Tag Archives: Teacher Activists

Teacher Joanne Lyles White: Champion of the needy

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Joanna Lyles White

Teacher Joanne Lyles White: Champion of the needy.

Very often chalkboard champions are well-known for their achievements outside of the classroom, and this is certainly true about Joanne Lyles White of Alexandria, Louisiana, a tireless champion for the needy.

Lillian Joanne Lyles White was born in Lecompte, Louisiana, on September 12, 1929, the eighth of twelve children born to Samuel and Marie Lyles. She and her siblings were raised on Compromise Plantation in Lloyd’s Bridge, Louisiana. Her parents were sharecroppers for many years, but eventually they leased and operated a farm of over 800 acres. Although the Lyles family operated one of the most productive cotton farms in the South, they never owned their own home or land. Joanne’s parents believed the most important inheritance they could leave their children was the opportunity for a college education.

As a youngster, Joanne was actively involved in the local 4-H club, serving as its president when she was in high school. In an era of Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan, many of her closest friends and playmates were the sons and daughters of African-American sharecroppers. At a very early age, Joanne became a champion for civil rights, a cause she publicly and vigorously supported throughout her entire life.

Joanne graduated from Lecompte High School at the age of sixteen. In 1950, she graduated from Louisiana State University with a Bachelor’s degree in speech and social studies. After graduating from college, the young teacher accepted her first job at Bolton High School in Alexandria, Louisiana. She held this position from 1950 to 1963. She taught World History, American History, government, economics, and speech. She also served as the coach of Bolton High School’s speech and debate team. The indefatigable teacher was instrumental in creating a statewide forensics circuit; she founded and became the first president of the Louisiana High School Speech League and Tournament of Champions.

On April 30, 1951, Joanne married Paul Donald White, Sr. Together, they had six children.

All her life, Joanne was a tenacious and passionate advocate for the poverty-stricken, the dispossessed, single mothers, orphaned children, and the disabled. In 1989, she was one of the founding members of Hope House, a homeless shelter for women, mothers, and their children. The former teacher arranged for the donation of an expansive historic home on Bolton Avenue, and she raised both private and public funds to renovate and operate the facility. Since its creation, Hope House has provided thousands of women and children a new beginning. The dedicated teacher was especially honored when Hope House was selected by President George H.W. Bush to receive the 1,000 Points of Light Award.

After her second grandchild, Lamar Jr., was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Joanne created Angel Care, an early childhood development center that provided networking opportunities and resources for families with mentally or physically challenged children. She was also the co-designer of the Aiken Optional School, an alternative school program to help students at risk of dropping out of school or who had already dropped out. In addition, she helped create the Kuumba Center, an inner-city educational and recreational institution.

In 1983, Joanne became one of the founding members the Shepherd Center, an ecumenical ministry comprised of 29 church congregations that worked together to assist the poor and the dispossessed.  As a part of her work with the Shepherd Center, Joanne created the Christmas Cheer for Children program, which provided computerized cooperative aid to over 4,000 children annually. She was also a founding member of the Rapides Parish Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, an executive committeewoman for the Job Training Partnership Act State Council, the chairperson of the State Committee on Illiteracy and Education, the chairperson of the Rapides Parish Workforce Investment Board, and a founding member of the Central Louisiana Food Bank. This tireless educator also worked with the governor’s office and the Department of Corrections to spearhead and chair a task force that investigated the treatment of incarcerated women and juveniles.

Among her many honors and awards, Joanne was named the recipient of the National Association of Social Worker’s Public Citizen of the Year Award, the Lions Club’s Outstanding Citizen Award, the Louisiana Methodist Church’s Children and Families Service Award, the Young Women’s Christian Association’s Outstanding Community Leader Award, the Zeta Phi Beta’s Outstanding Community Leadership Award, the Sojourner Truth Award, the Central Louisiana Professional Women’s Network’s Visionary Award, and Cenla Focus’s Cenla-ian of the Year. Joanne’s work was also commended by the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections, the Louisiana Department of Education, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Rapides Parish Police Jury, and the Alexandria Human Relations Commission.

This very amazing chalkboard champion passed away in Alexandria, Louisiana, on March 9, 2011, at the age of 81.

Outstanding educator Mamie Sue Bastian of Texas

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Mamie Sue Bastian

Outstanding educator Mamie Sue Bastian of Houston, Texas.

There are many excellent teachers who work hard to improve the work conditions of their colleagues. One of these was Mamie Sue Bastian, one of the foremost women educators of the state of Texas in the past century.

Mamie was born on November 27, 1874, in Houston, Harris County, Texas. She attended public schools, and then earned her degree at Houston Normal and High School in 1894. She attended college classes during summer sessions, during which time she also traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada.

After she earned her post-secondary degree, Mamie taught in the Houston School District from 1895 to 1922. From 1924 to 1925, she served as principal of Bowie Elementary, and from 1926 to 1940 she served as principal of Crockett Elementary.

In 1929, the former classroom teacher was one of 12 women educators who founded Delta Kappa Gamma, an honorary society that still exists today. The organization promotes the support and professional growth of outstanding women employed at every level of education. Mamie is credited with founding 13 chapters of the organization in Texas, and helping establish six state organizations.

