Doing the Next Needed Thing

Jeanes teachers were named as such because they were funded by Anna Jeanes. The first Jeanes supervising teacher, Virginia Estelle Randolph of Henrico County, Virginia, set the standard for those who followed. Before becoming a Jeanes teacher, she had worked tirelessly to improve conditions in her school and community and had been made supervisor of all the Black schools in the district because of her exceptional performance. In 1908, the Henrico County school superintendent asked the Jeanes Fund to provide money for Mrs. Randolph’s salary.

At the end of her first year as a Jeanes teacher, the Fund’s board was so impressed with Mrs. Randolph’s accomplishments that they printed one thousand copies of her year-end report and mailed it to county superintendents throughout the South. Soon the Jeanes Fund was receiving requests from other county superintendents who wanted their own Jeanes supervising teacher. By 1909-1910, 129 Jeanes teachers were operating in thirteen Southern states.

The Jeanes supervising teachers often began with little more than a teacher and a school building — sometimes not even those. They had a missionary mentality, crusading tirelessly to improve conditions for their communities. Besides functioning as superintendent for the Black schools, Jeanes teachers worked to improve public health, living conditions, and teacher training, started self-improvement and canning clubs, and truly did whatever was most needed in the community. The Jeanes teachers’ informal motto was to do “the next needed thing.”

That this work was done in the South during the Jim Crow era, a time when any action by the Black community to better itself might be met with harsh suspicion — or violence — by the dominant white community, is nothing short of astonishing.

Before Rosenwald Schools and Jeanes Teachers

The modern era of public education in North Carolina dates back to the administration of Democratic Governor Charles Aycock from 1901-1905. Aycock's laudable advocacy of public school improvement is tainted by his troubling motivation, namely the solidification of white supremacy in the state. Just a few years before, in 1898, Democratic white supremacists had violently overthrown the biracial city government of Wilmington, North Carolina, with the support of Aycock, party leader and future senator Furnifold Simmons, and Raleigh News and Observer editor Josephus Daniels.

This campaign of hate came to Durham in July 1900. Ninth Street witnessed a parade with sixteen “lovely young ladies” riding on a white float pulled by white horses. Banners on the sides of the float read, “Protect Us with Your Vote.” Following the float, the West Durham White Supremacy Club, 300-strong, marched in formation.

The parade ended in a rally in Erwin Park where over a thousand people listened to Democratic politicians stir up racial fears and hatred. Democrats campaigned in support of an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution that would effectively disenfranchise Black voters — finishing the process that had begun in 1898 — and promised to improve the dismal state of public schools, linking the campaign for white supremacy and the improvement of public schools from the start.

In a cold and calculating way, the “progressive,” racially “moderate” education reformers of North Carolina viewed the reestablishment of white rule as a necessary step in their campaign for improving public schools.

Building Better Schools, But Not For Everyone

This improvement campaign was focused on bettering schools for white people, with the goals of providing North Carolina with graded public schools, certified teachers, longer school terms, and a focus on practical (not classical) education. These goals required consolidating many small community schools into larger schools.

The desire for parents to have their children in neighborhood schools is not new, and across the state many parents, Black and white, resisted consolidation efforts. Durham was no exception. In 1903, C. W. Massey, superintendent of the Durham County School Board, wrote the following in his annual report:

This notion of multiplying school houses was preached in every community until at least every community had a school house, or rather in many instances, a school cabin... These schools were very convenient and very worthless... Before good schools could be built, these conditions had to be changed.

Consolidation efforts did not extend to Black schools. It was common for schools no longer deemed fit for white students to be “recycled” into schools for Black students. This was accomplished in two ways: by making the old white school a “new” Black school or by tearing down the white school and rebuilding it in a different location as a new and usually smaller Black school.

The number of Black schools stayed relatively constant from 1900 to 1930, as seen in the graph below. (One asterisk (*) indicates it is unclear whether the school operated. Two asteriks (**) indicates the school lacked teachers and funds.)

Sources:

1. Annual Report of the Public Schools of Durham County, July 1, 1902 to June 30, 1903.
2. Durham School Board Minutes, July 4, 1905; July 6, 1910; July 6, 1915; July 5, 1920; July 1, 1925; November 21, 1930.

Arrival of Jeanes Teachers in North Carolina

While the superintendent of schools and school board made decisions on consolidation, every school had a committee of three men responsible for daily operations, including hiring and firing teachers.

Beginning in 1904, Black schools were placed under the control of committeemen who also had responsibility for white schools. With the Black committeemen gone, African Americans possessed no formal authority over their schools or who would teach in them.

Despite this setback, Black teachers and parents worked to improve their schools.

