Tag Archives: African American Teachers

Pernella Anderson: Teacher and prominent folklorist

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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.

Remembering math teacher and Civil Rights leader Bob Moses

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Math educator and legendary Civil Rights Movement leader Bob Moses organized Black voter-registration efforts and the Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. Photo credit: The Pine Belt News

With sadness, we report the passing of legendary Civil Rights leader Robert “Bob” Moses. He died in Florida on Sunday, July 25, 2021, at the age of 86.

The Chalkboard Hero was born in New York City on January 23, 1935, to a family of modest means. He was raised in the Projects in Harlem. Despite his family’s limited financial resources, Bob earned a scholarship to attend Stuyvesant High School, an elite public high school for gifted boys. Before his graduation in 91952, Bob was elected senior class president and served as the captain of the school’s baseball team.

Upon graduation, Bob earned another scholarship, this time to attend Hamilton College, a prestigious private liberal arts college in Clinton, New York. There he majored in philosophy and participated in both the basketball and baseball programs. After completing the requirements for his Bachelor’s degree in 1956, Bob traveled abroad extensively, workin in a series of Quaker summer camps in Europe and Japan building housing for the poor, harvesting crops for a missionary hospital, and improving facilities for mentally disturbed children. The following year he earned his Master’s degree in Analytic Philosophy from Harvard University.

Bob was teaching at the prestigious Horace Mann High School in the Bronx when he became aware of the student sit-ins that were taking place in Greensboro, North Carolina. He decided to join them, and that decision launched the math educator’s path towards becoming a legendary figure during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Bob is best known for organizing the Black voter-registration efforts and the Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. This heroic teacher’s revolutionary work, which was not without risk to life and limb, transformed the political power structure of entire communities.

Forty years later, Bob advocated for yet another transformational change: the Algebra Project. When he created this program, Bob asserted that a deficiency in math literacy in poor neighborhoods puts impoverished children at an economic disadvantage. The deficiency makes students unable to compete successfully for jobs in the 21st century. This disenfranchisement, he declared, is as debilitating as lack of personal liberties was prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Bob’s solution was to organize people, community by community, school by school, to overcome the achievement gap. He believed this would give impoverished children the tools they need to claim their share of economic enfranchisement.

Bob described his philosophy in depth in his  book, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project written with fellow Civil Rights worker Charles E. Cobb, Jr. The volume can be found easily and reasonably-priced on amazon. A fascinating read for anyone who is interested in the former Civil Rights leader’s story, either past or present. A chapter about this remarkable teacher is also included in my second book, entitled Chalkboard Heroes: Twelve Courageous Teachers and Their Deeds of Valor.  This book is also available on amazon; click on this link to view: Chalkboard Heroes.

Jennifer Hedrington named MA 2021 Teacher of the Year

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Congratulations to junior high school math educator Jennifer Hedrington of Massachusetts, who has been named her state’s 2021 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Peter Wilson

Congratulations go to junior high school math educator Jennifer Hedrington of Massachusetts. She has been named her state’s 2021 Teacher of the Year.

Jennifer teaches seventh grade mathematics at Ferryway School in Malden, Massachusetts. She has taught there for the past ten years. Previously, she taught in Texas and Maryland. Her career in education has spanned 16 years in all. Prior to becoming a teacher, she worked at group homes and detention centers.

In addition to teaching math, Jennifer encourages her students to become leaders in community service. She supports them when they speak out about social and racial injustices and leads them in their involvement in activities such as celebrating Black History Month. Jennifer says she measures student achievement by the ways in which they apply the lessons they have learned outside of the classroom.

The long-time teacher believes that the best part of her job is building strong relationships with students and watching them grow and change for years, even after they leave her classroom. Her philosophy is that educators must put emotional needs before academic needs. “Take care of their emotional needs first and focus on that, and everything else will fall into place,” she asserts. But Jennifer admits that she is still growing as an educator. “What drives me every day is that I want to become the teacher that I needed when I was in school,” she says.

