers in South Carolina and elsewhere. He pointed out that in 1814, the Legislature of New York authorized the raising of two regiments of blacks. When Senator Brickley said he could not see why such a bill had been introduced, Senator Jenkins replied that the measure had been presented in order to test the constitutionality of the act of Congress providing for the enlistments of colored men.59 White and colored persons were on both sides of this question of enlisting the darker segments of the population. There were those who could not see for what the Negro had to fight in view of the disabilities to which he was subjected. Others representing most of the colored leaders insisted that Negroes should assist in unriveting the chains which bound them. Another reactionary effort on the part of the Legislature came in the nature of a hill to prevent the admixture of races. It was quickly ordered to a third reading60 but was killed in a summary

56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 1/20/63. 58. Ibid., 2/23/63. 59. Ibid., 3/22/63. 60. Minutes of the Aessembly, p. 456.

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manner by striking out the enacting clause on motion of Assemblyman Jenkins who said that such legislation was entirely unnecessary in New Jersey.61 In due time, 1865 brought the conclusion of the war and started the chain of events characterizing the Reconstruction Era. The bitter clashes taking place in the Nation were reflected in the State. In many instances, the vocalizations of the latter were more vehement. Democratic news organs felt constrained to wage the fight for the defeated elements of the South who were handicapped in doing it for themselves. In their actions, the Democratic party was most inflexible and had it not been for the Republican Party, New Jersey would not today possess the honor of having her record clear in respect to the Reconstruction Amendments. The reports of the legislative proceedings for this period tell the story of that body’s refusal to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment. One representative insisted that he would like to amend the Constitution so as to establish slavery as a National institution.62 Every Democratic member voted against ratifying the amendment abolishing slavery.63 The Gazette said that such speeches as were made in defense of slavery would scarcely have been tolerated in South Carolina and that the bitterest member of Congress would never have ventured to offend the ears of his fellow members with arguments so inhuman and revolting as those uttered by the Reverend Mr. Goble and his friend, Mr. Cory.64 When the Republicans gained control of the Legislature, they soon passed the resolution adopting the amendment and the event was celebrated with much rejoicing and the firing of a salute.65 The Fourteenth Amendment was indeed a burning issue. Just prior to the election of 1865, the Daily True American accused the Republicans of having added a new doctrine which would result in driving from their support every conservative man. This doctrine, they claimed, aimed at the degradation of the elective franchise by making Negroes a part of the electorate. They contended that the “leading radicals not only proclaim this as their determined purpose, but they insist that Congress shall have the power, in disregard of a prerogative hitherto exercised by the States, and never before questioned, to regulate the suffrage laws of the States so as to make Negroes voters.” They said that if this doctrine were allowed to prevail, a radical majority in Congress would be found thrusting Negro suffrage down the throats of the people of New Jersey and every State against their will.66 Governor Parker, in his annual message to what had become a Republican Legislature, argued against the extension of the franchise to the freedmen insisting that such action would be contrary to the Federal Constitution. He said the right to hold office would accompany the right to vote. In some of the Southern states the Negro population was preponderant and if the elective franchise were extended to them, not only would those states be under their control but they would be represented in Congress by Negroes. The Governor warned that such “a mongrel government” would

61. Sentinel of Freedom, 4/12/64. 62. Gazette, 3/2/65. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid., 1/24/66. 66. Daily True American, 11/2/65.

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never prosper because two such races of men so widely separated by the laws of nature that they could not blend socially could not administer public affairs successfully.67 Governor Parker’s party maintained after its defeat in the November election that however vexatious its failure might be there was nothing discouraging in the defeat it had suffered. One of their newspapers claimed that the principles and policies of the Republican party were still as odious to a majority of the citizens of New Jersey as they had ever been. These people were not in favor of Negro suffrage, either as a simple proposal or as proposed by a constitutional amendment.68 A Democratic editor complained of a pamphlet containing a lengthy speech by the Honorable William D. Kelley, a Republican of Philadelphia, together with speeches by Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass and letters from Elijah Wright and William Heighton, all in favor of the “radical creed” of Negro suffrage. The editor was disturbed because it was being distributed in various parts of the State. He saw its circulation as an example of the underhanded means which were being resorted to in order to disseminate and sow arguments in favor of the “radical scheme.”69 Senator Scovel introduced resolutions to the effect that, as provided by the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, there should be a reduction of representation in proportion to the people disfranchised on account of color to the end of securing equality of political as well as of civil rights to all.70 Later he returned with other resolutions denying the justice of depriving people who had fought for liberty, civil and political rights. These the Legislature rejected.71 In the meantime, President Johnson vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill. When General Wright in a speech indicated that he was opposed to granting universal suffrage to Negroes because of their illiteracy and felt that after a period of five years they might be ready to vote, the Gazette mockingly retorted that they understood the Democratic position had changed. They no longer were waging war on the Negro because he was a Negro but merely on the ground of intelligence. The Gazette accepted the issue and challenged the Democratic party to confer the franchise on those colored persons in the State who possessed fair intelligence. The editor asked if the Democratic papers, the True American and the Newark Journal, endorsed the doctrine. He reminded them that General Wright had not stated the proposition as just his own view but as expressing the sentiment of the Democratic party. “Verily,” sang the editor, “the day of jubilee has come! Republican radicalism pales into the most moderate conservatism,”72 The Journal had voiced a protest against tests of capacity, or intelligence or education because it saw such tests as entering wedges used by the “conservative” Republicans as a means of effecting unrestricted Negro suffrage. The paper declared itself in opposition to Negro suffrage with or without conditions because it was opposed to the “fatal results which must ensue from an attempted political equalization of two such antagonistic races.”73 The Gazette asserted that if such a test were

67. Gazette, 1/11/66. 68. Daily True American, 11/3/65. 69. Ibid., 11/9/65. 70. Gazette, 2/15/66. 71. Ibid., 2/23/66. 72. Daily True American, 11/3/65. 73. Ibid.

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applied to those now voting, the Journal understood that the large vote polled in Essex, Hudson, Passaic, and other counties would be rapidly depleted. Continuing, the Gazette admitted that the mass of Negroes were at the time unquestionably unfit to be entrusted with the right of suffrage but on precisely the same ground which would disqualify any man who believed he was annually voting for Andrew Jackson for the presidency. But the editor insisted it was illiberal, Unchristian, and certainly undemocratic for the law to place an unsuperable obstacle in the way of any citizen’s becoming a voter because of color after his having acquired every other necessary qualification.74 This paper also expressed regret over the veto of the Civil Rights Bill by the President. It expressed the opinion that since Negroes were free, it seemed necessary that they should be protected in the enjoyment of that freedom. This veto was considered as but another indication of the unfavorable sentiment too prevalent in those times.75 The editor took to task the “enterprise” of the Democrats in dragging a sick and almost dying man to vote negatively on this measure.76 Senator Wright sat in his seat for a short time and then went to a private room until the voting began.77 Vitriolic in his bombastic denunciations of efforts to grant civil rights to Negroes, Representative Andrew Rogers of New Jersey shouted that to give them the suffrage, the right to hold office, and the right to marry whites was in his judgment most dangerous and ought never to be extended to them by any state.78 In answer to the question as to whether he had voted for the amendment to abolish slavery, he replied, “No, sir; and I thank God that I never did. I could not lie down on my bed at night with a clear conscience if I had been guilty of being engaged as a participant in robbing a portion of the people of this Country of millions of dollars invested under the Constitution in property in Negroes, property which was recognized by our revolutionary fathers, and for the protection of which they fought as much as for anything else.”79 In a rebuttal, Senator Conkling retorted that if a race were so vile or worthless that to belong to it was alone cause of exclusion from political activity, then that race ought not to be counted in Congress. He said the gentlemen from New Jersey did not seem altogether to appreciate the bearings of the subject.80 Rogers objected to the idea that the states were to be entitled to full representation only if they allowed the unqualified right of suffrage to the colored citizen. He warned that if the organic law of the land were amended as proposed, it would give Congress the sovereign power to control the states through its power of refusing representation unless the states acquiesced “in the contemptible doctrine of Negro suffrage.”81 This representative voiced the ideas of his political brothers within the State. But when word of the amendment’s having passed Congress had been received by the State, Republicans agitated for a special session to ratify it. Accordingly Governor Ward called such a session and the resolutions 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., 3/30/66. 76. Ibid., 4/9/66. 77. Ibid., 4/11/66. 78. Congressional Globe, vol. lxiii, p. 134. 79. Ibid., vol. 70, p. 1123. 80. Ibid., vol. 69, p. 358. 81. Ibid., pp. 353–­4.

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favoring the adoption of the measure quickly passed by a party vote.82 The Gazette rejoiced that this State, one of the last to pass the Thirteenth Amendment was the first to pass this one.83 But when the Democrats came into power the following year, they passed a resolution rescinding the action of the previous body in ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment. The House of Representatives voted to return the memorial to the gentleman presenting it and to refer to it by its title only.84 Ever since the early 1830s, Negroes in New Jersey joined forces with those of the country in efforts to improve the status of the freedmen and those still in bondage. In consequence of the action of the Convention of Colored Men, which met at Syracuse in 1864, to devise plans for an organization to be known as the National Equal Rights League, a similar group was formed in this State. Five men, William Day, and Edwin Freeman of Newark, Thomas G. Gould and Thomas Cooper of Trenton and D. P. Seaton of Morristown were the representatives from New Jersey to the national meeting.85 In an address to the people of New Jersey the local body declared: Whereas, we, the colored people of the State of New Jersey have been for a long time deprived of our political rights, and have thereby labored under many disadvantages, and suffered many wrongs, the influence of which has retarded our progress and elevation; therefore, we most respectfully appeal to the citizens of New Jersey, and the friends of humanity, to restore to us all the rights of Loyal Citizens. We ask it as our right First, Because we are law-­abiding, loyal people, and always have been. Second, Because in the hour of the nation’s peril, when called, we rallied to the rescue, for the restoration of our government. Third, We ask it in the name of the Declaration of Independence, which declares all men to be free and equal born, and “endowed with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and without the acknowledgement of our political rights, these cannot be enjoyed. Fourth, We ask it in the name of God of our holy religion, who declares that he has no respect of persons, and also declares that he “hath made of one blood” all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations.

The following program was laid down for the future: 1. A census of the colored population of New Jersey. 2. Number of acres of land in the State owned and tilled by them, and for which they pay their taxes; also, the value of said land, and a statement of other taxes paid by them, as well as other property exempt from taxation, such as churches, etc.

82. Gazette, 9/11/12. 83. Ibid. 84. Congressional Globe, vol. lxxx, p. 2225. 85. Proceedings of National Convention of Colored Men, Syracuse, New York, 1864.

304 e s s a y s 3. A statement of the number of soldiers furnished by the colored people of New Jersey to the Government, by volunteering and otherwise. 4. The number of colored children in the free schools paid for by the State. 5. The intellectual status of the colored people. It is the intention to petition the Legislature in behalf of these objects.86

The Gazette commenting on this meeting which was held in the African Church on Perry Street in Trenton, said that the convention was composed of both sexes, and that its proceedings and deliberations were conducted with strict decorum and much dignity, with the male persons only taking part in the business of the convention.87 The Equal Rights League of New Jersey was supposed to meet annually in Trenton. A search for further material on this group has not been successful. Particular interest surrounds the data it had decided to collect on the Negroes of the State. It may have been that the issues of the succeeding months and years might have consumed the energies and interests of the persons involved. The Gazette said it had learned that arrangements had been made by the Negro men of New Jersey to test the question of the right of the State to exclude them from the electorate. Claiming that the right of suffrage is an inherent right, and that as taxpayers they were entitled to representation in the enactment and administration of the laws, they proposed at the next election to offer their votes at various places through the State. If these were refused, as they were sure they would be, then they would carry the matter to the courts with a view to securing an exhaustible discussion of the question in all its relations and aspects; and a decision upon the specific point where there resides in the State the power to exclude any class of its citizens from the enjoyment of the elective franchise. “This undertaking,” says the editor, “is projected under the auspices of an organization embracing the most intelligent and well-­to-­do colored people of the State, and it is hinted that they have already secured some of the most eminent lawyers of the country, including Gen. B. F. Butler and others, to plead their cause.” At least one prominent lawyer of New Jersey was included among those retained. A meeting was called for the purpose of making plans for the movement. If the idea was prosecuted as contemplated, the case would certainly attract wide attention involving as it did a question of great moment to the whole nation.88 To implement this plan, a conference which was described as large and enthusiastic was held at the Presbyterian Church in Newark. The assembly appointed an executive council of thirteen with full power to enlist the press, raise money, employ counsel and to institute as soon as possible legal proceedings in the courts, State and National, for the immediate recognition and enforcement of this right of “Impartial Suffrage,” and to carry the question up to the Supreme Court of the United States as a “National Test Suit” for final adjudication and decision. A delegation from Jersey City reported that an organization which was working vigorously and successfully had been perfected there, subordinate to the State Executive Council of Newark. Representatives were there from other sections of the State. Assurances were given that the whole State would soon be thoroughly 86. Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Men of the State of New Jersey, 1865. 87. Gazette, 7/15/65. 88. Gazette, 6/15/66.

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organized in behalf of the movement. The State Executive Council consisted of Charles H. Thompson, Abraham T. Cook, Elias S. Ray, John O’Fake, Charles Brown, William H. Neil, Abram Ray, John Lowry, Miller Rogers, John Whitehead, Calvin Pepper and Anthony Mendevel.89 In due time the Executive Council began three suits, two in the Supreme Court of New Jersey and one in the Circuit Court of the United States. Two of the parties to these actions, the Reverend Charles H. Thompson and Abraham Conover, citizens of Newark, filed suits when the registrars refused to enroll them as voters. One of the complainants, said the report, was “a black, one a mullatto, and one an octoroon.” One was a freedman, the other two were freemen; one was a clergyman and another was a citizen soldier, who had fought and bled for his country. All were men of education and refinement, tax-­payers and owners of property. The cases covered the whole ground and were intended to settle the legal status of the colored man under the Constitution and the laws of the United States in all the states. They were to be prosecuted with diligence, so that at least one of them could reach the Supreme Court of the United States at the following December term.90 The Gazette relates that on a certain Tuesday the Reverend Mr. Thompson, late Moderator of the Newark Presbytery, appeared before the inspectors of the first district of the third ward, and applied for enrollment as a voter. The Board of Inspectors very properly declined to register his name, as they had no authority to do so under existing laws or interpretations of law. This result was fully expected by the Reverend Mr. Thompson and did not defeat his purpose since the objective was to make a test case for the courts. In the editor’s opinion, the proceedings would be watched with a profound interest. Continuing, the Gazette reported that the summons would be issued at once against the registrars in order to bring the matter before the High Court. This movement was independent of all parties, the colored people having taken the affair in hand themselves. The Reverend Mr. Thompson was mentioned as a gentlemen of high character and many attainments, and well adapted to serve as an able representative of his race in the controversy.91 These suits attracted wide interest and support. Senator Sumner, Judge Kelly, of Philadelphia, and General Hamilton, formerly of Texas, approved and expressed their willingness to appear as counsel. Other distinguished lawyers indicated sympathy with the movement. The Equal Rights Convention meeting in Washington voiced approval through a resolution “That this Convention approve of the test suits brought by the New Jersey Impartial Suffrage Council, acting nationally on behalf of the right of impartial suffrage under the Constitution of the United States, and that we respectfully recommend to the New Jersey Council that they employ a colored lawyer in such suits in addition to the eminent legal gentleman already retained by them.”92 The Executive Committee of the Impartial Suffrage League of Massachusetts, the New York and Delaware Suffrage State Councils and the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Equal Rights League also approved.