In 1915, Dr. Aaron Moore, a physician, successful businessman, and community leader, wrote a tract called Negro Rural School Problem. Condition-Remedy and began campaigning for an independent state inspector of Black schools who could work to improve conditions. He also wrote to James Joyner, state superintendent of public instruction, about Julius Rosenwald’s interest in expanding his school building efforts into North Carolina, and to ask Joyner to actively pursue school funding from both Rosenwald and Jeanes funds.

Dr. Moore had an ally at the state level. In 1913, Nathan C. Newbold, a white man who was paid by Jeanes and General Education Board funds, became the associate supervisor of rural education in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh. He began to lobby county superintendents to hire their own Jeanes supervising teachers.

Within two years, North Carolina had thirty-six Jeanes supervising teachers — more than any other state.

Frank Husband and Rosenwald Funds in Durham County

Supported by Nathan C. Newbold and due to the continued lobbying of the Black community which was led by Dr. Aaron Moore, the Durham County Board of Education finally asked for a Jeanes supervising teacher.

Durham County’s first Jeanes supervisor, Frank Husband, was hired in June 1915 to address the dismal conditions of Black schools in Durham County. Husband, an experienced local teacher, quickly began work on school improvements, including building a Julius Rosenwald-funded school for the Rougemont community, where local clergyman Reverend William Smith had already been raising funds.

During his short tenure as Jeanes supervisor, which lasted through the spring of 1917, Husband appears to have fought a battle against the county school board’s inactivity. The school would not be completed until 1919, four years after it was begun and after Husband had left the position of supervisor. Perhaps Mr. Husband had pushed too hard for the Rosenwald funds for the Rougemont School and had angered the superintendent or school board, because his contract was not renewed.

In March 1917, Mattie Day replaced Husband as Jeanes supervising teacher for Durham County.

Mattie Day’s Leadership Amid War and Pandemic

As Frank Husband and the Black community of Durham County were beginning the fight to build better schools for their children, the United States was entering World War I. The question of whether the country had enough food to feed itself while sustaining the war effort was serious and gaining urgency.

Before accepting the position of Jeanes supervising teacher in 1917, Mattie Day was running Durham County’s canning clubs, which provided local communities with information on how best to grow and can their own food. Nathan Newbold knew of her work and recommended her to replace Frank Husband. Ms. Day continued to work with the canning clubs, and soon another critical activity was added to her duties.

During Day’s second year as supervisor in 1918, Durham faced the Spanish flu pandemic, which was sweeping the world and would eventually kill at least fifty million people worldwide. Although the city and county schools were closed for six weeks, teachers who participated in efforts to contain the disease continued to be paid their salaries. Ms. Day, Mr. Husband (who had returned to being a classroom teacher), and many other teachers worked with Mrs. Julia Latta, Durham County Health Department’s first Black nurse, to fight the pandemic.

Very little of Ms. Day’s work is known, as none of the four required copies of her monthly and yearly reports survive. She helped the community get Rosenwald funding for new schools, and four were built during her tenure. The Rougemont school was finished, along with the Walltown, Hickstown, and Lyon Park (Cemetery) schools.

In June 1923, the new school superintendent, John Carr, proposed that the county hire a supervisor of home economics for the Black schools, and he recommended Ms. Day for the position. Although the white schools had long had a supervisor for home economics, the Durham Morning Herald stressed that this was “a progressive step in negro education in Durham County. Each year Durham will be supplied with better trained cooks, servants, and housekeepers.” It is doubtful Ms. Day viewed her goals in the same way the Herald did.

Carrie Jordan Builds Community Pride Through Education

The Board selected Mrs. Carrie T. Jordan as the new Jeanes supervisor for the coming school year. Mrs. Jordan was from a family with deep commitments to African American education. Her father was Reverand Lawrence Thomas, pastor of Big Bethel AME Church (the oldest African American church in Atlanta) and a founder of Morris Brown College.

Mrs. Jordan graduated from Morris Brown and had been a teacher and principal in the Atlanta school system. She moved to Durham with her husband, Dr. Dock Jackson Jordan, who would teach at North Carolina Central University (then called National Training School). Before accepting the Jeanes position at fifty-three years old, Mrs. Jordan had taught at Hillside Park School.

She was a highly skilled and progressive educator. In her 1923-1924 annual report, she followed the direction of the superintendent of schools, emphasizing spelling, geography, and nature study. In her report, she relates how she “added life and interest to school.”

Mrs. Jordan wrote, “We found many of the school houses in such poor condition that they were really unfit for use, and efforts were made to replace some of the worst ones with new buildings.” Much of her formidable energy was spent raising funds and organizing for new schools. She was responsible for the addition of twelve Rosenwald schools, including Hampton, Pearsontown, Union, Mill Grove, Lillian, Rocky Knoll, and Sylvan. She worked on Bahama, Peaksville, Russell, Bragtown, and Woods, which would be completed over the summer of 1926.

