Tag Archives: African American Teachers

The teaching career of Grammy Award-winner Roberta Flack

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Singer, songwriter, and former schoolteacher Roberta Flack

Singer, songwriter, and former schoolteacher Roberta Flack

Many people have heard of Grammy Award-winning songwriter and singer Roberta Flack. Her best-known songs are “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and “Where Is the Love?” But did you know that this celebrated jazz, folk, and R&B icon was once a public school teacher?

Roberta Cleopatra Flack was born February 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, Buncombe County, North Carolina. She was raised in Arlington, Virginia. Her mother was a church organist, so Roberta grew up in a musical household. At the age of nine, Roberta began to study classical piano, and by the time she was fifteen, she had won a music scholarship to Howard University. Howard is a traditionally Black college located in Washington, DC.

Roberta completed her undergraduate work, and then her student teaching at an all-white school near Chevy Chase, Maryland. She was the first African American student teacher to work at that school. After her college graduation, Roberta accepted a position teaching music and English in Farmville, North Carolina, a gig which paid her only $2,800 per year. She also taught in Washington, DC, at Browne Junior High and Rabaut Junior High School. While she was teaching, she took a number of side jobs as a night club singer. It was there that she was discovered and signed to a contract for Atlanta Records. The rest, as they say, is music business history.

In recent years, Roberta’s contribution to education came when she founded an after-school music program entitled “The Roberta Flack School of Music” to provide music education free of charge to underprivileged students in the Bronx, New York City. The program is offered through Hyde Leadership Charter School. You can learn more about this program at this link: Roberta Flack School of Music.

Yvonne Busch: Music teacher, band director, and jazz musician

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Yvonne Busch

Yvonne Busch leading her band at George Washington Carver High School.

Gifted educators often earn recognition for their accomplishments outside of the classroom. One of these is Yvonne Busch, a music teacher, band director, and jazz musician well-known in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Yvonne was born in New Orleans on October 18, 1929, the daughter of a longshoreman and a homemaker. She was raised in nearby Treme, a community with a reputation for a lively music scene. At just 11 years old, Yvonne persuaded her parents to allow her to enroll at Piney Woods Country Life School in Mississippi. Piney Woods is a privately-funded, historically African American boarding school well-known for its music education programs. There Yvonne played the trumpet and toured with the school’s all-girl band. The band performed at dances, clubs, and USO events throughout the American South and Midwest.

In 1943, Yvonne returned home to New Orleans, where she continued her music education at Gilbert Academy. She studied under the school’s music director, T. LeRoy Davis. It was during this time that the young woman decided to become an educator. She enrolled in the teacher training program at Southern University in Baton Rouge. While completing her coursework there, Yvonne joined the university’s jazz band, eventually becoming the band’s assistant director.

Once she completed her education, Yvonne returned to New Orleans, where she accepted a position as a public school teacher. Over the next three decades, she taught at Booker T. Washington School, Joseph S. Clark School, and George Washington Carver High School. As a teacher and band director, Yvonne often faced crippling shortages of funding and instruments. To combat this, she often contributed her own instruments, and persuaded her friends to donate more. As a teacher, she encouraged her students to play multiple instruments. Yvonne was so dedicated to her students that she offered free private lessons and organized summer practice sessions for her students.

In all, Yvonne’s impressive career spanned a total of 32 years. “Miss Busch was a lot like jazz,” remembered former student Herlin Riley. “She was intense, but she was relaxed. She had rules, but she would give you the freedom to explore. She stressed discipline, but she encouraged self-expression.”

This amazing chalkboard champion passed away in New Orleans on February 28, 2014, at the age of 84. To read more about her, see Yvonne Busch or her obituary at Yvonne Busch, New Orleans Music Educator.

Educator Marta Moreno Vega Shares the Culture of Afro-Latinos

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There are many outstanding examples of teachers who share their expertise in arenas beyond the classroom. One of these teachers is Marta Moreno Vega, a junior high and high school history teacher who has devoted three decades of her energy towards exploring, celebrating, and sharing the culture of Afro-Latinos.

Marta was born on January 3, 1952, in East Harlem, an area of New York City that is predominantly Latino and Caribbean. The neighborhood is known as Spanish Harlem, and ethnically, Marta fits right in because she is descended from roots that trace to both Puerto Rico and the Yoruba tribe of West Africa.