89. Gazette, 6/19/66. 90. Ibid., 10/21/66. 91. Ibid., 10/22/66. 92. Ibid., 1/26/67.

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Senator Sumner stated, “To my mind, nothing can be clearer than the principle that under the Constitution, which contains no discrimination in rights founded on color, there can be no such inequality of rights, and I cannot doubt that an enlightened court will pronounce such inequality void.”93 W. A. Newell and John F. Starr expressed similar sentiments. Governor Ward of New Jersey, Alexander G. Cattell, Baker Gummere, Charles Smith, H. L. Congar, George T. Cobb, John Davidson, General Hatfield, and the Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and Wendell Phillips of Massachusetts contributed financial support.94 Amos H. Johnson, William Moore, Mansfield Hubbard, William Sumner, Isaac Gassaway, Henry Harris and James Titus were appointed by a “very large and respectable mass meeting of colored citizens to constitute the Committee from Trenton in relation to these suits.”95 Close examination of later issues of the Gazette failed to reveal further action in regard to these suits. One wonders if they were ever considered by the courts. There is a strong possibility that subsequent events might have caused further activity to be held in abeyance pending their outcome. A prelude to these events may be seen in the following letter written the Legislature by D. D. Butler:

Appeal from a Black Man Camden, New Jersey March 18, 1867 To the Legislature of New Jersey: I am a black man, a resident of New Jersey in the County of Camden, Newton Township. I have lived here for twenty years and upward, and have paid and now pay taxes upon property in North, South and Middle Wards, of the city of Camden, as well as in the fifth and sixth School Districts. If I have any “rights which a white man is bound to respect,” I scarcely know what they are. The foreigners who constitute a voting majority of the township in which I reside chiefly control it. Many of them do not pay one dollar of tax, and are not as familiar with the English language as the writer of this, and yet they are denied no political right whatsoever. I have heard it said in public that “taxation without representation is tyranny.” But I respectfully ask whether to any one of the twenty-­five thousand colored people in New Jersey is granted any right of representation; any right to speak upon the floors of the Senate of General Assembly of New Jersey. It may be answered that the black men have advocates in both Houses. But my sufficient reply to this is that there never has been, and there is not likely to be (unless the Constitution is amended) a majority in either branch of our Legislature who will have the moral courage to grant to the race equality before the law. 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid., 1/26/67. 95. Ibid., 2/2/67.

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More than this, the black man has never demanded. His rights before the law are among the essential principles which underlie every free government. His social rights are another matter, and are not essential to his security or his comfort. I have no way, Mr. Editor, of reaching the members of the New Jersey Legislature except through the columns of some friendly newspaper. But I beg you to assist us in agitating this question of giving to those who fought for liberty, those who pay taxes to support the great experiment of self government in America, without regard to the color of their skin; of giving to all men (franchise for women will be the next question to settle), not disfranchised by crime, an equal chance, in electing to office those who make the laws and create the policies which control national, state, and municipal governments. I am only one, but I am sure I speak in the name of seven thousand black voters in New Jersey when I ask that the Legislature will take this session as the most fitting occasion to call a Constitutional Convention whose duty it shall be to make the Constitution cease to deprive any citizen of that right which in law and in equity belongs alike to every free man. I have the honor to be, Yours very truly D. D. Butler96 Another class of citizens, who has suffered many of the discriminations and disabilities of colored people, also intensified its efforts to win the right of franchise which it had at one time enjoyed but had later lost in the Law of 1807 restricting the use of the ballot. Lucy Stone came before the Legislature to plead for the removal of the words “white male” from the Constitution thus enfranchising the women and colored men who together constituted a majority of the adult citizens. Reviewing the history of suffrage where these groups were concerned, she maintained that women had voted and no catastrophe, social or political, had ensued. Women did not cease to be womanly. They did not neglect their domestic duties. Indeed, she declared, the whole character and exalted patriotism of the women of New Jersey all through the Revolution had been the subject of historical eulogy. The later immigrants into New Jersey were far inferior to the original Puritan and Quaker elements. Under these circumstances universal suffrage was an anomaly. The Revolutionary impulse subsided. Society retrograded. Slavery smothered the spirit of liberty. She spoke of the election of 1807 which caused so much comment, saying that not only was every legal voter, man or woman, white or black, brought out, but that on both sides gross frauds were practiced. The property qualification was generally disregarded; aliens and minors participated; and many persons voted early and often. It did not appear that either women or Negroes were more especially implicated in these frauds than white men. But the affair caused great scandal, and both groups seemed to have been made the scapegoats. When the Legislature convened, they set aside the election. Thus, Lucy Stone insisted, in defiance of the letter of the Constitution and the uniform practice of a generation, women and Negroes were disfranchised by an arbitrary act of the Legislature, 96. Ibid., 3/20/67.

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without discussion and almost without comment. The measure which disfranchised voters whose crimes were sex and color, set aside property qualification, and admitted to the polls all white male taxpayers, however ignorant or degraded. Therefore, the women were coming before the Legislature with a “peculiar and special claim.” They had had this right; and they had exercised it. It had been unjustly taken away without their consent, and without their being allowed to say a word in their own defense. They had been condemned unheard, not by the people but by the Legislature. They were asking this body to give the people of New Jersey an opportunity of “rectifying an act of atrocious political usurpation and injustice.” Their disfranchisement could be justified only on “the robber’s plea that might makes right.”97 In response to this plea, Mr. Murphy initiated a resolution to remove the words “white male” from the Constitution. He spoke very warmly in favor of the proposal, and speaking of Negroes, said, “In striking out the word ‘white’ your committee thinks that little need be said. It is evident that sooner or later this must be done.” He recounted the sacrifices which Negroes had made in the fight for freedom and their achievements in winning for themselves the right to possess all the civil and political privileges of freemen. The Committee resolved “That the Judiciary Committee be and they are hereby instructed to report the bill calling a convention to alter the Constitution, to consider this and other matters, that the question may be fairly brought before the people.”98 Some of the usual arguments ensued, among which were those insisting that there should be no change in the Constitution since what was good enough for their fathers was good enough for them; and that a woman’s place was in the nursery. One man said he would vote against all such resolutions whenever they came up, while another felt that the Constitution needed some changes but he was not prepared to advocate Negro suffrage and women’s rights.99 At this time, a motion passed to postpone the measure indefinitely. It was later made the special order of the day for March 13, 1867. The Gazette made an ardent plea for the passage of this act.100 Similar sentiments were expressed by other Republican newspapers of the State. Additional petitions were submitted, asking that the word “white” be removed from the basic charter. Much discussion in the press and Legislature followed. The President and the Secretary of the German Republican Club of Newark sent in a plea in favor of impartial suffrage.101 The Gazette, commenting on the failure of the measure to pass, warned that the rejection of this bill was a grave and lamentable mistake, the consequence of which would reach far beyond the “immediate present.” The Republican Party, committed as it was to the doctrine of equal rights, could not evade a question of such solemn import as this without invoking swift and sure retribution. It could not while enforcing Negro suffrage upon the South, deny it to their own blacks, without practicing a lie, and perpetrating a wrong, which like all lies and wrongs would avenge themselves fearfully upon the offenders.102 The editor called attention to the defeat of the Party

97. Ibid., 3/14/67. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid. 100. Ibid., 3/6/67. 101. Ibid., 3/16, 19/67. 102. Ibid., 4/12/67.

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in Connecticut saying that if the Republicans had upheld the doctrine of the Party they would not have been defeated in the last election and would then have had the votes of the Negroes to continue their majority.103 That this refusal to extend the suffrage to Negroes did not rest easily upon the consciences of the Republicans is seen in the action of the caucus which was held at the close of the Legislature to consider the matter. It was decided to call a meeting of the people of the State to test their feelings in the matter. The Gazette approved heartily of this idea and urged that the call being issued for the meeting be also authorized by the State Republican Committee. In due time this was done and as a result of favorable responses throughout the state, a day was set for the Impartial Suffrage Convention. At one of the mass meetings held in different sections, Charles W. Height, a colored man, was elected secretary. The Reverend Mr. Thompson was appointed to the committee of five to address the people on the subject. To the body, another Negro, Isaiah Ware, of Philadelphia spoke.104 In retort to the statements of Democrats that to extend suffrage to Negroes would result in the swamping of intelligent white voters by ignorant blacks, it was said by the Gazette that by the census of 1865 it appeared that the total number of white males was 276,428, of which number 57,371 were of foreign birth. The colored male population amounted to only 9,545, all natives except 771. The total vote polled at the gubernatorial election of 1865 (the largest vote ever given in the State) was 132,261. These figures showed that the proportion of voters to population was about twelve to twenty-­six. The number of voters to be added by striking out the word “white” from the Constitution would be little if any more than 4,400 against which the “conservative democracy can look upon 132,000 white voters as a safeguard.”105 A previously vacillating policy of the Republicans gave way to enthusiastic activity in favor of extending the suffrage to the Negroes of New Jersey. Senator Frelinghuysen and other outstanding Republican leaders took up the cudgels in this fight. The Impartial Suffrage Convention was held and the purpose of the meeting approved with vigor. In addition to Senator Frelinghuysen, Governor Ward, the Honorable Judge Cortland Parker, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, Senator Nye of Nevada, Governor Hawley of Connecticut and Senator Cattell of New Jersey spoke. The reports of this meeting by the Gazette provide fascinating reading. Those in attendance went out of it girded for the fight to elect representatives to the legislature on the strength of this as their sole platform.106 As was to be expected, the Democrats opposed, saying a vote for the “radical ticket” was a vote for Negro suffrage; was a vote to maintain a Negro despotism in the South at an expense of three hundred and sixty-­five millions of dollars; was a vote asking Congress to compel Negro suffrage in New Jersey without regard to the will of the people; was a vote for corruption, fraud, and rascality in every degree, for subverting the Constitution and the laws; invoking another civil war, aiding and abetting social anarchy, and begetting a condition of affairs generally at once disgraceful to the people and disastrous to the country.107 103. Ibid., 4/15/67. 104. Ibid., 6/13/67. 105. Ibid., 6/20/67. 106. Ibid., 6/24/67. 107. Daily True American, 11/5/67.

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When the election was over and the ballots counted, the results revealed that democratic principles had suffered a temporary setback. The Daily True American gleefully proclaimed that the magnificent victory gained in the State was due to the fidelity and stern integrity of the Democracy assisted by conservative men who had previously acted with the Republican Party; but to whom the Negro Suffrage heresies of the radical leaders and their extreme measures were repugnant. “Let the good works of yesterday be followed up,” it exhorted, “and the reward will be found in a regenerated country and in the restoration of Civil Liberty and peace to the entire Republic.” In another column, it declared that the Convention held in the city declaring for Negro suffrage had been the “last feather” which broke the radical’s back.108 Negroes continued to map strategies for winning the ballot. Howard Day,109 of New Jersey, with two other men, in an “Address of the Colored Men’s Border State Convention” pointed out that Negroes were voting on equal terms with white men in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the District of Columbia as well as in some of the territories. New York had given the vote to each colored man who possessed two hundred and fifty dollars worth of real estate. Ohio notwithstanding her “visible Admixture Bill,” allowed a vote to men having fifty-­one hundredths of so-­called white blood in their veins. A few men had voted in Michigan and Wisconsin by sufferance rather than by enactment. In Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas and other states of the West, colored men, as such were not by law permitted to vote at all. These men implored Congress “to give” a constitutional amendment to secure the right of suffrage and to “give it now.” The Fifteenth Amendment was in due time submitted to the Legislature and in quick time in accordance with the recommendations of the Democratic Governor was defeated. After the requisite number of states had ratified the Amendment, the Gazette suggested that the law-­making body show its good sense by bringing the Constitution in line with the Amendment through the removal of the word “white.”110 New Jersey Negroes rejoiced and celebrated the successful passage of the provision giving them the long fought for suffrage. With greatful hearts, to God they raise With one accord their voice And with unlifted hands, they answer No foe shall be their choice. For Freedom and for Freedom’s friends They now their votes will give; They who for Freedom fought and spoke

108. Ibid., 11/6/67. 109. Address of the Colored Men’s State Convention, December 1868. 110. Gazette, 2/24/70.

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In reply to questions as to how the Negro would vote, the author of the verses above answered: First—­Colored men will vote just like white men for they are operated on by the same causes, and influenced by the same motives. Mankind is one and the same always, and everywhere under like circumstances. This is self interest, and therefore requires no proof. Second—­Colored Men, like white men, will vote where their real or prospective interests can be best subserved. If their bread and butter are involved they are likely to vote in that direction. If politics, preferment or self aggrandizement are to be attained, they are likely to vote in that direction. Any of these considerations will come with very ill grace from a party that have obstinately and persistently opposed their enfranchisement. Hence we may reasonably conclude that their vote, at least a large majority of it, will be cast for the party who secured for them the most sacred of all rights. Third—­There is an innate sense of wrong, and an intuitive perception of right, which (even without education) will enable the colored man to make a proper discrimination between his friends and enemies. There may be individual instances where they might change their vote, but never, no, never will they vote for any party save that of progress and impartial suffrage. Fourth—­There may be some of the baser sort, the vicious, the ignorant and demoralized, that may be bought; but no price will induce the respectable intelligent colored man to vote any other way than for the party that has enfranchised him. Fifth—­The great principle of self-­protection and self-­defense, both as to person and property lies in the ballot. Common sense as well as human reason, therefore, dictate the propriety as well as the necessity of voting for those who have secured for the colored man this priceless boon. Sixth—­The genius and policy of republican government and its institutions rests upon the fundamental basis “that all such governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed” and the equal use, benefit and protection of all laws, and the full and free exercise of all rights, privileges and immunities of the government, to all its inhabitants, irrespective of race or color. Class and caste are utterly at war with republican institutions. Exclusive rights for none, equal rights for all, is the grand central idea which the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution set forth. These great principles have only been upheld and maintained by the party in power. Seventh—­Common sense, as well as human reason teaches this lesson: that no nation or race of people will ever, when once freed from slavery, vote for their former oppressors. Eighth—­In the light of history, a nation, once oppressed, time, all its changes will not efface the remembrance of their oppressions; and their highest ambition is to excel in all the elements of greatness (instance, for example, the present Anglo-­Saxon race), hence they could not, consistently, vote for their oppressors.