Besides working for new schools, Mrs. Jordan began a new tradition for Durham County’s African American schools — a county-wide commencement. At these commencements, the Black community gathered and celebrated. Dr. Valinda W. Littlefield wrote that the commencements “demonstrated the ability to overcome great odds with little financial and material support from the local and state educational establishments,” and were a way to prove how much African Americans valued education. She noted that academic achievement was proof of Black potential and equality.

Thousands of Black people gathering to celebrate the achievements of their children was an empowering event. Mrs. Jordan held contests for students in different areas of the county to find the students who would compete in contests at the county commencement at Durham State Normal School, exposing the best and brightest of the county students to the world of higher education and encouraging them to believe that they could achieve great things.

Despite this record of achievement, Mrs. Jordan declined to continue as the Jeanes supervising teacher at the end of the 1926 school year.

Gertrude Tandy Taylor and the Final Rosenwald Schools

In September 1926, twenty-six-year-old Mrs. Gertrude Tandy Taylor began work as the new Jeanes teacher for Durham County.

She had been a teacher in the Mill Grove Colored School before her promotion. A graduate of Livingstone College, she would go on to earn a B.S. in education from Ohio State University and an M.A. from the University of Michigan. Her husband, Dr. James T. Taylor, taught at Durham State Normal School from 1926-1960. Mrs. Taylor worked as the Durham Jeanes supervising teacher for almost twenty years under Superintendent Luther H. Barbour, and she returned to teaching after she left the position.

During Mrs. Taylor’s first year, the East Durham, Hickstown, Lyon’s Park, and Walltown schools became city schools, and the county lost 3,000 students. Most of Durham County’s African American children were now in city schools, with 36% or 800 students remaining in the county schools.

The students who switched to the city schools were automatically able to attend Hillside Park High School. County students had to apply to attend the school, which was the only Black high school in the entire city and county. (Hillside has the distinction of being the first Black high school in the state to receive a class A rating.)

The county schools were notified when Mr. Julius Rosenwald visited Durham in 1928 on his way to Raleigh to celebrate the completion of the four-thousandth Rosenwald school. When Mr. Rosenwald toured some of the sixteen Rosenwald schools in Durham, Mrs. Taylor must have been one of the “local people anxious to entertain Mr. Rosenwald and show their appreciation.”

Disasters helped Mrs. Taylor and the local communities build the last two Rosenwald schools in Durham County. In March of 1929, a fire destroyed the 1924 Rosenwald school at Pearsontown. In August that year, a windstorm destroyed the Page School. The county applied for and received Rosenwald funds and both buildings were completed in 1930.

Working with a school board that was not very interested in Black education, Mrs. Taylor, her predecessors, and the Black communities built a total of eighteen Rosenwald schools. From 1921 to March 1929, Durham County received $3,530 from the Jeanes Fund. During that time, Ms. Day, Mrs. Jordan, and Mrs. Taylor raised a total of $5,964.88. A paper from the Division of Negro Education reported:

These monies indicate the amount raised from private donations through the efforts of the Durham Jeanes Supervisors. Practically all of this money has been given by the Negro people and applied on construction of buildings, equipment and supplies.

Durham’s Rosenwald building program was completed just before the beginning of the Great Depression. Mrs. Taylor continued to work to improve the schools of Durham and the lives of her students. In her December 1930 report, she told of visiting all the schools and raising $121.33. Raising money during difficult times and encouraging generosity in a time of scarcity, Mrs. Taylor ended her report on a poignant note:

Many children brought clothes and food for the poor in their community. Old dolls and toys were repaired and given away. Most of the presents on the Christmas tree were made by the children. The supervisor was given a lovely vase made from a pickle jar, the inside lining of last year’s envelopes, red paint and shellac.

First-Class Teachers

The Jeanes supervisors and the African American teachers of Durham County worked with what they had to make the lives of their students, parents, and communities the best they could be in the context of a legally-entrenched inequality. Just as important, they taught a doctrine of self-improvement, hope for the future, and racial pride. They acknowledged Black achievement in yearly celebrations and small daily victories. As the Jeanes supervisors built schools and community organizations, they knew their work was a political act in the Jim Crow South.

The Jeanes supervisors and their teachers believed in their ability to reach their students, and they believed their students could achieve great things. Working under many hardships, Black educators had to compensate for the lack of modern schools, textbooks, and equipment with their vision and dedication. They all did “the next needed thing.”

It has long been the conventional wisdom to think of the Jim Crow schools as a case study for second-class education. While the physical conditions of the schools and equipment were in all ways second-class, the teachers were not. Led by the Jeanes supervising teachers, the teachers of Durham’s Rosenwald schools provided the foundation for the next generations who were to lead the long fight for civil rights.