Many excellent classroom teachers work diligently to better the lives of others in their community. One of these was Margaret McCulloch, a New Jersey teacher who earned a name for herself as an author, activist, and philanthropist.
Margaret was born on Jan. 16, 1901, in Orange, New Jersey. As a teenager, she graduated from the Beard School, which is known today as the Morristown-Beard School. That was in 1919. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1923. While there, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest honor society in the United States. She earned her Master’s degree in History from the University of North Carolina. She also completed graduate courses at Columbia Teachers College. and the University of Virginia.
Once she earned her degrees, Margaret launched her career as an educator by returning to her alma mater, the Beard School, where she taught for two years. For the next nine years, she taught at the Penn School, a Quaker school for African American students located on St. Helena Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Then she accepted a position as a professor of history and sociology at LeMoyne College, a historical Black college. She also taught at Fisk University, another historically Black college located in Nashville, Tennessee. While at Fisk, Margaret assisted socialist Charles S. Johnson publish an important study on racial integration.
Margaret wrote several scholarly books and articles on race relations and segregation. Her most well-known books include Segregation, a Challenge to Democracy and Integration: Promise, Process, Problems. She also wrote two biographies. The first was The Work of Dorothea Lynde Dix for the Insane, 1841-1861, published in 1933. The second was Fearless Advocate of the Right: The Life of Francis Julius Lemoyne, M.D. (1798-1879), published in 1941.
In 1948, Margaret moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she immersed herself in trying to improve the lives of African American residents. She was active in the Community Council of the Memphis Welfare Federation Memphis and the first Black chapter of the League of Women Voters.
In Nov., 1962, Margaret addressed the South Carolina Council on Human Relations. In her speech, she talked about segregation and desegregation, offering causes and solutions to the ongoing racial problems in the South and imploring her audience to understand the complexities that race relations entail. Later she worked for the Department of Race Relations of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, and she founded the Opportunity Foundation Corporation, which provided financial support to educational, health, and social services in Memphis.
Sadly, Margaret passed away on March 8, 1996. She was 95 years old. Her papers, including articles, speeches, and correspondences, are housed at the The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