111. Ibid., 3/5/70.

312 e s s a y s Ninth—­The dictates of wisdom and sound policy naturally suggest to the colored man to guard well his rights by keeping in place and power those who give them that freedom and the ballot. Tenth—­However much imbruted by slavery, however much degraded by proscriptive legislation, there yet remains one element of manhood not destroyed—­the feeling of gratitude; and the colored man will not fail to give full and clear exhibition of it by voting for the friends of humanity and freedom.112

In 1870, a Republican legislature was returned to Trenton. This body quickly passed a resolution adopting the Fifteenth Amendment so as to set the record straight as far as this state was concerned. General Runyon, however, did not give up hope that some day a way would be found to deny suffrage to the Negro. On this subject his “swan song” maintained that “Now we have negro equality, contrary to the constitution and contrary to the will of the people of New Jersey. But we must submit to it, as a law, and continue to submit to it, until it is repealed. The Republicans keep saying to us, ‘What is the use of harping about negro suffrage; we now have got it and must submit to it.’ True enough we will.” But, said Runyon, “A new amendment to the Constitution would wipe it out, or if submitted to the Supreme Court, the amendment already passed would be declared unconstitutional. A Democratic Administration could do this.”113 But Governor Randolph advised that the extension of suffrage to the Negro race was an accomplished fact and should be accepted inasmuch as there was nothing to be gained otherwise. He felt that these amendments had not changed the basic fact of the differences of the two races and that they had not materially changed his position. The Governor contended that Negroes would not be allowed to advance to political positions so that they had exchanged the wrongs of slavery for the serfdom of party. This denial of political position was promoted by both parties as there was no abatement of the old antagonisms. Since the Negro had the vote all should be done to see that it redounded to the advantage of the State. He wisely added, “I have stated that there seemed no dimunition of the antagonism of the races. Notwithstanding the conviction I have that time will not materially change this inbred feeling, it seems to me, now, the state counts the colored race as of her political power, that every generous instinct of our own race, as well as the dictates of sound public policy, points to just treatment of them, with a full recognition of all their rights under our laws. To the extent such a righteous policy will elevate them, the state is the gainer in every respect. To omit so much as the acknowledgement of the least of their rights would render questionable our asserted superiority.”114 Although the words of Governor Randolph were sensible admonitions, it was to be a matter of many years before Negroes were to be permitted to exercise all the rights of citizens. Right after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, a riot occurred in Camden when colored citizens attempted to cast their ballots.115 On the other hand, a positive note was struck when six colored

112. Ibid. 113. Ibid., 11/1/70. 114. Ibid., 1/11/71. 115. Ibid., 1/18/71.

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men were summoned to serve upon the jury in West Milford, Passaic County. Only one appeared but he was sworn in and served with eleven white men, seven of whom were Democrats. This was the first time that a Negro juror had been allowed to act in the State of New Jersey.116 On January 18, 1871, a joint resolution to amend the Constitution of the State by striking out the word “white” was referred to the Judiciary Committee.117 The Gazette, pointed out that it could not affect the right of Negroes to participate in elections but it should be stricken out “in defense of consistency.”118 It later advised that the Attorney General had ruled that as long as the word “white” remained in the Constitution, no poll tax could be collected from Negro voters. This was costing the State thousands of dollars annually.119 In 1874, a proposal to strike out this word was postponed to the next meeting of the Legislature.120 Finally in 1875, the word was removed by resolution.121 In view of the long struggle which Negroes encountered in their efforts to win the franchise, it is indeed interesting that the first colored person to cast a ballot under the stipulations of the Fifteenth Amendment was Thomas Peterson Mundy, of Perth Amboy. On May 30, 1884, he was presented a medal in honor of the fact. Mundy was characterized as an intelligent man who had been chosen as one of the persons to revise the charter for the adoption of which he cast his first vote. He had also been sent several times as a delegate to conventions of his party, and also had served as a juror in the county courts. He had been appointed superintendent of the new public school building by the opposite party to that to which he belonged. It was said that no one possessed public confidence to a greater extent than he.122

V. Summary The story of Negro suffrage in New Jersey has revealed many interesting and unique happenings. The Constitution for 1776 made possible the exercise of the franchise by Negroes, bond and free, males and females. In 1802, one woman, herself the property of another slave, cast the vote that produced a tie in the Legislature which deprived the State of a governor for a year. Negroes and women enjoyed the ballot until 1807 when a law was passed limiting the franchise to free white males. The Constitution of 1844 removed all doubt concerning the legality of the Law of 1807 by specifically restricting the vote to the free white male population. Whereas prior to the adoption of the new Constitution, Negroes had attempted to win the right to participate in elections on the plea that the law denying them this privilege was at variance with the basic charter of the State, after 1844, they had to struggle to effect a change in the document itself. This effort proved a long bitter fight. Issues centering around questions dealing with the treatment of slaves and freedmen were hotly contested in the State. There were people who identified 116. Ibid., 1/13/71. 117. Minutes of the Assembly, 1871, p. 49. 118. Gazette, 1/21/71. 119. Ibid., 1/26/71. 120. Minutes of the Assembly, 1884, p. 1233. 121. General Statues of New Jersey, 1709–­1895, vol. xxi. 122. Presentation of a Medal to Thomas Peterson Mundy—­Address by Hon. William Peterson and Others, Perth Amboy, Reprint H. E. Pickersgill, 1935, pp. 18.

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themselves with the interests of the slaveholders. Some citizens were determined to see human bondage removed from the entire country, while many individuals held intermediate positions. The Whigs and Republicans were more tolerant toward Negroes than were the Democrats. For many years even the Whigs or Republicans were lukewarm in the matter of including Negroes in the electorate. The Democrats were inexorable in their determination to deny the freedmen the privilege of white citizens. The War and Postwar Period witnessed many turbulent sessions in the Legislature. Democrats proposed that the Civil War be ended, declared that the Emancipation Proclamation was invalid, introduced a bill providing for the banishment of Negroes from the country who migrated to the State, attempted to prevent the enlistment of Negro soldiers and sought to deny them their share of money raised for recruits. These partisans rejected the Thirteenth Amendment which was later passed by a Republican body. After this latter party had approved the Fourteenth Amendment, the Democrats passed a resolution rescinding the adoption of this Amendment. They proceeded to reject the Fifteenth Amendment which was later approved by a Republican controlled legislature. The Negroes who were unceasing in their activities to remove the word “white” from the Constitution finally enlisted the wholehearted support of the Republicans. The colored citizens had sent petition after petition to the lawmaking body only to have them all tabled until 1850 when the Judiciary Committee reported favorably on the request. But the body as a whole rejected the recommendation of the Committee. In 1866, Negroes instituted suits in the courts to test the constitutionality of their disfranchisement. The Republicans went into the campaign of 1867 on the sole platform of extending the ballot to colored men. They were defeated. Finally the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment crowned with success the fight for impartial suffrage. Interesting indeed for New Jersey history was the fact that the first Negro to vote under this Amendment was Thomas Peterson Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. In 1875, the Legislature by resolution removed the word “white” from the State Constitution.

chapter ix

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Racial Integration in the Public Schools in New Jersey Introduction New Jersey as a state has always reflected the experiences of a nation that has encountered difficulties in carrying out the implications of a social philosophy requiring an honest appreciation for the personalities of all individuals regardless of cultural status or racial origin. The political and economic conflicts which dominated relations between the North and the South during the nineteenth century were waged with equal intensity in this the third smallest state of the country. Being a pivotal state, New Jersey has had the unique advantage of serving as a proving ground for battles involving opposing ideologies in human relations. This tendency has certainly been demonstrated in the area of public school accommodations. For almost two centuries Negroes were educated in both mixed and separate schools in all sections of the state. Prior to the development of public education, religious and philanthropic societies provided opportunities for training in the rudiments of learning. The Constitution of 1844 stipulated that the income from the educational fund should be annually appropriated for the support of public schools for the equal benefit of all the people of the state. A law passed in 1850 permitting a township in Morris County to set aside a separate school district for colored children established a legal precedent for segregation in public schools. In 1881 through the enactment of a law forbidding the exclusion of any child from a public school because of religion, nationality or color, the legislature initiated a chain of events which led to the outlawing of segregation in this state. Whereas the new law resulted in the abolition of separate schools in the Northern counties, it not only did not eliminate segregation in the Southern section but failed to prevent an increase in this practice. Separate schools for Negroes continued to grow in number until the fifth decade of the present century. When, however, parents enlisted the aid of courts in guaranteeing the right of their children to attend schools in the districts in which they resided, the justices upheld the law.1 1. See Marion Thompson Wright, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia. University, 1941, pp. 237 for a more detailed account of this story.

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It was through the Constitution of 1947 that New Jersey made a real contribution in the field of human relations. Advocates of equal opportunities in education succeeded in having included in this document a stipulation prohibiting segregation in the public schools and the state unit of the national guard. Citizens interested in desegregation as it has been taking place in this state have raised several questions: first, what were some of the important factors involved in the unification of local systems? Second, did any advantages to the systems as a whole accrue from the change? Third, were there any negative elements present in the transition? Fourth, does the state now have a completely integrated system? Fifth, what are some of the implications for other communities concerned with desegregation procedures?

Outlawing Segregation In keeping with the law of 1945, which placed the Division Against Discrimination under the jurisdiction of the state department of education, a firm but tactful policy was employed to desegregate the schools. The DAD offered guidance services to communities which sought assistance in carrying out the requirements of the new legislation. Whereas the law of 1945 provided penalties for noncompliance, it insisted that persuasion and conciliation be employed before recourse was had to public hearings. Subsequent experiences demonstrated the success of this method in complaints regarding employment discrimination. With respect to the schools, the commissioner of education has two weapons for use against recalcitrant school boards. He has both the power to withhold state aid and the authority to prosecute any school official responsible for infractions of the law. In the ten Southern counties where separation of the races existed, the survey of 19482 made by the DAD revealed a total of 62 school districts encompassing 292 schools. Of these, 55 enrolled Negroes only, 82 contained whites only and 155 included members of both races. Six school districts maintained separate buses for the two groups. Two school boards paid tuition to segregated schools outside their districts for their colored pupils. There were fixed boundary lines applicable to Negro and white pupils in 124 schools while for 163 schools no such lines existed. For transfer purposes, 131 schools observed boundary lines; 152 did not follow this practice; 2 made exceptions and 7 provided no information in regard to transfers. In the 52 communities where segregation existed, several general patterns were in evidence. Thirty-­four segregated schools were in exclusively colored neighborhoods. At times school officials deliberately located buildings in Negro settlements. Other officials placed colored children in separate rooms in otherwise all white buildings. Still others provided separate facilities for the races. Gerrymandering served as another tool for effecting separation of pupils. In sending out the questionnaire to determine the extent of segregation in the schools, Commissioner Joseph L. Bustard, Director of the DAD, suggested that most of the school boards could arrange to integrate their schools by the beginning of the school year, 1948–­49. Of the forty-­three districts revealed to have segregated schools through official sanction, thirty made definite plans 2. Tentative Report on Segregated School Survey in New Jersey. On file in the office of the DAD, Apr. 14, 1948.

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for complying with the law at the beginning of the following school year. Through tactful but persistent conferences, the DAD was able to achieve favorable action from all but four of the remaining districts. Mt. Holly challenged the DAD to compel observance on its part. In the meantime, the other three communities decided to wait for the outcome of this defiance. The Negro parents in Mt. Holly resolved the issue by refusing to send their children to the all colored building. The board yielding to this demonstration of parental determination proceeded with the integration of teachers and pupils. The other three municipalities then began to consider plans for conforming to the new policy. However, in Gloucester County there is still an apparent resistance to complying with the spirit of the new law as evidenced through delays shown by some communities in carrying out a real scheme of desegregation. Once begun, the process of equating educational opportunities moved forward with surprising smoothness. This is significant since in the Southern section were municipalities in which the Ku Klux Klan had been very active. There had also been prophecies of conflicts should attempts be made to mix the races. Yet, in communities where some opposition had been expressed by small groups, the anticipated difficulties did not materialize. Interviews with educators and citizens alike were characterized by the often repeated statements that the expected violence or other serious problems did not occur.3 In 1953 in East Berlin where the facilities for colored children were about the worst encountered in the state, a fire of undetermined origin on the opening day of school forced the housing of the fifty-­five Negro children in the regular school. This phenomenon accomplished without incident what years of discussion by state and local school officials had failed to do up to that time. This comparatively smooth change over does not mean, however, that no problems were faced. Matters of procedure had to be considered. Many of these involved shifts of pupil and teachers from one building to another. White and Negro citizens alike resisted such changes. Some white parents protested the enrollment of their children in previously all colored schools or under Negro principals or with Negro teachers. In Camden, parents actually picketed in protest against the presence of a Negro teacher. Six months later, though, the parents of this same school requested the board not to transfer a newly appointed colored teacher from the building. School officials realized the necessity for taking a firm stand against granting transfers out of regular districts except for bona fide reasons equally applicable to all pupils. The determination of professional staff members to meet successfully the challenges presented by the changes contributed significantly toward promoting harmony during the transition period. The most complete integration resulted where grade level rather than residence determined the school placement of the children. In several communities such as Princeton, Salem and Burlington, the kindergarten-­primary grades and the middle grades were housed in separate schools. Teachers generally followed their classes while principals remained with their buildings. The leadership exercised by colored principals enabled them to win the respect of white teachers who were working with them for the first time. 3. The writer visited the ten counties in which segregated schools had existed during the autumn of 1952. Staff members of the DAD made visitations during the spring of the same year.

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Advantages Accruing from the Change Numerous positive factors accompanied desegregation in the schools. There were several instances where curricular offerings available to white pupils had been denied colored children. White parents demanded improvements in previously all colored schools before they were mixed. In both Mannington and Franklin Townships modern consolidated buildings replaced a number of one and two room structures. Some of the facilities which had been used for Negroes were dilapidated, outmoded and totally unsuited for educational purposes. A few communities were able to retire surplus school housing with financial benefit to themselves. In other instances a more economical use was made of existing facilities. An educational anachronism was considerably diminished. The conflict inherent between a democratic philosophy of human relations and practices of segregation in the schools was apparent. Through desegregation, opportunities were provided for promoting social environments conducive to democratic living during the formative years. Staff members of both races learned to appreciate each other by means of shared professional experiences. Some teachers improved the quality of their services through the need to move out of ruts of “comfortable teaching situations” to meet the challenges proferred by a different order of race relations. Where other staff members had earlier possessed negative attitudes toward children of different races, the ethics of the profession and pride in their own achievement served to undergird efforts to develop teaching-­learning situations more in accord with positive inter-­group contacts. Parent teacher associations also became more democratic. Separate PTA’s had accompanied segregated schools. With desegregation, the groups were unified with encouraging results. Negroes served as presidents and members of executive and other committees. They also participated as room mothers in places such as Cinnaminson and Burlington. One question has always haunted Negroes whenever integration has been considered, namely, what will become of colored staff members. Two factors played an important role in the New Jersey situation—­the teacher tenure, and fair employment practice laws. Teachers who had earned tenure were usually secure while those who were not so protected had the assistance of the fair employment practices law to restrict their being discriminated against when teachers were being released. Both white and colored teachers not under tenure were separated from their positions. Since beginners can be hired for less salary, some communities have developed the practice of saving money by not allowing teachers to achieve tenure. A close analysis of the study made of teacher employment figures for the years 1945–­46 and 1951–­52 by the DAD does show that with what amounted to a practical cessation of new placements of Negroes in the elementary schools of the Southern counties there was a decrease in the total number employed from 397 to 393. The number of secondary teachers increased from 20 to 34. This occurred during a period when the hiring of elementary teachers was on the increase but the employment of secondary teachers was almost stationary. In the Northern counties significant gains were made on both levels. Here the Negro elementary teachers increased from 58 to 189 while the number of those on the secondary level rose from 4 to 29. There are four counties

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in which no Negroes are employed. These are located in the Northern section of the state where few colored people live. The DAD rendered assistance to two groups of colored teachers. Those who were not rehired were aided in securing positions in the Northern counties. In a few instances where efforts were made to turn down qualified applicants because of color, complaints to the Division resulted in their employment. During the period following the adoption of the new constitution, additional municipalities elected or appointed minority race members to local boards of education. In Atlantic City not only was a Negro who had served on the board for twenty years elected president of the body but a second Negro was made a member of the board. In 1952, Ex-­Governor Driscoll appointed Dr. James Parker, of Red Bank, to the state board of education.

Negative Factors As is usually the case in changes of established social patterns there were negative factors present in the transition period. Negro parents complained that the superior instructors were transferred to the mixed schools while inexperienced white teachers were sent to the predominately colored buildings. Very few staff members wanted to leave the schools to which they had become attached. Negroes were reportedly given little choice while the wishes of the white members were respected. Some officials attempted a screening process in the employment of new persons through efforts to gain recruits who had desirable intergroup attitudes. It appears that some school officials may have underestimated the potentials of white teachers to effect positive adjustments when challenged to do so. This was evidenced in the transition as a whole when many such teachers came into contact with large numbers of colored pupils for the first time. There are still communities in all parts of the state where the spirit of the law is apparently being violated. Citizens have complained that districts in Gloucester County4 have evaded the law through gerrymandering and by permitting white children to by-­pass neighborhood schools. People in certain Northern communities have accused officials of permitting a loose system of transfers or of strategically placing buildings in colored sections. In Atlantic City there are no defined districts for elementary schools. Parents are privileged to send their children to the schools of their choice if there is room for them. This practice makes it possible for principals to refuse some children on the basis of inadequate accommodations. With the exception of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Avenue Schools, most of the predominantly white schools are located at a considerable distance from the Negro areas. The Pennsylvania Avenue building is rapidly becoming largely a Negro school through the transfers out of the white pupils and the moving in of Negroes. This system precludes a real program of integration on the elementary level. On the other hand, this system has made considerable progress in assimilation on the secondary level and in the placement of teachers. Dr. John Milligan, who was responsible for most of the integration which took place in these areas has now been appointed director of the DAD. 4. Glouchester County was the only one to vote against the adoption of the new constitution.