The honored educator earned her Bachelor’s degree from Atlantic Union College. She also earned a Juris Doctorate from the Massachusetts School of Law.

To read more about this Chalkboard Champion, see this article about her published in the Boston Herald.

Georgia teacher William Henry Spencer worked to improve education for Black students

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William Henry Spencer of Columbus, Georgia, was an exemplary public school teacher who worked tirelessly to provide excellent educational opportunities for African American students. Photo credit: Public Domain.

In our nation’s history, there are many fine examples of African American educators who have worked tirelessly to provide quality education to Black students. William Henry Spencer was one such educator.

William was born on September 21, 1857, in the city of Columbus in Muscogee County, Georgia. He was one of eight children of a local blacksmith. As a youngster, William attended Asbury Chapel, a Columbus public school which served African American students. In his later years, this lifelong learner enrolled in Clark College, a historically Black private college located in Atlanta, Georgia.

William gained his teaching certificate in 1875 and inaugurated his teaching career in Harris County schools. Before long, he transferred to the city school system in his home town of Columbus. For the next fifty years, William dedicated himself to improving the curriculum of segregated schools, and he worked diligently to establish courses in fine arts and vocational practices. Because of his expertise, he was selected as the Supervisor of the Colored Schools in Muscogee County, a position he held from 1912 to 1925. During this time, William’s passion was to establish an accredited high school for African American students in Columbus. His dream was finally realized with the opening of a new facility on November 29, 1930. The school was named William Henry Spencer High School in his honor.

Sadly, William did not live long enough to see the realization of his goal. This Chalkboard Champion died of complications of appendicitis on May 30, 1925. He was 67 years old.

Iowa’s Grace Allen Jones: Champion for Black students

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Iowa’s Grace Allen Jones championed greater educational opportunities for Black students in her home state, Missouri, and Mississippi. Photo credit: Public Domain.

Many talented educators work to improve the lives of others in their community. One of these was Grace Allen Jones, a teacher from Iowa who worked tirelessly to provide educational opportunities for African American youth in her home state, in Missouri, and in Mississippi.

Grace was born on January 7, 1876, in Keokuk, Iowa. Unlike many African Americans of her day, her parents were educated and financially well-off. As a young girl, Grace attended Burlington High School in Burlington, Iowa. There she earned her diploma in 1891. Following high school, she attended Burlington Normal School from 1894 to 1895.

After she earned her college degree, Grace spent three years in Missouri teaching at schools in Bethel and Slater. In 1902, she returned to Iowa and founded a vocational school for African American students. She named the school the Grace M. Allen Industrial School for Colored Youth.

When the school closed in 1906, Grace enrolled in public speaking courses a the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Once she completed her courses in Chicago, Grace worked as a fundraiser and public speaker, advocating for better educational opportunities for all the students in her community.

After her marriage to fellow-educator Laurence Jones, Grace accepted a teaching position at Piney Woods Country Life School in Rankin County, Mississippi. At this school, students were offered courses in agriculture, carpentry, dairy farming, and construction. To help support the school, Grace organized and led several student choir groups on fundraising tours across the South, the Midwest, and the East. The schools’ Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, the Cotton Blossom Singers, and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were just three of several choral groups that Grace organized.

In addition to her classroom and fundraising responsibilities, Grace actively participated in clubs meant to advance the status of women and, more specifically, women of color. Those groups also worked to improve child care, to teach African American history, to start libraries for African American children, and to provide resources so that physically handicapped African American children could learn. In addition, she helped start an American Red Cross organization for African Americans, and she served as President of the Mississippi State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs from 1920 to 1924. Later she served as a statistician for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1925.

Sadly, this Chalkboard Champion passed away of complications from pneumonia on March 2, 1928, in Piney Woods. She was only 52 years old. To read more about Grace Allen Jones, see this article published about her by Piney Woods School.