Arkansas teacher Pernella Anderson collected oral histories under the auspices of the Federal Writers’ Project during the 1930’s.
Many talented educators come to be known for accomplishments outside of the classroom. One of these is Pernella Anderson, an elementary teacher who worked in Arkansas and Michigan who was also important as a collector of African American folklore.
Pernella Mae Center Anderson was born April 12, 1903 in Camden, Arkansas. She was the youngest of ten children born to Willis and Sallie (Washington) Center. Her father was a carpenter and her mother was a homemaker.
When Pernella grew up, she married Theodore Haynie, Jr., (circa 1920) and three children were born to the couple. Between 1922-1924, the young mother attended Arkansas Baptist College, where she earned a degree in liberal arts. Evidently, Pernella divorced Theodore and, on April 21, 1931, she married her second husband, William W. Anderson.
In 1935, Pernella accepted a teaching position in Lockesburg in Sevier County, Arkansas. The following year, she went to work for the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), an organization associated with the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration (WPA). Pernella’s work there included collecting oral histories, some of which were published in the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves (1941). Additionally, she collected the folk stories of Black residents ranging in age from 19 to 92. Pernella was one of only two African Americans hired to do this work.
A lifelong learner, Pernella went back to school in 1944 to earn her teaching certificate, and then she completed the requirements for her Bachelor’s degree in Education from Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana. From 1953-1955, Pernella taught school at Carver Elementary School in El Dorado in Arkansas’ Union County. In 1955, Pernella moved to Detroit, Michigan, and there she taught in Detroit public schools until the conclusion of her career.
This talented teacher and folklorist passed away on March 5, 1980, in Detroit. She is interred in Westlawn Cemetery in the town of Wayne, Wayne County, Michigan.
You can read more about this remarkable educator at this link: Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. To learn more about the Federal Writers’ Project, click on this link: FWP at the Library of Congress.