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Residential restriction still fosters school separateness. In nine school districts segregation was the result of this process. In the larger cities there are buildings which are approximately or one hundred per cent colored because of the housing pattern. Basic social patterns have remained practically unchanged. Whereas progress in improved human relations are evident in the fields of employment and public accommodations, there have been few instances of increased democratic practices in other areas. Some institutions such as the YW and YMCA’s are moving in that direction but in the main much more remains to be achieved. In the task of improving human relations, adults have placed unfair burdens upon youth. Through various forms of prejudiced behavior and biased opinions manifested in the homes or elsewhere in the community, some parents and other citizens have caused confusion in the minds of these young people who are participating in school experiences designed to promote the ability to live more democratically in social groups.

Complete Integration Yet to Come In spite of the progress that has been made in desegregating the school, much still remains to be accomplished before complete integration is a reality. Unification will be achieved only when minority group status ceases to restrict opportunities for any segment of the population. In the public schools few Negroes occupy positions of a supervisory or administrative nature. None is on the governing board or teaching staff of a single public institution of higher learning in the state. There are phases of school life, especially in the out of class activities, where minority group members are not wholly accepted. Schools in blighted areas are not given the same consideration with respect to efficiency of staff members or adequacy of facilities as are schools located in areas of high social status. Little thought is given to the heightened needs of children from underprivileged homes for compensatory school experiences if they are to become desirable citizens of their communities.

Implications The data so far presented point to many areas to be considered by communities concerned with questions of desegregation. New Jersey’s experiences indicate some of the factors which can accelerate the provision of equal opportunities in school training: 1. The processes of education can be used to substitute positive for negative attitudes in areas of human relations. But this mechanism needs to be undergirded by legal support. While according to all people the right to hold prejudices, an adequate law will inhibit their inflicting harm upon innocent victims through overt acts of discrimination. In New Jersey, educational techniques plus legislation prohibiting segregation, accomplished in a comparatively short time what education alone had failed to achieve. The time span for effecting desegregation was shortened by the presence of machinery to implement the law. The DAD was charged with the responsibility of carrying out the constitutional mandate. This eliminated the necessity of pursuing a policy imposed upon the people of Illinois where action has to be taken on a community basis. To get the best results, then, it appears that educational techniques plus an adequate law with proper machinery for its execution, are essential.

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2. To protect the interests of teachers of minority groups, it is important to have tenure and fair employment practices statutes. Such legislation tends to prevent discrimination in the releasing of teachers considered as surplus or the practice of refusing to continue the employment of teachers because of race. An effective fair employment law assists these teachers in securing and retaining appointments on a basis of merit. 3. Where such laws do not exist, attempts should be made to achieve integration in all phases of the school system. The school should be an environment where respect for all persons is achieved through processes of living democratically. In order to participate with confidence in school-­ community affairs some members of the group will have to have opportunities for learning certain social skills. At the beginning of some group programs, it will be better to conform to more informal eating menus or procedures so that persons not accustomed to silver tea service will not absent themselves in order to avoid embarrassment. Programs should include topics within the comprehension of all members if they are not to discourage attendance of parents or citizens whose cooperation is needed to achieve community cohesion. 4. In selecting new teachers, school administrators must emphasize the appointment of persons who give promise of promoting the acceptance of individuals regardless of group affiliation because they themselves have that ability. Behavior that reflects warm feelings toward children of all groups are more potent than verbal instructions on human contacts. In-­service courses or experiences can be used effectively with teachers already employed. 5. School officials should tactfully but firmly deny all requests for transfers which arise out of programs of integration. 6. Where residential restriction results in segregated schools, school officials should consider rezoning in order to promote heterogeneity. 7. Ungraded neighborhood schools should be integrated into larger buildings so that improved instruction will be made available to many children now receiving second class training. 8. Adults should ease the burdens of children in the improvement of human relations by avoiding the expression of anti-­group sentiments. This can be done by developing an understanding of the dynamics of group behavior and a disposition to join in efforts to advance the cause of positive human contacts.

Conclusion Laws providing adequate machinery for the execution of anti-­segregation statutes have achieved remarkable results in New Jersey. Significantly the experience of this and other states has demonstrated that people as a whole are basically law-­abiding citizens. This human trait is a dynamic force in preventing outbursts of violence and infractions of the law generally prophesized in discussions concerning integration in public schools. Vigorous protests by dissident elements need not deter the majority from movements toward improved living practices in the schools. Such protests do imply a continuing concern for the use of educational techniques designed to substitute more wholesome attitudes in community relationships.

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Are Colonials People?

A nation can not exist half slave and half free. This, the Great Emancipator realized as he sought the preservation of the Union. Consequently he effected the freedom of those who were being held in bondage. This is the thesis posited by William E. Burghardt Du Bois in his book, Color and Democracy.1 Mindful of the fact that World War I had been fought under the slogan of making the world safe for democracy and that out of World War II had come the enunciation of the Four Freedoms, Du Bois is concerned about the critical omission of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals in respect to the colonial peoples. Through these proposals, 800,000,000 people posit a scheme for ruling a world in which 750,000,000 have no voice. Through the prosecution of territorial rape, imperialistic wars, spheres of influence, and the mandate system, European powers, and previously Japan, have seized or taken over large sectors of the lands of other peoples for the purposes of exploiting them for their own economic advantages. The insatiable greed for maximum profits has eventuated in the repression, subjugation, and dehumanizing of the natives, in order to serve to an increasing degree the purposes of the masters. Disfranchisement, poverty, ignorance, and disease are encouraged and allowed to stifle the protests that would evolve from a more enlightened and powerful group. The various formulations of principles of human welfare are considered by the leaders of the Great Powers not to apply to the dependent peoples under their rule. The Four Freedoms do not apply to India, or the natives of South Africa, or the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands. The consciences of the people back home are lulled by the dividends that flow in as a result of the activities of agents whose procedures are not subjected to the searching light of inquiry. Outsiders seeking to gain possession of the facts are either kept out or are permitted to see only what those in power wish them to see. The colonials are not the only people who are not wholly free. There are nations like China or Egypt that are nominally free but which are subjected to much foreign domination. Racial minorities within nations, such as the Negroes and the Indians in the United States, are kept in a degraded 1. William E. Burghardt Du Bois, Color and Democracy, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1945, pp. 143.

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position. Masses of inhabitants within their own countries live under slum conditions through the economic exploitation of the industrial capitalists. Du Bois makes a plea for the freedom of these peoples if civilization is to survive. He shows where numerous wars during the past century and a half had at their basis some phase of a battle for land belonging to other groups. He sees the need for a system of international trusteeships that will be vitally concerned with the welfare and ultimate independence of all peoples. This will need to be a type of trusteeship which will permit persons other than those of the supervising nation to visit and inspect and which will permit the inhabitants to protest against unjust or intolerable conditions. Russia presents the real enigma. Will this great nation which has done more than any other country to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, which has distributed the fruits of civilization to a much larger proportion of the teeming millions of its multi-­racial population than has been done at any time prior to the Revolution continue along the trail it has been blazing or will it find it expedient to move to the right in company with the great capitalist groups? Will the peoples of the Western powers turn toward Communism if hunger and the other concomitants of poverty follow in the wake of this war as they did after the last world war? Whereas the Western powers have considered poverty, ignorance, and the like as caused by the innate inferiority of the victims rather than by the conditions under which they live, Russia attacked the problems underlying poverty and distributed the good things of life to more and more of her population. It was interesting to read this book in light of the United Nations Charter which was formulated after the writing of the book; of the cessation of hostilities, and in light of the failure of the conference of foreign ministers at London. A provision for a trustee council has been made in the United Nations Charter. This is a step in the right direction but its implementation is the thing that will be extremely important. The rôle of the atomic bomb which brought the war to such a sudden halt magnifies the importance of factors that threaten peace between nations. The failure of the foreign ministers at London highlights the rôle of disputed and subjugated territories in international relationships. Du Bois is, as we all know, a seasoned and astute observer of social problems. His analysis of these problems in world affairs has high value to the world at large and to the colored races that constitute the bulk of the 750,000,000 people who occupy the areas that are half slave. For these reasons there is cause for a note of pessimism over the facts: that China was called into the Dumbarton Oaks Conference after practically everything was settled; that Russia and the other allies seem to be growing apart; and that peoples who are trying to regain their freedom are being repressed by the military forces of the Great Powers.

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It Can Happen Anywhere

Many stories of frustration due to exigencies emanating from membership in a racial group considered of “lower caste” stem from a southern locale where limitations on personal freedom reach their greatest peak of intensity. But frustrations brought on in the bi-­racial society of the United States are by no means limited to any one section of the country. If He Hollers, Let Him Go,1 is a novel that depicts in a most dramatic manner the pungent experiences of a young Negro leaderman in a ship building yard on the west coast. Bob Jones who came to this war job from the middle west had had two years of college training and, in the opinion of his superiors, sufficient qualities of leadership to be placed in a supervisory position over a group of men of his own race. Despite his qualifications he encountered obstacles in the executing of his duties in the inexorable attitudes of race prejudice which stimulated white women to refuse to cooperate on the job under Negro leadership and which garnered support from some of their superiors in such refusals. Bob Jones’ own deep seated resentments inhibiting rational approaches to an age long problem, led him to strike back almost blindly in words and in incipient acts. One such encounter cost him his supervisory job and returned him to the ranks. These conflicts precipitated intense disagreements between himself and the beautiful upperclass young woman to whom he was engaged. Alice, who had learned and practiced the art of accommodation, attempted to persuade her fiancé to temper his antagonisms and to learn “to get along” even though it might require the humiliation of apologizing to a white woman who had insulted him. Complicating the situation were the antipodal forces that attracted and repelled this young man and the lower class white woman with whom he had had the encounter. Sexual attraction, racial antipathies, fear of the consequences of exposure were concomitant factors in the experiences that took Bob to this woman’s room and then caused him to flee suddenly from a potentially dangerous relationship. A chance encounter with her on the job that led to a compromising situation placed him in a trap made tight by the woman’s hollering “rape” when approaching steps threatened their discovery. 1. Chester B. Himes, If He Hollers, Let Him Go, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1945, pp. 249.

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Beaten into insensibility, Bob recovered to find he was under arrest because of the charges preferred by the woman against him. As he gradually realized that he did not have a chance to beat this rap, he attempted to escape only to be picked up later. “Patriotic” reasons induced the woman to withdraw the charges. But loss of job, loss of the woman of his own race whom he loved, and immediate induction into the army from which his job had deferred him climaxed the conflicts that had led to his downfall. Chester Himes tells a story that rings true because it is written by one who writes from first hand experiences and contacts; one who has had an opportunity to build up his story from the inside track. Many Negroes can identify themselves with Bob Jones at several points in the story because they at times have experienced the same poignant feelings of hate, bitterness, and frustration. It would be well if some of the nine-­tenths of the population in the United States would use this story to discover the intensities of some of the reactions of some of the one-­tenth to inter-­racial experiences.

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Notes from Recent Books

Negro Life and History To those individuals who think that Negroes suffer the bitter agonies of discrimination and segregation in the Southern states only, The Darker Brother1 presents a challenging contradiction. This novel by Bucklin Moon takes young Ben Johnson, a twelve year old Negro boy, to New York to his Uncle Rafe, who had decided to care for his sister Essie and her two children after the loss of Essie’s husband. It was Rafe’s hope that he could give his sister’s children a chance to realize their full potentialities through opportunities available in New York. But Ben soon learned that he had to reckon with his position as a member of a minority group in this metropolis. He encountered racial antipathy on his first day in a school located outside of Harlem. Prejudice prevented opportunities to earn an honest living after his uncle met a violent death at the hands of racketeers. This same evil forced the girl he loved, temporarily, to become a woman of the streets. Ben’s mother sought to escape from social isolation due to her inability to absorb the sophistication of urban life through membership in one of “Father Gabriel’s” heavens. Just when she was about to attain her idea of supreme happiness, Essie and her small daughter were killed during a stampede on a Hudson River boat. The war gave Ben an opportunity to save himself from despair. His enlistment in the army enabled him to identify himself with a cause that seemed to transcend race. This novel is packed with quick moving action. It presents aspects of Negro life in America through the day by day living of Ben and those connected with him. It is some time, though, before the reader becomes acclimated in point of time. One wonders how Ben could come to New York at such a young age and not have his dialect influenced at all. One wonders how Birdie, who was a native New Yorker, could possess a Southern dialect. It would have helped to have had a more detailed description of the mother and the sister.

1. Bucklin Moon, The Darker Brother, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1943, pp. 246.

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Delta Shadows2 is a photographic, narrative account of the story of Negroes in New Orleans. Against a background of historic highlights of New Orleans itself and brief sketches of the Negro in the development of this city of Creoles, the author has presented present day inhabitants from the point of view of their socio-­economic status and their contributions to sports and music. The innumerable pictures add to the interest of the book and increase its value as an historical record. The socio-­economic data and the chapter dealing with the future show that in spite of the accomplishments of Negroes in this city, there is a poignant need for greater opportunities for that social and personal advancement which can come only through the chance to live as fully participating citizens in the community. Luther Porter Jackson has made another contribution to American history through his booklet3 on the rôle played by Negro soldiers and seamen of Virginia in the Revolutionary War. Not only does he give the names and exploits of the men themselves but he introduces us to many of their descendants who are living today. We are indebted to Dr. Jackson for this additional documental testimony to the contributions made by Negroes to the development of America. We have here a brief sketch of the life and achievements of Charles Lewis Reason,4 pioneer Negro educator of New York City during the greater part of the nineteenth century. Mr. Reason, a brilliant scholar, a courageous protagonist for Negro freedom, civil rights and educational opportunities was for many years principal of a school for colored children. He also had the distinction of serving as a member of the faculty of Central College, Cortlandt County, New York, an institution formed for higher education without distinction as to race. This little pamphlet is another real contribution to the chapter of American history dealing with Negroes. James Rorty5 in the pamphlet, Brother Jim Crow, presents a brief discussion of the Negro’s present status in industry. He calls particular attention to the gains made under the Fair Employment Practice Committee with the consequent explosion of the myth that Negroes and whites can not work together harmoniously. But these gains have merely scratched the surface of the problems confronting the Negroes in their efforts to become wholly integrated into the American economy. The author discusses the position of the Negroes with reference to the unions and gives a rather detailed account of the plight of the colored locomotive fireman. The booklet, The Negro After the War,6 stems from the good intentions of a white man who has observed the plight of Negroes in the Southern region for a period of almost four decades. Mr. Imbert suggests a way out of these difficulties through the party and the election of Negro representatives to Congress made possible by concentrated living in certain sections of the country. But a Negro youth around whom an imaginary story is evolved thinks a better solution would lie in the emigration of Negroes to a place outside of the country. After milling through these ideas,

2. Peter W. Clark, Delta Shadows, New Orleans: Graphic Arts Studios, 1942, pp. 200. 3. Luther Porter Jackson, Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the Revolutionary War, Norfolk: Guide Quality Press, 1944, pp. 46. 4. Anthony R. Mayo, Charles Lewis Reason, Harold S. Williamson, 765 Ocean Avenue, Jersey City, N.J, pp. 12. 5. James Rorty, Brother Jim Crow, New York: Port War Council, 112 E. 19th Street, 1943, pp. 17. 6. D. I. Imbert, The Negro After the War, New Orleans: Williams Printing Service, 1943, pp. 74.