She also served on the Executive Committee of the Texas State Teachers Association in 1919, and she organized and served as president of the Houston Teachers Association. In addition, she formed the Houston Principals Association, she was active in the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, and she was a member of the National Education Association. Furthermore, she served one term as vice president of the Texas State Textbook Board.

Mamie Sue Bastian passed away on February 20, 1946, and was interred in the Houston’s Glenwood Cemetery.

Music teacher Zitkala Sa: Honored by the National Women’s History Project

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Zitkala Sa

Music teacher Zitkala Sa: Honored by the National Women’s History Project

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.

Dr. Annie Webb Blanton: Founder of the Delta Kappa Gamma International Society

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Annie Webb Blanton

Dr.  Annie Webb Blanton, the principal founder of the Delta Kappa Gamma International Society.

Because of my induction into the Delta Kappa Gamma International Society last weekend, I have been thinking a great deal about the organization’s principal founder, Texas educator Dr. Annie Webb Blanton. I have written about her before, but due to her remarkable achievements, I thought I would revisit the topc.

Annie was born on August 19, 1870, in Houston, one of seven children of Thomas Lindsay and Eugenia (Webb) Blanton. Her twin sister, Fannie, died as a child. As a young girl, Annie attended school in Houston and La Grange. After graduating from La Grange High School in 1886, she taught in a rural school in Fayette County. When her father died in 1888, Annie relocated  to Austin, where she taught in both elementary and secondary schools. As she worked to support herself, Annie continued her studies at the University of Texas, where she graduated in 1899.

Shortly after her graduation from college, Annie was selected to serve on the English faculty of North Texas State Normal College, now known as the University of North Texas. She served in this capacity from 1901 to 1918. While there, she became active in the Texas State Teachers’ Association. She earned a reputation for being a strong believer in equal rights for women. During this time she also wrote a series of grammar textbooks. In 1916, Annie was elected president of the teachers’ union, the first woman to occupy the position.

In 1917 Texas suffragists found a strong supporter  in Governor William P. Hobby, so they threw their considerable energy into his 1918 bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. In that election, the suffragists also encouraged Annie to run for the office of state superintendent of public instruction. The campaign was a bitter one, with false accusations made against the veteran teacher, but in the 1918 primary, Texas women were allowed to vote for the first time, so Annie was elected by a wide margin. Her victory in the general election in November made her the first woman in Texas elected to statewide office.

During her tenure as state superintendent, Annie inaugurated a system of free textbooks, revised teacher certification laws, raised teachers’ salaries, and made improvements to rural education. Annie was re-elected in November of 1920, when voters also passed the Better Schools Amendment, which she had proposed as a means of removing constitutional limitations on tax rates for local school districts. She served as state superintendent through 1922.

When  her term ended, Annie  returned to the University of Texas, where she received her Master’s degree in 1923. She taught in the UT Education Department until 1926, then took a leave of absence to earn her Ph.D from Cornell University. After returning to the University of Texas in 1927, she remained a professor of education there for the rest of her life.

During her lifetime, Annie published a number of books about education, including Review Outline and Exercises in English Grammar (1903), A Handbook of Information as to Education in Texas (1922), Advanced English Grammar (1928), and The Child of the Texas One-Teacher School (1936). In 1929 she founded the Delta Kappa Gamma society, an honorary society for women teachers, which in 1988 had an international membership of 162,000. She also was active in national educational groups and served as a vice president in the National Education Association in 1917, 1919, and 1921.

Annie Blanton never married, and she had no children of her own. She died in Austin on October 2, 1945, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery. Public schools are named for her in Austin, Dallas, and Odessa, and a women’s dormitory at the University of Texas at Austin has also been named after her.

Annie Blanton: a true chalkboard champion.

Laura E. Settle: The founder of the California Retired Teachers Association

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Laura SettleIn US history, there are many examples of hardworking educators who continue to work towards improving the lives others, even after retirement. One of these is activist Laura E. Settle, the founder and first president of the California Retired Teachers Association.

Laura retired as a teacher from the Pasadena School District in Pasadena, California, while the country was struggling through the Great Depression. At that time, a retired schoolteacher received just $500 a year in pension benefits. To rectify this, a small group of teachers led by Laura Settle banded together to fight for better retirement incomes for their colleagues who were living in poverty after a lifetime of teaching.

In 1927, Laura contacted Los Angeles politicians with the goal of forming a local retired teachers’ group. Interested individuals held their first meeting  in Sycamore Grove Park. Laura was elected president, and she immediately launched into her work to expand the organization in other California communities. For years, she drove the dusty highways all over the state to help organize teachers in their common cause. All were welcome to join for the annual dues of $1.

After several years, CalRTA made its first major breakthrough in 1934, when pensions were finally boosted, and by 1943, Laura’s work had resulted in the formation of 17 divisions throughout California. Today, CalRTA is one of the nation’s largest retired teacher organizations with more than 43,000 members in 86 local divisions throughout the state.

In all, Laura served 16 years as the president of CalRTA, from 1929 to 1945. This amazing educator passed away on May 11, 1951. To honor her, a scholarship has been established in her name, and is given to deserving high school students who have declared an intention to go into the teaching profession.

Laura E. Settle: All teachers, whether currently retired or still in the classroom, owe her a great debt.