Oklahoma teacher and social activist Maude Brockway taught former enslaved people and Native Americans. Photo Credit: Public Domain

Often times, hardworking educators dedicate their energy and talent to the improvement of social conditions for others. Maude Brockway, an African American teacher from Oklahoma, is one of these. As a social activist, she taught former enslaved people and Native Americans.

Maude was born on February 28, 1876, in Clark County, Arkansas. She was raised in Curtis, where she attended the Arkadelphia Presbyterian Academy, an elementary and secondary school founded to educate the children for former enslaved people. The school was operated under the auspices of the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen. Later Maude enrolled at Arkansas Baptist College located in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Once she completed her education, Maude moved to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where she worked as a teacher in Ardmore and Berwyn in the Chickasaw Nation. Later she opened a hat-making business. In 1910, Maude relocated to Oklahoma City, then still part of the Oklahoma Territory. There she became involved in an activist movement that furthered the interests of African American citizens in the city. She was particularly active in the Black Clubwomen’s Movement in her area. This movement took place throughout the United States, functioning under the founding philosophy that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform public policy.

As part of her work as an activist, Maude founded the Oklahoma Training School for Women and Girls in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. This school was later known as the Drusilla Dunjee Houston Training School. Later she established the Brockway Community Center in Oklahoma City. The center offered training courses, well-baby clinics, a daycare center, and a women’s health center which included a birth control clinic.

Sadly, Maude Brockway succumbed to a heart attack on October 24, 1959, in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, while attending a the state convention of the Women’s Auxiliary of the state Baptist Convention. At the time, the Chalkboard Champion was 83 years old. To read more about her, see this link to The Black Dispatch.

Dr. Inez Beverly Prosser was a prominent public school teacher, university professor, and psychologist. Photo Cedit: Find a Grave

It’s Women’s History Month, and in honor of the many outstanding educators who have made significant contributions to our nation’s history, we shine a spotlight today on Inez Beverly Prosser, a prominent African American pubic school teacher, university professor, and psychologist.

Even as a child, Inez was passionate about education. When her parents could only afford to send one of their children to college, she persuaded her to choose her to be the one. The choice was a wise one. After she completed her degree, Inez was able to put five of her siblings through school.

After earning her degree at Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black college northwest of Houston, Inez inaugurated her career as a teacher in Austin, Texas. She taught first in a Black elementary school, and then at a high school. Her career as a public school teacher spanned the years of 1913 through 1926, when Inez graduated with her Bachelor’s degree from Samuel Huston College in Austin. In 1933, she earned her Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado. She went on to earn her PhD in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati. Her research was one of several studies conducted in the 1920s and 30s about how segregated schools under the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 affected students.

Inez was among the first group of African American women who ea and she was the first to earn a Doctorate in Psychology. Her presence on the cover of The Crisis in August 1933 celebrated the importance of her achievement.

In September, 1934, on her way to Mississippi after visiting family in Texas, she was killed in a car accident in Louisianna. She was just 38 years old.