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the youth falls heir to a huge fortune which enables him to initiate steps toward the consummation of his idea. The war results in a halting of the project. The idea of the author and the fantasy of the youth lack practicality. The book is poorly written. The printing is quite inferior in quality. The errors in fact and the numerous instances in which Negro appears with a small n detract further from its quality. So This Is Africa7 affords us a vivid account of the experiences of a woman who had spent twenty-­three years as a teacher at the Girls’ School at Idi Aba Abeokuta in Nigeria, West Africa while serving as a missionary under the auspices of the Foreign Mission Board, Southern Baptists. This narrative is an anthropological study of this area written for young people by a white woman who had dedicated her life at an early age to the service of young people in the Dark Continent. This book gives a detailed picture of the life and customs of the inhabitants. It shows a true example of the integration of school and community activities. Although written for Intermediates, it has high educational value for their elders.

Curricular Considerations When Psychology and the New Education8 appeared in 1933, many educators felt that Dr. Pressey had made a valuable, unique, and much-­needed contribution to educational psychology because of his strong emphasis on the importance of considering every child against the totality of his background. As years passed, the book decreased in usefulness because of new developments and researches in this field. Consequently the revised edition of this book which is now available is indeed welcome. The new edition not only includes new chapters on important topics but it also represents shifts in emphasis and scope. Noteworthy are the materials on the psychology of the teacher; the relation of learning to the individual’s total constellation of attitudes, interests, and feelings, as well as to the total social situation in which learning is occurring; the evaluation of schooling in terms of functional applications in every day living; “applicational transfer” and the relationship of the school’s work to the community. The first half of the book deals with growth or development through the first twenty years which represents an age extension both downward and upward. The second half is devoted to the guidance and fostering of learning. To those educators who wish to work toward the development of well integrated and balanced personalities, Psychology and the New Education really points the way. To others interested in the welfare of children, this book is most illuminating. The book is well written. The case materials are revealing. The reports of researches are excellently presented. This is a must book for every teacher from the nursery school to the university:

7. Susan Anderson, So This Is Africa, Nashville: Broadman Press, 1943, pp. 138. 8. Sidney L; Pressey and Francis P. Robinson, Psychology and the New Education, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944, pp. 654.

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If the schools are to meet the ever-­changing needs of a dynamic society, there must be a continual evaluation and revision of school curricula by all persons concerned with educational processes. The many books in the curriculum field in the last decade attest to a growing recognition of this need. J. Minor Gwynn, Associate Professor of Education, University of North Carolina, in his book Curriculum Principles and Social Trends9 has given us a comprehensive and up to date treatise in this area. To support his theses that (1) personal experiencing is the only way by which real improvement in the curriculum can be effected; (2) educational growth is and should be an evolutionary process, and that such evolution is strongly stimulated and conditioned by changes in the social, economic, and cultural life of a nation; and (3) teaching methods cannot be divorced from the curriculum, Professor Gwynn gives us an overview of the evolution of the curriculum; presents new factors in curriculum development; the modern movement for curriculum revision and discusses the curriculum on the elementary and the secondary school levels. In addition there is an excellent chapter on the relation of the youth problem to the curriculum. Attention is also given to the influence on the curriculum of teacher training institutions and curriculum aids. The author concludes with a forward glance in curriculum revision through his discussion of propaganda and the curriculum and the community approach to the curriculum. Educational history reveals important shifts in emphases in educational principles and practices. The last decade has witnessed increased attention to the need for integrating the school and community activities. This, in turn, has focused the spotlight on the rôle that teacher-­training institutions must play in training teachers who will have the necessary appreciations, understandings, and abilities to implement the recognition of this need. In an effort “to contribute to sound development in an important direction,” the American Council on Education has made available in Toward Community Understanding10 descriptions of activities in this area by several teachers training institutions in widely scattered sections of the country. To those who are planning or who have initiated beginning steps in this direction, this book offers many suggestions. In Group Work and the Social Scene Today,11 the American Association for the Study of Group Work has brought together a selected group of papers dealing with the rôle of group work agencies with therapeutic and community service functions. The authors especially stress the needs of youths and children as pointed up by wartime conditions. The annual reports in the second section give insight into the organization’s program and plans. We are indebted to the William J. Kerby12 Foundation for a series of provocative essays on the sacredness and inviolability of the human personality. Competent scholars evaluate social living

9. J. Minor Gwynn, Curriculum Principles and Social Trends, New York: Macmillan, 1943, pp. 630. 10. Gordon W. Blackwell, Toward Community Understanding, Washington: American Council on Education, 1943, pp. 98. 11. American Association for the Study of Group Work, Group Work and the Social Scene Today, New York: The Association Press, 1944, pp. 96. 12. William J. Kerby Foundation, Democracy: Should It Survive? Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1943, pp. 159.

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in terms of their relationships to the acceptance of the principle of the dignity of man as a human person. Stress is placed upon the fact that governmental planning for the welfare of man and the future of democracy depend on the view of man held by the leaders and planners. At a time when the world is so engulfed in a titanic struggle for its existence which is the result of the view point that men are means to ends, these essays serve as food for sober reflection. A successful peace must be built upon the principle of the dignity of every person. This pamphlet represents one of a series of explorations undertaken by the Seminar in Psychological Problems of Morale in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University under the direction of Professor G. W. Allport and Professor H. A. Murray. Starting with a foreword by Professor Allport, this report, the A B C’s of Scapegoating,13 gives a detailed analysis of this social process. Because of the use made of the practice in the present war and the presence of it in our own country, this definitive study is a valuable contribution to the thinking of every student of social problems. The discussions on the dangers of scapegoating in wartime and the methods for combatting the same are of particular pertinence to our social well being. The present global conflict has forced upon peace-­loving peoples the necessity for an understanding of methods by which a true fellowship of all nationalities and races might ensure a world in which everyone may be safe from imperialistic and fascistic aggressions. With a recognition of the need for social engineering on a large scale, representatives of many countries have joined in efforts to map out plans whereby education might be used as a telic force for implementing the goal of an international security. The International Educational Assembly has submitted proposals14 for making use of education in rebuilding the devastated countries’ educational programs; in the reconstruction of the educational programs of the Axis Countries; and in educating for world citizenship.

13. A B C’s of Scapegoating, Chicago: Central Y.M.C.A. College, 19 South La Salle Street, pp. 72. 14. International Educational Assembly, Education for International Security, 1943, pp. 30.

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Notes from Recent Books

T oward W orld U nity Asked Pearl Buck of Eslanda Robeson, “Eslanda, what is America as you see it?” I see a great rich land and a virile goodhearted people going to seed because they are misused, misinformed, corrupted. I see the people becoming greedy, selfish, arrogant, overbearing, psychopathic, because they have been nurtured on the superiority idea. I see all this as the great tragedy of our era, all the greater because with some Christianity and some democracy, both available, this country and this people could lead the world out of chaos into an era of peace and plenty.1

Later says Pearl Buck: When I began these conversations with her I thought of her as my friend, a woman, pleasant, intelligent, gay. Now after all these hours of talk in which we have tried to penetrate to brain and soul, I see her encircled by a host. The light shines clear and hard upon her, but behind her and about her is the shadowy host. I can never again see her as one. Those millions of human beings have spoken to me through her voice. I know them. I have met them in every land under heaven. I have heard the murmur of their many voices. But it has taken a clear American voice to make them articulate to me, a voice in my own country. If Eslanda feels as she does, with all the advantages she has had in this richest, most powerful, and most comfortable of countries, then what must those others feel?2

In this vein two mature, intelligent, successful women with no grudges against life discussed penetratingly the principles, values, and performances that characterize life in an America in which they agree that the only person having full rights is a white, gentile, Protestant, adult male who does not live in the poll-­tax South. Eslanda Robeson, a Negro woman born into a white world and Pearl 1. Pearl S. Buck, American Argument, New York: The John Day Company, 1949, pp. 190–­91. 2. Ibid., p. 196.

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Buck, a white woman born into that same white world but reared in a colored one across the seas with the synoptic view developed through world travel but against the backdrop of two different Americas agree on the ends but encounter sharp clashes of opinion on the means. American Argument presents many challenges to the minds of thinking peoples all over the world. “Tolerance is all very well, but it’s the effect on the young people that I’m afraid of.” Because of this attitude, the young minister who dared to preach practical Christianity was eased out of the pastorage of a Still River church. It was the gentile daughter of such a community that the brilliant young physician, Luke, A Jew of unknown parentage, married. The inhabitants of this little Connecticut town traced their residence here through three hundred years. Those whose stay was of shorter duration just did not belong. Curious Wine3 dramatically describes the poignant conflicts generated by Marty’s love for her husband and the entangling sense of loyalty toward a psychopathic mother who through her wealth and social position attempted to possess and dominate all with whom she came in contact as compensation for a bitter, unhappy childhood. By politely but firmly pitting his will against that of the Madame, Luke sought to protect and free his wife from the tentacles of the unscrupulous woman who years ago had driven her husband, Dr. Townsend to seek escape in the seclusion of private quarters elsewhere. Lucia Townsend’s consternation and resentment over her daughter’s admission that she was about to bring into the world a half Jewish child eventuated in a climactic situation which almost cost Luke his professional career in Still River. The sterling qualities of the young couple, the towering strength of the faith and support of the father finally enabled them to weather the storm which threatened their ability to carry on in the town of Marty’s birth. This story which depicts the cruelty of men to men because of cultural differences is convincing and well told. Luke was condemned by the older people of Still Water, not because of lack of character but simply because he had the “misfortune” to be born into a sect which old stock Americans considered as alien and outside the pale of acceptance. There are many organizations which include in their programs proposed activities designed to improve the status of interracial relationships. Very few of these agencies have done anything toward evaluating these efforts in terms of tangible results. Yolande Wilkerson in Interracial Programs of Student YWCA’s4 has attempted to throw the spotlight of objective inquiry upon that part of the program which sets up as an important goal the developing of an appreciation for and a disposition to engage in activities which will erase segregation and discrimination in the various areas of college life and, as a carry over, to improve conditions in the communities in which the graduates live after graduation. An analysis of the findings of the study led the author to conclude that “There can be no doubt that the interracial programs of the Campus YWCA’s are making an important contribution to the abiding interests and understandings of a limited number of students regarding the special problems faced by Jews, Japanese-­Americans and Negroes in our society. In some cases, relatively few in number, Association interracial programs are also effecting definite and progressive changes in campus and community patterns of discrimination against minority 3. Bianca Bradbury, The Curious Wine, New York: The Beechhurst Press, 1948, pp. 272. 4. Yolanda Wilkerson, Interracial Programs of Student YWCA’s, New York: The Woman’s Press, 1948, pp. 159.

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students. For the most part, however, campus YWCA interracial programs are very seriously limited as regards clarity of goals, vitality of activities and scope of operations. Truly major and widespread improvements are sorely needed.”5 Many students of intercultural relationships in the United States will be happy to learn that another edition of Dollard’s Caste and Class in a Southern Town6 has been released. Dollard states that nothing new has been added to the original publication but a real contribution is seen in the foreword where he forthrightly points out the dilemma of the United States in her international position. Because of the leadership which she holds in world affairs, it becomes imperative that she find a satisfactory solution to problems in the intercultural area in this country if she is to have any influence in attempting to bring peace to a world in which the majority of peoples are of colored races and of varied religious, political and social beliefs. This book makes an incisive analytical study of one community in the South in much the same manner that the Myrdal study does the same for the country as a whole. Not only are the social factors influencing the contacts of Negroes and whites brought out in bold relief but also the psychological accompaniments of the social structures and processes which characterize living conditions in the southern region. Dollard’s training and experiences make him exceptionally competent to carry out this task. They have enabled him to produce a book that is a valuable instrument in developing basic understandings in this field of human relationships.

The Educational Field Various media have been used to bring to the attention of the people the importance of doing everything possible to attract to the schools intelligent and enthusiastic young men and women. But nowhere has it been done with such pungent force as in Virgil Scott’s The Hickory Stick.7 Scott has brought within the pages of his novel just about every conceivable evil that any teacher has encountered in any type of community. He begins with the emotional hazing inflicted upon graduate students through the idiosyncrasies of subject matter specialists in the universities. He takes full advantage of the opportunity to voice the opinion of those students and professors in the liberal arts colleges who view professional courses as so much “bunk” and the purveyors of those courses as well meaning but misguided members of the teaching profession who are tolerated by colleagues who see little sense in their theories or practices. Since the small town accentuates the problems of teachers, it is in such a community that the author places the locale of his story. The Hickory Stick tells how the social forces of the town and the unscrupulous practices of the members of the board of education serve to reach out like grasping tentacles to entwine the souls of men until they are driven to the selling of their heritages for a mess of pottage.

5. Ibid., 134–­5. 6. John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949, pp. 502. 7. Virgil Scott, The Hickory Sticky, New York: The Swallow Press and William Morrow and Co., 1948, pp. 750.

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Douglas Harris started his preparation for a teaching career with determination and intellectual curiosity. He had intended to continue his academic studies until he had secured the Ph.D. degree but had to curtail his training after the completion of the work for the master’s degree when the girl with whom he had been in love for some time informed him that they were going to have a baby. The need for a hasty marriage and the responsibilities encumbent upon him as a husband and perspective father compelled him to sell his services in a market which was limited because of the depression which held the country in its grip. As he encountered experiences which placed his economic security in danger, he gradually reached the place where in order to assure his reappointment, he was willing to do almost anything regardless of the ethics involved. He had just about struck the bottom of ignominious behavior when before it was too late to retrieve his self respect, he got a new grip on himself and returned to the wife and child whom he had lost when Nancy could no longer live with the man that Douglas had become. Virgil Scott uses over seven hundred pages to reveal the disadvantages under which the children of America are being educated. Very few young people would be encouraged to choose the teaching profession as a vocation after reading this book. Not a single advantage is held out as an inducement to enter one of the most important professions in the world. Only those who have an undaunted love of people or children would be inclined to continue to prepare for such a field. The significant feature of the story is that what he says is all too true and unless determined action is taken to improve many of the conditions under which teachers have to carry on their life’s work, it will become increasingly difficult to attract desirable people to the profession. The author has told this story with pungent and realistic language. The successful use of films in the armed services has made consideration of this media of education a matter of significance. To aid the many agencies who could profit by the use of this visual aid, Film and Education8 has provided a symposium on the role of the film in education which brings to educators an exhaustive treatment of the subject. The nature of the educational film, its use in the many subject matter divisions of the school, its possibilities in areas outside the classroom of the public school, its progress abroad and the problems and practices of administration are discussed by experts in those areas. Because of the comprehensive scope covered by this book there are few areas of educational activity which could not benefit from this publication. The School Custodian’s Housekeeping Handbook9 calls attention to the fact that “School building service employees occupy positions of considerable importance in their school systems and in their communities.” Their responsibilities call for full knowledge of their jobs, combined with good common sense. In many small communities, they must assume almost entire responsibility for the care of valuable school plant facilities since the local school officials may have limited knowledge in this field of service. Incompetent employees may render low standards of service and permit plant facilities to deteriorate. Competent employees will render good service and will protect the public investment in these facilities.

8. Godfrey Elliot, ed. Film and Education, New York: Philosophical Library, 1948, pp. 597. 9. Henry H. Linn, Leslie C. Helm, K. P. Grabarkiewicz, The School Custodian’s Housekeeping Handbook, New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, 1948, pp. 256.

