Chalkboard Champions continues to spotlight outstanding African American educators. Today we focus on Comfort Baker, an orphan from North Carolina who became a teacher in Arkansas and Texas. Her story is one of commitment, resilience, and perseverance.

Comfort was born in New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina, in circa 1869. Sadly, the child became an orphan at the age of 13, and so she was sent to Omaha, Nebraska, to live with an aunt and uncle. When she was 15, Comfort enrolled at Omaha High School. Unfortunately, the same year her uncle also passed away, and her aunt became confined to a mental hospital.

Faced with the necessity of supporting herself, Comfort secured a job as a domestic in the household of Watson B. Smith. In 1889, after three years of hard work, Comfort finally graduated from high school. She was the first African American student to graduate from high school in Omaha, Nebraska.

Following her high school graduation, Comfort enrolled in Fisk University, a historically Black university located in Nashville, Tennessee. She was able to attend college with the financial assistance of Belle H. Lewis, a high school teacher in Omaha. Comfort earned her diploma from Fisk in 1893.

Comfort accepted her first position when she became a summer school teacher in Newport, Jackson County, Arkansas, but by 1896 she was teaching in the town of Corsicana in Navarro County, Texas, and by 1905, she was teaching in Gainesville, Cooke County, Texas. During her career as an educator, she served as a principal of an African American school. She was published numerous articles to the Omaha newspaper, The Enterprise.

This month, we honor the life and career of teacher Comfort Baker.