Chloe Merrick Reed: She taught newly-liberated African Americans

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Chloe

Intrepid teacher Chloe Merrick Reed travelled from New York to Florida to teach children of newly-liberated African Americans. Photo Credit: Public Domain

In times of social and political turbulence, it is often the teachers who help with transition. Such is the case for Chloe Merrick Reed, a teacher from the Civil War period who opened a school for newly emancipated slaves.

Chloe was born in Syracuse, New York, on April 18, 1832. She became a teacher in Syracuse public schools, where she worked from 1854 to 1856. In 1863, while the Civil War was still raging, this intrepid teacher traveled to Fernandina, Florida, where she opened a school on Amelia Island to educate 55 of the children of slaves who had been liberated by the Union Army. Later she opened a home for orphans there. She was one of the first teachers to work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency that was established to protect and assist newly-emancipated African Americans. Chloe’s work on Amelia Island is well documented. She is the only educator cited by name in Florida’s monthly education reports to the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.

On August 10, 1869, Chloe married Harrison M. Reed, who served as the governor of Florida from 1868 to 1873. Reed was the ninth governor of the state. While First Lady of Florida, Chloe campaigned for legislation that would improve education, provide aid to the poor, and address other pressing social issues. The couple had one child, a boy they named Harrison Merrick Reed.

Chloe Merrick Reed passed away on August, 5, 1897. In 2000, this remarkable teacher’s name was added to the list of “Great Floridians,” a program which recognizes men and women who served their state through philanthropy, public service, or personal or professional service, and who have enhanced the lives of Florida’s citizens.

Teacher and musician Zitkala Sa was also a political activist

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Teacher and musician Zitkala Sa, also known as Red Bird, was also a political activist. Photo Credit: National Park Service

It’s Women’s History Month, so today I would like to introduce you to one of the most amazing Chalkboard Champions and political activists in American history. She is Native American Zitkala Sa, whose Indian name translated means Red Bird.

This remarkable educator was born on February 22, 1876, on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her father, an American of European descent, abandoned his family, leaving his young daughter to be raised alone by her Native American mother. Despite her father’s absence, Zitkala Sa described her childhood on the reservation as a time of freedom and joy spent in the loving care of her tribe.

In 1884, when she was just eight years old, missionaries visited the reservation and removed several of the Native American children, including Zitkala Sa, to Wabash, Indiana. There she was enrolled in White’s Manual Labor Institute, a school founded by Quaker Josiah White for the purpose of educating “poor children, white, colored, and Indian.” She attended the school for three years until 1887, later describing her life there in detail in her autobiography The School Days of an Indian Girl. In the book she described her despair over having been separated from her family, and having her heritage stripped from her as she was forced to give up her native language, clothing, and religious practices. She was also forced to cut her long hair, a symbolic act of shame among Native Americans. Her deep emotional pain, however, was somewhat brightened by the joy and exhilaration she felt in learning to read, write, and play the violin. During these years, Zitkala Sa became an accomplished musician.

After completing her secondary education in 1895, the young graduate enrolled at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, on a scholarship. The move was an unusual one, because at that time higher education for women was not common. In 1899, Zitkala Sa accepted a position as a music teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Here she became an important role model for Native American children who, like herself, had been separated from their families and relocated far from their home reservations to attend an Indian boarding school. In 1900, the young teacher escorted some of her students to the Paris Exposition in France, where she played her violin in public performances by the school band. After she returned to the Carlisle School, Zitkala Sa became embroiled in a conflict with the Carlisle’s founder, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, when she expressed resentment over the rigid program of assimilation into the dominant white culture that Pratt advocated, and the fact that the school’s curriculum did not encourage Native American children to aspire to anything beyond lives spent as manual laborers.

After that, as a political activist, Zitkala Sa devoted her energy and talent towards the improvement of the lives of her fellow Native Americans. The former teacher founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926 and served as its president until her death in 1938. She traveled around the country delivering speeches on controversial issues such as Native American enfranchisement, their full citizenship, Indian military service in World War I, corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the apportionment of tribal lands. In 1997 she was selected as a Women’s History Month Honoree by the National Women’s History Project.

Zitkala Sa: a national treasure and a genuine Chalkboard Champion.

You can read more about the Carlisle Indian School in my book, Chalkboard Champions, available from amazon.

March is Women’s History Month

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Throughout the month of March, teachers all over the country will be celebrating Women’s History Month with their students. The annual observance features women’s contributions to history, culture, and society, and has been celebrated in the United States since 1987. Here’s a list of some resources and materials teachers might want to examine for inclusion in their Women’s History Month lessons.

The National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) provides many resources for Women’s History Month, such as articles, online exhibits, virtual field trips, and classroom resources. You can also find information about women history makers and biographies at this site.

Have a look at the teaching resources available at Scholastic.com. On this site teachers can find women’s history month articles, book lists, lesson plans, and online activities for grades K-12.