338

reviews and notes

Building service does not consist merely of a few simple routine tasks such as sweeping floors and firing furnaces. It comprises scores of different activities. Many of them have to do with cleaning which is essential to good health and to the maintenance of standards of decency. Others are engineering jobs, requiring technical knowledge as well as skill. The types of repairs are legion and necessitate a wide range of abilities. There are grounds to tend and lawns, often landscaped, to maintain. All in all, the school service employee must be a person of many skills.

From the statement of the preface, it can be seen that this book seeks to serve as a guide for those with responsibilities for maintenance of school properties.

Higher Education The impact of World War II upon institutions of higher learning has stimulated much discussion about their goals and steps needed to implement those aims. In line with this tendency, the third annual conference of higher education devoted its attention to current trends in this area. The foreword states that it was the purpose of the conference “to consider the current situation in American colleges and universities, to examine available data and comparative experiences, to anticipate problems for the immediate future, and to formulate findings and recommendations which might be helpful to those responsible for policy and practice in higher education.”10 Specialists discuss various aspects of problems in the fields of finance, student personnel, curriculum, faculty, and organization. Nursing for the Future11 is symbolic of the fact that the spirit of Florence Nightingale is still marching on. Esther Brown, author of several books pertaining to the various professions, as a layman in the field of nursing, has been able to bring to this latest work the detachment that has so many advantages in the study and evaluation of an area where progress demands that the searchlight of inquiry be focused upon it. She describes the extension of health services which is taking place and the demands that such extensions will make for nursing care in the future. She gives consideration to the functions and needs of different types of nursing care which has been based upon observation of facilities and conferences with interested and competent people concerned with nursing. Forceful attention is called to lack of professionally trained nurses and the conditions which inhibit desirable people from entering this vocation. Brown challenges basic concepts concerning the status of nurses in relationship to physicians and hospital staffs. Overwork, poor remuneration, and subservient relationships to the medical profession have held out little inducement to individuals of initiative and keen intelligence. The demands of professional nursing and the well being of the public call for persons of competence who will be considered the colleagues of the physician in the business of maintaining and restoring health. The author strongly recommends that the resources which lie in members of minority groups be tapped to the full instead of being dissipated as at present because of discriminatory practices. It is clearly evident that this 10. National Education Association, Department of Higher Education, Current Trends in Higher Education, Washington, 1948, pp. 199. 11. Esther Lucille Brown, Nursing for the Future, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1948, pp. 198.

n o t e s f r o m r e c e n t b o o k s 339

book meets an urgent need of the nursing profession. Its analysis of present conditions, the needs of the future, and the recommendations for constructive changes should provide real guidance for those who sincerely desire to meet the health needs of the people. The Negro College Quarterly12 in a special issue has brought together many important data about the institutions of higher learning which serve Negro students. It is helpful to have within the confines of one volume pertinent and varied materials concerning the structure and functions of these institutions. If, however, the section on Howard University is an example, it may be necessary to use some of the data with caution. For instance, on page 32, under the caption of “Educational Areas Served,” there is only “Liberal Arts” while under the caption of “Type of College,” there follows “Four Year, Graduate Work.” This is misleading for it would appear that Howard University is limited to the Liberal Arts College whereas there are nine schools and colleges. Eight of these are mentioned on page 36 which shows internal inconsistency. The College of Engineering and Architecture is omitted from those listed on the second page mentioned while in the same paragraph it is stated that 162 graduates have followed engineering and architecture. It is affirmed that Howard has been accredited by the American Association of Universities but no mention is made of the fact that the liberal arts college is a full fledged member of the regional association of colleges and secondary schools. For important reference work, it may be necessary to check with primary sources.

12. “Institutions of Higher Learning Among Negroes in the United States,” Negro College Quarterly, Vol. No. 2, June, 1947, pp. 267.



Encyclopedia Entry

SLOWE, Lucy Diggs (July 4, 1885–­Oct. 21, 1937), teacher, school administrator, and college dean, was born in Berryville, Va., the third daughter and youngest of seven children of Henry and Fannie (Potter) Slowe. After losing her father at nine months and her mother at six years, she went to live in Lexington, Va., with a paternal aunt, Martha Slowe Price; in 1898 they moved to Baltimore, Md. Lucy entered the elementary school at approximately the fifth grade. Upon graduation, as salutatorian, from the colored high school in Baltimore in 1904, she entered Howard University, Washington, D.C., with the aid of a scholarship. During her college years she was one of the founders and vice-­president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first sorority among Negro college women. Following her graduation in 1908, Lucy Slowe embarked upon a career in secondary education, teaching English in high schools in Baltimore and Washington for the next eleven years, in the course of which she took a master’s degree in English from Columbia University (1915). When in 1919 the Shaw Junior High School was established in Washington, the first such school in the colored division of the city system, she became its principal. Here she initiated in-­service training by arranging for an extension course on education at the junior high school level to be given by Columbia University, a course which was also attended by the staff of the white junior high school. In 1922 Miss Slowe was called to Howard University as dean of women, serving also as professor of English and of education. Guided by the points of view of such women as Professors Sarah Sturtevant, Harriet Hayes, and Esther Lloyd-­Jones of Teachers College, Columbia, and Thyrsa Amos of the University of Pittsburgh, she launched a vigorous struggle to change the image of the dean of women from that of a matron, as then conceived by the heads of most Negro institutions of higher learning, to one of a specialist in the education of women. She introduced a course for deans and counselors to girls. The influence of her battle for the newer concept of deanship extended not only to women’s education in other Negro schools but also to that of men, and her organization of deans and advisers to girls in Negro schools undoubtedly stimulated a similar group among male personnel workers. Thomas E. Hawkins, who became assistant to the dean of men at Howard in 1933 and later dean of men at Hampton Institute, drew particular inspiration from her. 341

342

encyclopedia entry

Dean Slowe founded or assisted in the organization of the National Council of Negro Women (1935), of which she was the first secretary, and the National Association of College Women, of which she was the first president (1923–­29). Patterned after the American Association of University Women (of which she was a member), the latter group through its committee on standards exerted an influence on curricular offerings in institutions seeking a place on its approved list of schools. Miss Slowe also served on the boards of several Washington welfare agencies and worked with the National Young Women’s Christian Association and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was an accomplished tennis player, winning seventeen tennis cups. Long interested in music, having sung in Baltimore as a contralto in St. Francis Catholic Church and in the choir of her own church, the Madison Street Presbyterian, she inaugurated a lecture-­concert series at Howard. Lucy Slowe was an intense and unremitting worker, and over the years her health suffered. In August 1937 she contracted influenza. Failing to recover, she died that October at her Washington home of kidney disease, aged fifty-­three. She was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Washington. A stained-­glass window in the Howard University Chapel honors her memory. [Jour. of the Nat. Assoc. of College Women, No. 14 (1937), an issue dedicated to Dean Slowe—­ see especially articles by Dwight O. W. Holmes and Joanna Houston; Jour. of the College Alumnae Club of Washington, Memorial Edition, Jan. 1939, a special number containing writings and addresses of Dean Slowe and tributes to her (both publications available in Moorland Collection, Howard Univ.); Negro Hist. Bull., Jan, 1955, pp. 90–­91; Durward Howes, ed., Am. Women, 1935–­36; interviews with friends and former associates of Dean Slowe; close personal association. A number of articles by Dean Slowe, including her presidential addresses, may be found in the Jour. of the Nat. Assoc. of College Women, 1924–­35. Other articles by her include: “What Contributions Social Activities Fostered by the Institutions Make to the Moral and Social Development of Students in Negro Colleges,” Quart. Rev. of Higher Education among Negroes, July 1933; “Higher Education of Negro Women,” Jour. of Negro Education, July 1933.]

Chronological Bibliography

thesis and book “A Comparative Study of Public White and Colored State School Systems in Sixteen States.” MA thesis, Howard University, 1928. The Education of Negroes in New Jersey. New York: Teachers College Press, 1941.

articles “Negro Youth and the Federal Emergency Programs: CCC and NYA.” Journal of Negro Education 9, no. 3 (July 1940): 397–­407. “Mr. Baxter’s School.” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 59 (April 1941): 116–­132. “The Quakers as Social Workers among the Negroes of New Jersey from 1763–­1804.” Bulletin of Friends Historical Association 30, no. 2 (Autumn 1941): 79–­88. “Have You Met the Social Worker?” School and Society 55 (February 1942): 239–­241. “New Jersey Laws and the Negro.” Journal of Negro History 28, no. 2 (April 1943): 156–­199. With Walter G. Daniel. “The Role of Educational Agencies in Maintaining Morale among Negroes.” Journal of Negro Education, Summer 1943, 390–­501. “Cooperation with the Attendance Officer.” Educational Administration and Supervision, January 1944, 32–­39. “Challenge of Juvenile Delinquency.” Aframerican Woman’s Journal 3, no. 4 (1944): 15–­17. “National Conference of Negro Women and the Schools.” Aframerican Woman’s Journal 2, no. 9 (Summer 1944): 12–­14. “Educational Programs for the Improvement of Race Relations: Negro Advancement Organizations.” In “Education for Racial Understanding.” Special issue, Journal of Negro Education 13, no. 3 (Summer 1944): 349–­360. “Take the Mountain to Mohammed.” Journal of the Delta Theta Sigma Sorority 7 (May 1945): 37–­38. “Negro Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–­1875.” Journal of Negro History 33, no. 2 (April 1948): 168–­223. “Making Education More Functional, toward World Unity, Selling Programs of Service Institutions to the Public.” Journal of Negro Education, Winter 1948, 46–­68. “Negro Higher and Professional Education in Delaware.” In “Negro Higher and Professional Education in the United States.” Special issue, Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 3 (Summer 1948): 265–­271. “Guidance: The Weak Link in the Educational Chain.” Midwest Journal, December 1948, 32–­44. “Educational Problems and the Needs of Negro Youth.” Journal of Negro Education, Summer 1950, 310–­321. “Toward Personal and Social Integration.” Journal of Negro Education, Spring 1950, 195–­200; Fall 1951, 491–­496; Winter 1951, 80–­84; Spring 1952, 189–­194. “Extending Civil Rights in New Jersey through the Division Against Discrimination.” Journal of Negro History 38, no. 1 (January 1953): 91–­107.

343

344

chronological bibliography

“Parents Improve Human Relations in Education.” Journal of Human Relations 1, no. 4 (Spring 1953): 20–­30. “New Jersey Leads in the Struggle for Educational Integration.” Journal of Educational Sociology 26, no. 9 (May 1953): 401–­417. “Racial Integration in the Public Schools of New Jersey.” In “Next Steps in Racial Desegregation in Education.” Special issue, Journal of Negro Education 23, no. 3 (Summer 1954): 282–­289. “La Corte Supreme Si Ricrede (The Supreme Court Reverses Itself).” Scuola e Citta 6 (May 1955): 167–­171. “Lucy Diggs Slowe.” In Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Edward T. James et al., 3:299–­300. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.

public articles “Constitutions of New Jersey and the Negro.” New Jersey Herald News, November 1, 1947. “Integration Is Working in New Jersey.” Pittsburgh Courier, November 7, 14, 21, 28, 1953.

book reviews Review of An Appraisal of the Negro in Colonial South Carolina, by Frank J. Klingberg. Journal of Negro History 27, no. 2 (April 1942): 222–­224. “And So It Came About in Greene County, Georgia.” Review of Tenants of the Almighty, by Arthur Raper. Journal of Negro Education 13, no. 2 (Spring 1944): 200–­201. “But the Twain Do Meet.” Review of Strange Fruit, by Lillian Smith. Journal of Negro Education 13, no. 4 (Autumn 1944): 520–­522. “A Pioneer Chemurgist.” Review of Dr. George Washington Carver, by Shirley Graham and George D. Lipscomb. Journal of Negro Education 14, no. 1 (Winter 1945): 74–­76. “Negro Secondary Schools.” Review of An Evaluation of the Accredited Secondary Schools for Negroes in the South, by Aaron Brown. Journal of Negro Education 14, no. 2 (Spring 1945): 209–­211. “Are Colonials People?” Review of Color and Democracy, by William E. Burghardt Du Bois. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 1 (Winter 1946): 63–­65. “Any Place but Here.” Review of They Seek a City, by Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 1 (Winter 1946): 65–­66. “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” Review of The Negro and the Post-­War World, by Rayford W. Logan. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (Spring 1946): 212–­213. “It Can Happen Anywhere.” Review of If He Hollers, Let Him Go, by Chester B. Himes. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (Spring 1946): 213–­214. “It Has Been Done.” Review of All Born Sailors, by John Beecher. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (Spring 1946): 214–­215. “An Educational Job Analysis.” Review of Needs of Negro High School Graduates, by William Herbert Gray. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 4 (Autumn 1946): 660–­661. Review of Anatomy of Racial Intolerance, by George B. De Huszar. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 4 (Autumn 1946): 661–­662. “Reconstruction Days.” Review of The Vixens, by Frank Yerby. Journal of Negro Education 16, no. 4 (Autumn 1947): 562. “Society at the Bar.” Review of Knock on Any Door, by Willard Motley. Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 1 (Winter 1948): 73–­74. “Unintentional Integration.” Review of The Other Room, by Worth Tuttle Hedden. Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 4 (Autumn 1948): 500–­501. “Letting the Chips Fall Where They May.” Review of No Trumpet Before Him, by Nella Gardner White. Journal of Negro Education 18, no. 4 (Autumn 1949): 500–­502. Review of You Can’t Build a Chimney from the Top, by Joseph Holley. Midwest Journal, Summer 1949, 110–­111. “There Was Once a Negro Scientist.” Review of Your Most Humble Servant, by Shirley Graham. Journal of Negro Education 19, no. 4 (Autumn 1950): 487–­488.

c h r o n o l o g i c a l b i b l i o g r a p h y 345 Reviews of The Negro and the Schools, by Harry S. Ashmore, and The Schools in Transition, by Robin M. Williams Jr. and Margaret W. Ryan. Journal of Negro History 40, no. 1 (January 1955): 85–­90. Reviews of Juvenile Delinquency: Its Nature and Control, by Sophia M. Robison, and Understanding Juvenile Delinquency, by Lee R. Steiner. Journal of Negro Education 30, no. 2 (Spring 1961): 120–­122. “An Assessment of Negro Education.” Review of Negro Education in the United States, by John Morsell. Journal of Negro Education 30, no. 2 (Spring 1961): 119–­120.

“notes from recent books” Journal of Negro Education 13, no. 2 (Spring 1944): 205–­208. Journal of Negro Education 13, no. 4 (Autumn 1944): 532–­535. Journal of Negro Education 14, no. 2 (Spring 1945): 214–­222. Journal of Negro Education 14, no. 1 (Winter 1945): 76–­83. Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (Spring 1946): 215–­217. Journal of Negro Education 16, no. 2 (Spring 1947): 209–­212. Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 2 (Spring 1948): 176–­180. Journal of Negro Education 18, no. 1 (Winter 1949): 64–­68. Journal of Negro Education 18, no. 2 (Spring 1949): 155–­159. Journal of Negro Education 18, no. 4 (Autumn 1949): 514–­519. Journal of Negro Education 19, no. 2 (Spring 1950): 176–­185. Journal of Negro Education 19, no. 4 (Autumn 1950): 491–­496. Journal of Negro Education 21, no. 4 (Autumn 1952): 504–­512. Journal of Negro Education 22, no. 1 (Winter 1953): 55–­60. Journal of Negro Education 22, no. 2 (Spring 1953): 154–­161. Journal of Negro Education 22, no. 4 (Autumn 1953): 502–­504. Journal of Negro Education 23, no. 1 (Winter 1954): 70–­73. Journal of Negro Education 24, no. 4 (Autumn 1955): 462–­468. Journal of Negro Education 24, no. 4 (Autumn 1955): 515–­517.