Marta earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New York University, and upon her graduation she became a teacher of history and arts in education in New York City junior high and high schools. After a few years, she returned to the university. She earned her doctorate in African Studies from Temple University in 1995. Upon her graduation, Marta accepted a position as an assistant professor at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, where she was employed until 2000. In addition, she taught at the Center for Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 1976, Marta founded the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), a multi-disciplinary center located in East Harlem that is dedication to the integration of art, education, and activism to facilitate social transformation. To learn more about this organization, examine their website at CCCADI. She was also instrumental in founding the Association of Hispanic Arts, a New York-based
arts advocacy and public education organization.

In 2000, Marta published her first book, The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santeria, which traces the roots, practices, and themes of the Santeria religion. In 2004, Marta published her second book, her memoirs of growing up as a woman of color in Spanish Harlem. The volume is entitled When the Spirits Dance Mambo: Growing Up Nuyorican.

For her efforts, Marta has been honored with the Crystal Stairs Award from the Association of American Cultures, and she has garnered the Mosaic Award from the Multicultural Council of New York City. To learn more about the amazing Dr. Vega, click on Encyclopedia.com or the NYU Staff Website.

Sarah Lee Brown Fleming: Teacher, activist, and author

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Sarah Lee Brown Fleming

Sarah Lee Brown Fleming

There are many accomplished educators in American history who have distinguished themselves as community activists. Sarah Lee Brown Fleming, a school teacher from Brooklyn, New York, is one such educator.

Sarah Lee Brown was born in poverty in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 10, 1875. She was raised in Brooklyn, New York. As a young girl, Sarah dreamed of becoming a school teacher. However, her father discouraged this goal, believing that Sarah could only aspire to be a domestic. Little did he know that one day, Sarah would become the first African American teacher in the Brooklyn public school system.

In 1902, Sarah married Richard Stedman Fleming. After their marriage, the couple moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where Richard became the first African American dentist to practice in the state. The union produced two children: a daughter named Dorothy born in 1903, and a son named Harold born in 1906.

An associate of Mary McLeod Bethune, Sarah channeled her energy into bettering the educational opportunities for African American women. She organized the New Haven Women’s Civic League in 1929, and in 1936, she established the Phillis Wheatley Home for Girls, a shelter for young Black women who had just moved to New Haven in search of employment. In fact, Sarah’s work was recognized by Congress in 1955, the same year she received the Sojourner Truth Scroll from the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club.

In addition to her civic work, Sarah was also a published playwright, novelist, and poet named as part of the Harlem Renaissance movement. Sarah’s most notable published works are her novel Hope’s Highway, published in 1918, and a collection of poems entitled Clouds and Sunshine, published in 1920.

Sarah passed away in January, 1963, five days before her 87th birthday.

Clarence Acox, Jr.: Music instructor extraordinaire

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There are many gifted musicians who share their extensive talents with fortunate students in the classroom. One such musician is Clarence Acox, Jr., a high school music teacher and jazz musician who resides in Seattle, Washington.

Clarence was born in October, 1947, in New Orleans. As a youngster, he attended Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School in Treme, Louisiana. After his high school graduation, he enrolled at Southern University, a historically Black university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He graduated in 1971.

After his college commencement, the young graduate accepted a position as a music instructor at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. Famed musicians Jimi Hendrix, Ishmael Butler, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson are all Garfield alumni. Under Clarence’s capable leadership, the high school’s Jazz Ensemble has captured the first place title two times at New York’s Essentially Ellington National Jazz Band Competition and Festival at New York City’s Lincoln Center (2003, 2004). This competition is the nation’s most prestigious high school jazz band competition. Additionally, under his expert tutelage, the Garfield High School Band has traveled to Europe on eleven tours, attending music festivals in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, and the Netherlands.

In addition to his work in the classroom, Clarence performs regularly on the jazz nightclub scene in Seattle. He is a member of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1995 with Michael Brockman, a saxophone instructor with the University of Washington. In addition, Clarence is the director of the Jazz Ensemble representing Seattle University.

For his outstanding work in the classroom, Clarence has earned many prestigious awards. In 1991, he was honored as the Musician of the Year by the Earshot Jazz Society of Seattle. He was named Educator of the Year by Down Beat Magazine in 2001, and in 2003 he garnered the Impact Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), an organization best known for presenting the Grammy Awards each year. In 2004, Clarence was named Outstanding Music Educator by the Seattle Music Educators Association, and in 2011, he was inducted into the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame. Additionally, in May, 2016, Clarence was recognized with an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

To learn more about this remarkable educator and musician, click on JazzJournalists.org or BlackPast.org.