Some of the resources available at www.history.com include background information on the annual observance, and photo galleries of important women figures in history, divided into such categories as women in politics, sports, the arts, and science, There is also a dandy timeline of milestones in women’s history, a list of famous firsts in women’s history, information about women’s suffrage, and more.

Take a look at the website www.womenshistory.gov, which is currently offering online exhibitions about women’s suffrage, Rosa Parks, Native American women artists, and more. The website is supported by the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Gallery of Art, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Still need more? Here’s a list of additional resources compiled by Edutopia, an offshoot of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. Includes links to websites that offer lesson plans, printables, digital exhibits, primary sources, and STEM materials.

Enjoy!

Teacher Irma Dixon also served in the Maryland General Assembly

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Elementary teacher Irma George Dixon served in the Maryland General Assembly, one of the first two African American women to be elected to the body. Photo Credit: Maryland Archives

During Black History Month, we recognize the accomplishments of the many African American educators who have made significant contributions to our nation’s education system. One of these was Irma George Dixon, a public schoolteacher who was one of the first two African American women to be elected to the Maryland General Assembly.

Irma George was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1911, and she was raised there. After her graduation from public schools in her home city, she attended Coppin Normal School in Maryland before earning her Bachelor’s degree in English at Morgan State College, also located in Baltimore.

Once she earned her degree, Irma inaugurated her career as an educator in Baltimore public schools, where she taught elementary and junior high school for 15 years, from 1934 to 1949. After leaving the classroom, Irma married William B. Dixon and established a small business selling dresses from her home.

Always eager to better the life of others, in 1958, Irma decided to make a bid for public office. She was elected on the Democratic ticket to represent the Fourth District, which included the city of Baltimore, in the Maryland General Assembly. That same year, colleague Verda Freeman Welcome was also elected, and the two became the first African American women elected to the legislative body.

While in office, the former teacher was a strong advocate for education, proposing tax increases to pay for additional funding for education and advocating that school be compulsory beginning in kindergarten. She was also an advocate of equal pay for men and women, and in 1962 she sponsored a bill that proposed a ban on racial discrimination in private employment throughout her state.

In addition to her work in the legislature, Irma was involved in a number of advocacy groups, including the Baltimore Urban League, the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, the School Marms, and the YWCA. She also served as a legislative consultant to the Health Commission of the Maryland State Conference of Social Welfare.

Sadly, Irma Dixon passed away, while still in office, on June 30, 1965. Only 54 years old, she had been battling a lengthy illness. She is buried at Arbutus Memorial Park in Baltimore.

 

Harold Jackman: Teacher, model, literary editor, and charismatic patron the arts

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New York Social Studies teacher Harold Jackman was a model, magazine editor, and charismatic patron of the arts during the Harlem Renaissance. Here he is depicted in the 1925 drawing A College Lad. Photo Credit: Winold Reiss

In recognition of Black History Month, we spotlight today Harold Jackman, a very accomplished African American social studies teacher, model, and magazine editor in New York City.

Harold was born on Aug. 18, 1901, in London, England. When he was a child, he immigrated to the United States with his mother, who was originally from the West Indies, and his brother. Once the family landed in the Bronx borough of New York City, Harold attended the prestigious all-boys school DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1923 he earned a Bachelor’s degree from New York University and in 1927 he completed the requirements for his Master’s degree from Columbia University. He then inaugurated his career as a professional educator. In a career that spanned 30 years, Harold taught social studies in New York City Public Schools in Harlem.

In addition to his work in the schools, Harold worked as a model at the Grace Del Marco Agency. He served as the model for Winold Reiss in his 1925 drawing A College Lad. Harold was also a patron of of the arts, most notably African American theater. He was a founding member for the Krigwa Players Little Negro Theater in 1926, and he helped establish the Harlem Experimental theater in 1929. He was also a member of the American Theater Wing State Door Canteen during the 1940s. Furthermore, Harold served on the Executive Board of the Negro Actors Guild.

Harold had many friends in artistic spheres. One of his best friends was Countee Cullen, a school friend from Clinton DeWitt who became a renowned poet of the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, Countee Cullen dedicated his famous poem “Heritage” to Harold. Very interested in literary pursuits, Harold served as the Associate Editor of New Challenge Magazine from 1935 to 1937. He also served as a contributing editor to Phylon from 1944 to 1956 and an advisory editor from 1957 to 1961. The charismatic teacher also served as the inspiration for several fictional characters. He appears in Wallace Thurman’s Infants of Spring, Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven, and Ben Neihart’s Rough Amusements, The True Story of A’Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance’s Down-Low Culture.

Sadly, this remarkable teacher succumbed to cancer at a hospital in Maine on July 8, 1961. After his passing, Harold Jackman’s diaries, manuscripts, correspondence, and other personal papers were donated to Atlanta University, where they became part of the Cullen-Jackman Memorial Collection in recognition of their historic value. In addition, the Harold Jackman Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to art in New York was established in his honor.