Acknowledgments

Researching, writing, and recreating Marion Thompson Wright’s life and work required kind assistance from many people and institutions. Among those who helped on leads to her past were Howard Rootenberg of Rootenberg Books and Claudia Lemlich and David Ranzan, librarians at the Swirbul Library, Adelphi University. Rose Ann Gasparinetti, president of the Barringer High School Alumni Association, provided access to Wright’s secondary school records and images of her high school years. Charity Haygood, principal of Avon Elementary School in Newark, was highly supportive. Christine Lutz of the Rutgers University rare book room provided a copy of James Moss’s interview with Walter Daniels. Thanks to Tom Ankner and Beth Zak-­Cohen, librarians at the Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center, Newark Public Library, for their help with public directories and obituaries and rapid, tolerant responses to my many questions. James Ameaasor of the New Jersey Historical Society enabled my use of images of Wright’s title pages. John Kennedy of the Dillard University Archives, New Orleans supplied information on James Moss’s teaching at Dillard. I am grateful to Anne Pruitt-­Logan for her conversations about being a student of Wright and for sharing her copy of Wright’s notes for a biography of Lucy Diggs Slowe. Lorenzo T. Greene Jr. was very helpful regarding correspondence between Wright and his father, the distinguished historian Lorenzo Greene. And thanks to John C. Konzal, curator of the Lorenzo and Thomasina Tally Greene Papers at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Rick Stattler at Swann Galleries kindly supplied me with a copy of James Allen Moss’ tribute to his mother. I am deeply grateful to JoEllen Bashir and Sonja Woods at the Moorland-­Spingarn Center at Howard University for their generous, cheerful, and unstinting help. Kevin W. Schlottmann, archivist at the Rare Book and Manuscript Room, Butler Library, Columbia University, helped find documents related to Wright’s time at the New York School for Social Work. Larry Green offered stimulating conversation about the origins of the Marion Thompson Wright lecture series. Angela Lawrence, archivist of the Rutgers University-­Newark Collection, examined the Clement Price Papers for me. Scholars who helped research Wright’s career and life or added insights to my writing include Carl and Linda Prince and Keith Janken. Bette Epstein of the New Jersey State

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348 a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Archives and Maxie Lurie, professor of history emerita of Seton Hall University, helped in their customary extraordinary fashion. I am very grateful to Peter Mickulas of Rutgers University Press for his unswerving encouragement and support for this project. I am deeply indebted to Gabrielle Bacchus, Wright’s great-­granddaughter, for sharing letters, documents, and photographs of Marion Thompson Wright and her family. I am very grateful to Melissa Nykanen, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives, Pepperdine University Libraries for use of materials from the Marion Thompson Wright Papers. I thank my family, including my beloved wife, Yunxiang Gao; sons, Graham and Russell Gao-­ Hodges; and mother-­in-­law, Du Xiuhua, for their patience and support.

Index

Acquackanonk, 139 Adams, Florence, 20 African School, 141–­154, 215, 225; employment of students, 146; finances, 148–­149; plan of school, 142–­144, 148–­149; students and origins, 144–­149. See also American Colonization Society; Kosciuszko, Tadeusz; Kosciuszko School; Presbyterians Alabama State University, 34, 39 Alexander, Margaret Walker, 34 Allen, Robert, Jr., 205 Alpha Kappa Alpha, 341 Alpha Phi Alpha, 12 American Anti-­Slavery Society, 159 American Association for the Advancement of Society, 39 American Colonization Society, 89, 141–­142, 148, 160, 226, 265; attacked by Samuel Eli Cornish, 161, 266; drive to remove Free Blacks, 266, 284–­285; riots against Black schools, 159–­160 American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy, An, 35 American Historical Association, 30, 39 American Philosophical Society, 112 Amos, Thyrsa, 341 Anderson, Marian, 34 Annals of the American Academy of Science, 15 Anne, Queen, 253, 254, 256–­258, 265 anti-­abolitionist mobs, 183–­184 Aptheker, Herbert, 29 Armstrong, Amzi, 149 Armstrong, Samuel, 213 Arnette, Alexa M., 30 Asbury Park, New Jersey, 208, 217 Association for Negro Life and History, 38, 39, 40 Atlantic City, New Jersey, 12, 219, 319 Avon Avenue Public Elementary School, 4 Baker, James, 213 Banishment Act of 1863, 298 baptism of Blacks, 254

Barbadoes, James G., 158 Barker, Peter, 108 Barringer (Newark) High School, 4, 5–­6 Bartley, John, 146 Bartram, Thomas, 105 Baskingridge, New Jersey, 141 Bass, John, 92 Bavid, Robert, 146 Bayard, Samuel, 285, 288 Beach, Abraham, 94 Beard, Mary Ritter, 2 Benezet, Anthony, 96–­99, 115, 122, 261 Bergen County, New Jersey, 130 Berkeley, John, 253 Birth of a Nation, 275 Black Bourgeoisie, The, 47. See also Frazier, E. Franklin Black conventions, 157–­158 Black Man in America, The, 60. See also Moss, James Allen Black schools in New Jersey, 163–­167; community support, 164, 173–­174; finances, 163, 167; Lancastrian Plan, 163; pedagogy, 165; protests over conditions, 201; student problems, 179–­181 Black voting in New Jersey, 171, 278–­323, 301; abolition of Black vote in 1807, 283; Blacks and women in early republic, 281, 282; drive to restore Black vote, 287–­289, 308–­311; opposition to Black vote after Civil War, 301–­303, 308–­312 Black women, 5, 13, 39, 63 Blake, Elias, 14 Blauvelt, W. W., 137 Blocent, Nathan, 146 Bloomfield, Joseph, 129, 263 Bond, Horace Mann, 30, 35, 38, 46. See also Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton Bond, Julian, 50 Bontemps, Arna, 34, 40–41 Bordentown Manual Training and Industrial School, 20, 35, 82, 89, 213–­214, 272, 276; state support for, 272

349

350 i n d e x Bordentown School, 166–­167 Boston, Massachusetts, 3 Bower, Arthur, 173 Boyd, John, 265 Brissot, Jean Pierre, 110, 115, 116, 121, 129 Brooklyn College, 31 Brooks, Gwendolyn, 34 Brown, Alexander, 289 Brown, Charles, 305 Brown, Esther, 338 Brown, Moses, 174 Brown, Sterling, 32 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 45–­47, 50, 51, 60. See also US Supreme Court Buck, Pearl, 334 Budd, Thomas, 151 Bulletin of the Friends Historical Society, 37 Bunche, Ralph, 19, 33–34, 36 Burlington County, New Jersey, 98, 99, 105–­106, 109, 162, 175, 210, 257, 282, 317 Burlington Society for the Instruction of Adult Colored Persons, 125, 126, 131–­133 Burrill, Clara, 212 Burrill, Mary, 21–22 Burton, H. A., 290 Bustard, Joseph L., 45–46, 316 Butler, D. D., 306–­307 Butter, Benjamin, 160 Callis, Myra Colson, 11 Camden, New Jersey, 170, 190–­193; schools, 190–­193, 196, 210–­211, 317 Campbell, Alfred, 297–­298 Carney, Mabel, 18, 38 Carpenter, Marie, 37 Carr, Robert L., 60 Carteret, Sir George, 253 Cascone, Jeanette L., 61 Cattel, Alexander G., 306 Catto, W. T., 290 Cazenove, Theophile, 114, 116 Cesar, Gustavus, 146 Chamberlain, Benjamin, 105 Cheevens, Julia Spain, 22 City College of New York, 44 Civil Rights Bill of 1866, 301 Civil War, 194, 271; recruitment of Black soldiers in New Jersey, 299 Clark, Hannah, 137 Clarke, Kenneth, 29, 48 Clarke, Mamie Phipps, 29 Cleaver, Eldridge, 60 Clement A. Price Institute of Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience, 62 College of New Jersey (Princeton University), 110, 111, 112; admission of Blacks in eighteenth century, 113 Color, 13. See also Cullen, Countee Colored American, 165 Colson, Edna, 37 Colt, Peter, 136

Colt, Sarah, 136 Columbia University, 17, 18, 19, 26. See also Teachers College of Columbia University Condict, John, 281–282 Congar, H. L., 306 Conkling, Roscoe, 302 Conover, Abraham, 305 Conover, Lewis, 290 Convention of Colored Men, 303, 305. See also National Equal Rights League Cook, Abraham T., 305 Cooke, Samuel, 94 Cooper, Anna Julia, 29, 62 Cooper, James, 125 Cooper, Paul, 125 Cooper, Thomas, 303 Cornbury, Lord (Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon), 256 Cornish, Samuel Eli, 160, 266 Crane, William, 281 Cromwell, John, 157–­158 Cullen, Countee, 13, 63 Cumberland County, New Jersey, 121 Curti, Merle, 26, 27, 30, 34–­35, 82 Cuthbert, Marion, 17, 29, 37 Daley, Marie Maynard, 29 Daniel, Theodora, 14, 40, 47, 51, 53, 56–­7 Daniel, Walter, 2, 14, 20–­21, 50, 53, 56, 57, 83 Davis, Angela, 2 Dawes, Samuel, 146, 148 Day, William, 303 Delta Theta Sigma, 11, 20, 26, 38, 40, 50; Vigilance Committee, 40 Democratic Party of New Jersey, 194–­195; opposition to Black rights, 195, 226, 270, 298–­303, 309–­310, 314 Dewey, Evelyn, 35 Dewey, John, 35 Dinah, 265 Dollard, John, 33–­36 Douglass, Frederick, 158, 301 Dover Township, New Jersey, 220 Drake, Thomas E., 36 Drayton, Henry, 159 Driver, Justin, 1–­2 Du Bois, W.E.B., 18, 19, 20, 27, 30, 34, 38–­39, 40, 44, 48, 63, 325–­326 Durkee, J. Stanley, 9–10 Dutch in New Jersey, 253 East Jersey, 253–­254 East Orange, New Jersey, 212 Edmonds, Helen G., 34 Education of Negroes in New Jersey, The, 1, 33, 34–­36, 81–­248; goals, 81–­82; organization, 87–­89. See also Wright, Marion Thompson Elizabeth Town, New Jersey (Elizabethtown), 138, 176, 199 Elizabeth Town Free School Association, 176 Ellis, Rowland, 93, 94 Ellis, William J., 277

i n d e x 351 Elmer, Lucius, 284–­285 Emancipation Proclamation, 298–­299; opposition in New Jersey, 298. See also Parker, Joel Emancipator, 166 Englewood, New Jersey, 202–­203, 223 enslaved people in New Jersey, 114–­116, 127; conditions of life, 114; hiring as term slaves, 131–­132; hiring of, 114–­115; occupations, 114; population (1790), 113–­114; population (1800), 126; punishments, 257, 258, 259. See also New Jersey: laws Ephrata, Pennsylvania, 136 Fairfield, New Jersey, 180 Fair Haven, New Jersey, 201, 227, 228, 271; school wars, 203–­208, 271–­272 Farmer, James, 50 Faucet, Redmon, 214 Federalist Party, 281, 282 Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, 310 Finley, Robert, 89, 141–­142, 265 First Congregational Church of Atlanta, 14, 42 Fisher, Charles, 214 Fisk, Clinton B., 207 Flemington, New Jersey, 137 Fordham University, 44 Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, 195, 300, 301 Francis, Abner, 160 Franklin, Aurelia, 34 Franklin, Benjamin, 124, 260 Franklin, John Hope, 30, 31, 32, 36, 42, 48, 51, 57 Franklin, William, 260 Frazier, E. Franklin, 20, 26, 34, 38, 47, 48, 63 free Blacks, 110–­113, 116–­122; education of, 119, 121, 168, 174; employment and wages, 116; free children of enslaved Blacks and schools, 167–­168; illegal sales of, 264–­265; laws restricting, 117, 262–­264; New Jersey population in 1790, 115; protection of, 266; vocational training, 130–­131. See also Gradual Emancipation Act in New Jersey Freed, J. K., 207 Freeman, A. N., 166 Freeman, Edwin, 303 Freylinghusen, Theodore, 160, 164, 309 Friends Historical Society, 39 fugitive enslaved people, 120 Garretson, Andrew, 213 Garrison, William Lloyd, 158, 159 Gassaway, Isaac, 306 Germantown Protest, 95–­96 Gloucester County, 196, 217 Gloucester County Abolition Society, 125 Goodell, William, 158 Gordon, William, 146 Gory, Benjamin, 174 Gould, Thomas G., 303 Gouldtown, 121 Gradual Emancipation Act in New Jersey, 127–­134, 263; attempts to repeal, 264; extensions of the law, 267, 269; provision on apprenticeships, 264

Graham, Shirley, 41 Granger, Lester, 217, 218, 223 Great Migration, 3 Green, Ashbel, 114, 166 Green, Beriah, 158 Greene, Beverley L., 29 Greene, Larry, 61 Greene, Lorenzo, 11, 26, 29, 30, 35, 42–­44 Greene, Thomasina Talley, 43 Gregory, Dick, 60 Gregory, James, 214 Griffith, Edward, 143, 144 Griffith, William, 132–­133 Griscom, John, 131 Gunther, Lenworth, 61 Gwynne, Robert, Jr., 211 Hackensack, New Jersey, 138 Hacker, Ludwig, 136 Haddonfield, New Jersey, 102–­103, 167 Haliday, Thomas, 92–93 Hall, Egerton, 220–­222, 232, 233 Halsey, Sharp, 265 Hamilton, Alexander, 136 Hamilton, Charles B., 60 Hamilton, William, 164 Harper, Mary, 205 Harris, Abram, Jr., 36, 51 Harris, Henry, 306 Harrison, Thomas E., 341 Hayes, Harriet, 341 Hayworth, Rita, 52 Height, Charles W., 309 Height, Dorothy, 40 Herbert, Mansfield, 289–­290 Hicks, Elias, 50, 56 Hillyer, Asa, 149 Himes, Chester B., 40, 327–­328 Hollister, Anne Forester, 60 Holloway, Mable, 12 Holmes, Dwight Oliver Wendell, 9, 15, 18, 82 Holmes, Isaac, 264 Holmes, Mary, 3 Holmes, Thomas, 3 Hopewell, New Jersey, 174 Hornblower, Joseph, 149, 268, 287 Horwood, Nathaniel, 93 Hoskins, John, 131 Howard University, 1, 2, 6, 9, 20–­22, 279, 341; chapel, 56; Department of Education, 2, 14, 29, 30, 32, 34; faculty, 30, 31, 49, 51; student composition, 9; student guidance, 40; student unrest, 9–­10; work, 31, 34, 40 Hubbard, Mansfield, 306 Hughes, Benjamin, 163–­164 Hughes, Langston, 11, 12, 13, 34, 63 Humanist Magazine, The, 59–­60 Humphreys, David, 91 Hunterdon County, New Jersey, 281, 282 Hunterdon County Democrat, 207 Hurston, Zora Neale, 9, 34

352 i n d e x Jackson, Luther Porter, 30, 330 Jacobs, Harriet, 5 James, Duke of York, 253 Jersey City, New Jersey, 177–­178, 198 Jim Crow, 3, 7, 39 Johnson, Amos H., 306 Johnson, Andrew, 301 Johnson, Charles S., 36 Johnson, Loraine, 34 Johnson, Lulu, 34 Johnson, Mordecai, 10, 13, 17, 18, 63; as president of Howard University, 10, 17, 21, 50, 63 Johnson, Ophelia Shields, 20 Johnson, Peter, 159, 174 Jones, Lois Maillou, 34 Jordan, Mark, 146 Journal of Educational Sociology, 45 Journal of Negro Education, 1, 18–­19, 36, 38, 44 Journal of Negro History, 1, 34, 36, 37, 38, 41, 45 Keith, George, 91 Kelley, William D., 301 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 60 Kosciuszko, Tadeusz, 27–­28, 38, 151–­154 Kosciuszko School, 150–­154, 226, 270; philosophy of, 15 Ku Klux Klan, 317 Kurtz, Paul, 59. See also Humanist Magazine, The La Rochefoucault, Liancourt De, 115, 116, 117 Larsen, Nella, 9. See also Passing Lear, Benjamin, 150–­153, 270 Lee, Susie Owen, 34 Lewis, Elsie, 34 Lewis, Gideon, 289 Liberia, 279, 298 Library of Congress, 32 Livingston, William, 261 Lloyd-­Jones, Esther, 341 Locke, Alaine, 32, 34 Locke, Ishmael, 290, 291 Lockhart, George R., 60 Logan, Rayford, 21, 30, 34, 51, 57 Long Branch, New Jersey, 201 Lowry, John, 305 Lundy, Benjamin, 158 Lynch, John, 214 Lynd, Robert Staughton, 55 Manola, Marion, 3 Martin, J. T., 3 Mason, John B., 3 Massachusetts, 119 McMullen, George, 290 Meeker, Nathaniel, 199 Mellick, Andrew, 114, 115, 136, 254. See also Story of an Old Farm, The Mendevel, Anthony, 305 Mercer County, New Jersey, 199–­200 Michael, Joseph, 146 Middlesex County, New Jersey, 265, 282

Middletown, Mrs. William, 166–­167 Midwest Journal, 43 Miller, Carroll J., 15, 50 Miller, Samuel, 147–­148, 265 Minor School (Washington, DC), 22 Miseducation of the Negro, The, 35 Monmouth County, New Jersey, 93, 173, 180, 201–­205 Monmouth Democrat, 207 Montclair, New Jersey, 4, 22–­23, 29, 38, 40, 223 Moody, Lulu, 8, 25 Moody, Willimae, 25 Moon, Bucklin, 329 Moore, Ruth E., 50 Moore, William, 306 Morgan State University, 9 Morris, Richard, 254 Morris, Robert, 91 Morris County, 130 Morristown, New Jersey, 136, 180, 270 Morse, Jedidiah, 134 Morse, Samuel, 134 Moss, Alison, 44, 53 Moss, James Allen (son of Marion Thompson Wright), 2, 4, 22, 30, 44, 47, 56, 57, 58; completion of doctorate, 47, 51; education of, 44, 47–­48, 55; marriage, 44, 48; military service, 44; publications, 59–­62; relations with mother, 26–­28, 31, 54, 57, 63; teaching career, 47–­48, 52–­53, 54–­55, 58–­59, 60 Moss, Jay, 44, 48, 53 Moss, Juanita Wright, 44, 48–­49, 56 Moss, Thelma Mae (daughter of Marion Thompson Wright), 2, 25, 44, 45, 49, 51, 53, 57, 58; education of, 55; relations with mother, 55 Moss, William Henry (first husband of Marion Thompson Wright), 2, 4–­6, 7, 25; childrearing, 7–­8, 25, 44 Motley, Willard, 40–41 Mount, John, 213 Mount Holly, New Jersey, 96, 196, 317 Mulford, Irene Pataquam, 196–­197 Mundy, Thomas Peterson, 271, 313, 314 National Alliance of Postal Employees, 24 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 17, 25, 40, 46–­47; Legal Defense Fund, 46 National Association of Education, 39, 41 National Council (Association) of College Women, 11, 39, 40, 44, 342 National Equal Rights League, 303–­305; New Jersey branch and statement, 303–­305 National Library Association, 40 Neau, Elias, 92 Ned, 265 Negro College Quarterly, 339 Negro Convention Movement, 158, 285–­286; critique of New Jersey laws, 286–­287; petitions, 288–­290, 294–­296, 297; resolutions, 290 Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton, 35. See also Bond, Horace Mann

i n d e x 353 Negro Family in the United States, The, 26. See also Frazier, E. Franklin Negro Travelers’ Green Book, 39 Neil, William H., 305 Newark, New Jersey, 2–­3, 17, 50; connections with southern slavery, 267; housing conditions in, 5, 18; occupations in, 4, 7, 18; riots, 159, 267; schools in, 4, 159, 163, 177, 196–­199 Newark Department of Welfare, 18 Newark Journal, 301 Newark Juvenile Anti-­Slavery Society, 159 Newark Sunday School, 137–­138 Newbold, Thomas, 131 New Brunswick, New Jersey, 159; convention in, 158; protests, 202; school for Blacks, 166, 202, 211, 213 Newell, W. A., 306 New Jersey: Black population in 1880, 200; civil rights of New Jersey, 274; Commission on Urban Colored Population (1938), 275–­276; Constitution of 1776, 280; Constitution of 1844, 171, 313; Constitution of 1947, 278, 279; employment laws, 275; enslaved people in, 113–­114, 268; establishment of Black infantry, 274; history of, 87–­89, 91, 253–­254; law of 1846 ending slavery, 268; laws, 81, 83–­84, 92, 115, 117, 120, 128, 180, 201–­210, 219, 228, 251–­277; laws ending segregation of schools, 321; laws freeing enslaved people, 261, 262, 266, 267; laws protecting Blacks, 272–­274; laws regarding Enslaved people, 254–­260; pedagogy, 138; schools for Blacks, 119, 134–­140, 206–­211 New Jersey Colonization Society, 266, 288. See also American Colonization Society New Jersey Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 272 New Jersey Division against Discrimination (DAD), 46, 316, 318, 320 New Jersey Emergency Relief Administration, 18, 27 New Jersey Herald News, 41–­42, 43, 279 New Jersey Historical Society, 39 New Jersey Society for the Promotion of Abolition of Slavery, 117, 120–­121, 123–­134; formation, 124, 262; gradual emancipation drive, 127–­128; statewide membership, 125–­126 New School for Social Research, 44 Newsome, A. Ray, 30 New York City, 4, 19 New York School for Social Work, 19–­20 Notable American Women, 52. See also Wright, Marion Thompson O’Fake, John, 305 Ogden, Anna, 178 Palmer, Selma White, 14 Parker, Joel, 298–­300 Parsippany, New Jersey School for Blacks, 142–­151, 226, 265; sermons at school, 142 Passing, 9 Paterson, New Jersey, 130–­131, 136, 178, 198, 222 Pennington, William, 146, 148, 168, 281 Pennsgrove, New Jersey, 219–­220

Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Abolition, 106–­109, 124, 262; constitution, 124; freedom cases, 123–­124 Pepper, Calvin, 305 Pepperdine University, 63 Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 174, 271 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 151–­152 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 123, 125, 134, 170 Philadelphia Society for the Instruction of Adult Colored Persons, 170, 190 Phillips, Wendell, 306 Phillis Wheatley House, University of Minnesota, 44 Pierson, John, 93–­94 Pittsburgh Courier, 12 Plymouth Congregational Church, Washington, DC, 50 Port Royal, Virginia, 3, 25 Powell, W. F., 210 Presbyterians, 110, 225, 304; in education of Blacks, 110–­112, 121, 136, 137, 142, 145; support for American Colonization Society, 142, 145 Price, Clement, 2, 61 Princeton, New Jersey, 44, 317 Princeton Theological Seminary, 147, 161, 265, 285 Princeton University, 6, 12 Prudential Insurance Company of Newark, 27 public schools in New Jersey, 171–­173, 226–­228; effects of segregation, 232–­236; ending segregation, 315–­321; finances, 177; integrated public schools, 173–­175, 178, 196–­199; involuntary segregation, 177–­179, 188, 196, 198, 202–­203, 221–­224; pedagogy, 175; religious support for, 173, 208; separate public schools for Blacks, 166–­167, 171, 174–­178, 207–­210, 217–­219, 223; student numbers (1847–­1860), 181–­189 Purvis, Robert, 158 Quamine, John, 113 Quinpartite Deed of 1676, 88, 253 Rahway, New Jersey, 172, 211–­212, 270 Raikes, Robert, 135 Randolph, John, 214 Randolph, J. Oliver, 278, 279 Randolph, Theodore Fitz, 312 Ray, Abram, 305 Ray, Adam, 156 Ray, Elias, 305 Reason, Charles Lewis, 330 Reeve, Josiah, 131 Reformed Church of America (Dutch Reformed), 225; refusal to baptize enslaved Blacks, 90–­91; support for American Colonization Society, 142 Republican Party, 195, 298–­300, 306–­314 Revolutionary War, 260–­261 Rice, E. Mount, 213 Rice, Walter A., 213, 214, 272 Richmond, Virginia, 3 Roberts, I. M., 174 Robeson, Eslanda, 334 Robeson, Paul, 44 Rock, John S., 41, 289, 292, 297, 298; speech by, 292–­294

354 i n d e x Rockefeller Fund, 41 Rogers, Andrew, 302 Rogers, Miller, 305 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 18 Roots, Jerry, 25 Rosenwald Fund, 41 Rowley, Margaret, 34 Royal African Company, 256 Runyon, Theodore, 194–­195 Rutgers University-­Newark, 49 Sabin, Sarah, 61 Sag Harbor, New York, 56 Salem County, New Jersey, 93, 101, 104, 167, 174, 175, 211, 219, 288, 317 Sam, 265 Sampson, John, 213 Scattergood, Joseph, 108 School Custodian’s Housekeeping Handbook, The, 337–­338 Schools and Society, 37 Seaton, D. P., 303 Sentinel of Freedom (Newark), 139, 150, 163, 266, 298, 299 Sharp, Samuel, Jr., 173 Shields, Leonard, 289 Shreve, George, 290 Slowe, Fannie Potter, 341 Slowe, Henry, 341 Slowe, Lucy Diggs, 1, 10, 12–­14, 15, 21–­22, 51, 63; encyclopedia entry on, 341–­342; as mentor to Marion Thompson Wright, 10, 13–­14, 18, 22–­23, 29, 57 Smith, Gerrit, 158 Smith, Kendall, 173 Smith, Lillian, 41 Smith, L. S., 164 Smith, Matthias, 136 Smith, Ralph, 174 Smith, Robert, 131 Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 110, 112; on education of Blacks, 112–­113 Smythe, Mabel, 46 Snow Hill, New Jersey, 175 Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, 136 Society for the Advancement of Education, 39 Society for the Free Introduction of Orderly Blacks, 105–­6. See also Society of Friends Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), 90–­94, 173; anxieties over French and Spanish, 92; on baptism of enslaved people, 91–­93, 256–­257; impact, 94; instructions, 92–­93 Society of Friends, 87–­88, 95–­109, 131, 225, 227, 253, 281; abolition of slavery among, 95–­99, 259, 261–­262; adult education, 104–­106, 170; education of Black people, 99–­105, 172; funding education of Black people, 102–­104, 270; instructions on education, 101–­102 Stevens, David, 289 Steward, Robert, 289 Steward, Theophilus, 121 Steward, William, 121 Stewart, Alvin, 269 Stewart, Benjamin, 290

Still, James, 162–­163 Stives, William, 160 Stockton, Betsy, 166 Stokes, Thomas, 125 Stone, Lucy, 306 Story of an Old Farm, The, 114–­115 Stuckey, P. Sterling, 61–­62 Sturge, Joseph, 161 Sturtevant, Sarah, 341 Sumner, William, 306 Sunday schools for Blacks, 135–­140, 180, 283; numbers of pupils, 139–­140, 180; pedagogy, 139 Swedes in New Jersey, 253 Syracuse, New York, 303 Tabary, Celine Marie, 34 Talbot, John, 91, 92 Tappan, Arthur, 158 Tappan, Lewis, 158, 161 Tate, Merze, 39 Taylor, Frances, 20 Teachers College of Columbia University, 18, 341 Thirteenth Amendment to US Constitution, 3, 195, 271; rejection in New Jersey, 195, 271 Thomas, Robert, 290 Thompson, Arnold, 3, 25 Thompson, Charles, 15, 18, 29, 38, 82 Thompson, Charles H., 3, 305 Thompson, Gladys (Roots), 3, 25, 56, 62 Thompson, Jonathan, 3 Thompson, Mary F., 3 Thompson, Minnie B. Holmes (mother of Marion Thompson Wright), 2, 3, 4, 7, 23, 29, 42, 45, 46 Thompson, Moses B., 2–­3, 46 Thompson, Nellie, 3, 25, 56, 62 Thompson, Sophia A., 3, 25 Thompson, Thelma Mae, 3, 4 Thompson, Thomas, 93 Till, Anthony, 173 Titus, James, 306 Tobias, Channing, 22 Tolson, Melvin, 34 Tomkins, Jacob, 105 Treadwell, Samuel, 148 Trenholm, George Washington, 34, 38 Trenton, New Jersey, 220, 298 Trenton Association for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery, 127 Trenton Common School, 167 Trenton First Day School, 135 True American (Trenton), 301 Turner, Henry, 213 Underground Railroad, 158 Upshur, Peter, 145 Urban League, 40 US Supreme Court, 47 Valentine, William, 20, 35 Vermont, 3 Virginia, 17

i n d e x 355 Walker, Mary, 5 Washington, Booker T., 158, 213, 272 Washington, DC, 10–­11, 13; Black women’s clubs, 13; intellectual life of, 36; occupations in, 11–­12; segregation, 32; social life in, 11, 13, 39; status markers in, 13 Washington Evening Star, 52 Weary Blues, The, 13 Weeks, W. R., 267 Wells, Murray, 289 Wesley, Charles, 27, 30, 280 Wesley, Dorothy Porter, 34, 37, 83, 161 West Jersey, 281 West Orange, New Jersey, 3 White, John, 214 Whitehead, Colson, 56 Whitehead, John, 305 Wilkerson, Yolanda, 335 Wilkinson, Fred D., 9 Williams, Benjamin, 207 Williams, Eric, 34 Williams, Peter, 261 Winterbotham, William, 119, 120 Witherspoon, John, 110–­111, 114 Woodlin, Joshua, 289–291 Woodson, Carter, 35, 36–­37 Woolman, John, 96–98, 162, 261 Worth, Elizabeth, 3 Worth, William, 3 Wright, Arthur (second husband of Marion Thompson Wright), 14, 17, 22, 24–­25, 29, 42, 51, 56, 57, 58

Wright, Bruce, 44 Wright, Giles, 2 Wright, John Clarence, 14, 42 Wright, Marion Thompson: articles by, 37, 40–­41, 52, 70n57, 251–­342; battle over estate, 57–­59; biography of Lucy Diggs Slowe, 51–­52; birth and early life, 2–­3; book review editor, 38, 40; burial, 56; career at Howard University, 2, 10–­11, 15–­17, 29, 34, 38–­40, 45, 47, 52; collection of papers, 63; correspondence with family, 7–­8, 25–­26, 30–­31, 48–­49, 54–­56; critical commentary on, 2; dissembling, 11–­12, 49–­50; divorce from William Moss, 5, 7–­9; divorce from Arthur Wright, 42, 44, 45; graduation from Barringer High School, 6; graduation from Columbia University, 29; graduation from Howard University, 15, 16; graduation from New York School for Social Work, 20; guidance work, 14, 40, 43; homes, 4, 17–­18, 23–­24, 29, 40, 42, 45, 49, 55, 57–­58; importance of work, 1, 62; lectureship, 2, 61–­63; marriages, 4, 17; possessions, 50, 57; suicide, 53, 56; work outside academia, 18 Wright, Nathan, Jr., 60 Wright, Theodore, 160, 161, 266 Wright, William, 195, 301 Yamma, Bristol, 113 Yerby, Frank, 41 Young, Whitney, 60 Youngblood, James, 205, 212 Zinn, Howard, 60

About the Contributors

Marion Thompson Wright (1902–­1962) was a professor of education at Howard University. She is the author of The Education of Negroes in New Jersey (Teachers College Press, 1941). Graham Russell Gao Hodges is the George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of History and Africana and Latin American studies at Colgate University. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1660–­1870; Root & Branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613–­1863; and Black New Jersey (Rutgers University Press).