Tag Archives: Teacher Activists

Teacher and school counselor Minnie Steckel worked diligently on social causes

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Teacher and school counselor Minnie Steckel worked diligently for social causes that benefited women and her community as a whole.  Photo Credit: The Sioux City Journal

Teachers are among the most civic-minded individuals in American society. They work diligently for social causes that benefit their community, and society as a whole. This is certainly true about Minnie Steckel, a teacher and school counselor who became part of the poll tax repeal movement.

Minnie was born on March 19, 1890, in Woodbine, Kansas. In 1906, she enrolled at Kansas Normal School in Emporia, Kansas, completing her course of study in 1913. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, in 1917, her Master’s degree at the University of Chicago in Psychology in 1926, and her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1929.

While earning her degrees, Minnie taught school in Overbook and Burlingame, Kansas. She relocated to Iowa, where she taught in schools in Shenandoah, Blanchard, and Atlantic. By 1930, Minnie was working as a school counselor and the Dean of Women for Alabama College, a state-sponsored college for women located in Montevallo, Alabama. While there, she published many psychological and educational articles and books. She was also a member of the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, the Alabama Mental Hygeine Society, the American Psychological Association, the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

In addition to her work as a counselor and author, Minnie conducted important research on the voting habits of women. She discovered that the low voting rate of women in elections was primarily due to the poll tax requirement, rather than their lack of interest in politics. This revelation launched her efforts to remove the poll tax, and to promote the rights of women to vote and serve on juries. She also worked tirelessly for the repeal of policies which prevented married women from working and for equal pay for women who did the same work as men.

Chalkboard Champion Minnie Steckel passed away on December 1, 1952. Following her passing, a scholarship for women was established by the Alabama Federation of Women’s Clubs in her honor. To read more about her, see the article, 34 Notable Alumni of Emporia State University.

 

Educator Mary Bethune McLeod honored in US Capitol’s Statuary Hall

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The newest addition to the US Capitol’s Statuary Hall is the image of educator Mary McLeod Bethune, a teacher, women’s rights activist, and Civil Rights leader in Florida. Photo Credit: US House of Representatives

Many exceptional educators have earned honors for their work in the profession, and now, one of them was singled out for recognition in the US Capitol’s Statuary Hall this month. She is Mary McLeod Bethune, an African American teacher who was was also a women’s rights activist and Civil Rights leader in Florida.

The statue of the honored educator towers at 11 feet tall and was created from marble originating from the same Tuscan quarry in the Italian Alps used by Michelangelo. The block, which originally weighed 11,500 tons, was fashioned into the image of the teacher by artist Nilda Comas of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who was selected in a national competition run by Florida’s Council on Arts and Culture in 2016. Inscribed at the foot of her statue is Mary’s famous quote: “Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it may be a diamond in the rough.”

Mary was born on July 10, 1875, to former slaves in a log cabin on a plantation in Maysville, South Carolina. She was the only one of her parents’ 17 children to be born into freedom. When the Civil War was won, Mary’s mother worked for her former owner until she could buy the land on which the McLeod family grew cotton. By nine years of age, young Mary could pick 250 pounds of cotton a day.

Even as a youngster, Mary showed an unusual interest in books and reading. However, in those days it was rare for African Americans to receive an education. Nevertheless, a charitable organization interested in providing educational opportunities for Black children established a school near Mary’s home. Her parents could scrape together only enough money to pay the tuition for one of their children, and Mary was chosen. Later, the future educator earned a scholarship to attend the Scotia Seminary, a boarding school in North Carolina. She graduated from there in 1894. She also attended Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, Illinois. Her studies there spanned two years.

When she grew up, Mary retained her strong desire to extend educational opportunities to other African Americans. She became a teacher in South Carolina. While there, she married fellow teacher Albertus Bethune. In 1904 Mary founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. Beginning with five students, she helped expand the school to more than 250 students over the next few years. Today, this school is known Bethune-Cookman University.

In her later years, Mary became a close friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and also a trusted adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt. In recognition of her outstanding abilities, the President made her a member of his unofficial “Black Cabinet.” He also appointed her the head of the National Youth Administration in 1936. In 1937 the indefatigable educator organized a conference on the Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth, and she fought tirelessly to end discrimination and lynching. In 1940, Mary became the Vice President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP), a position she held for the rest of her life. In 1945, she was appointed by President Harry Truman to be the only woman of color present at the founding meeting of the United Nations.

This celebrated educator passed away peacefully on May 18, 1955. For all her accomplishments, Mary McLeod Bethune is truly a Chalkboard Champion. It is fitting and proper that she should be honored in our nation’s Capitol. To read more about her, see this link at the website for the National Women’s History Museum.

Alabama teacher, school counselor Evelyn Anderson championed the rights of the mobility-impaired

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Alabama teacher, school counselor, and paraplegic Evelyn Anderson was a Chalkboard Champion for the mobility-impaired. Photo Credit: the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame

It is always an inspiration to read stories about individuals who have overcome challenges to achieve success in their life. One of these is Evelyn Anderson, a classroom teacher and paraplegic from Alabama who championed the rights of the mobility-impaired.

Evelyn was born on Aug. 2, 1926, in Greensboro, Alabama. She was only four years old when she was hit by a stray .22 caliber bullet, and the incident left her spine severed. For the rest of her life, she was confined to a wheelchair or a gurney. On this “rolling table” she would lie prone, with her lower body covered, propped up on an elbow. Despite her challenges, Evelyn graduated with honors from Judson College, with a double major in Art and History.

After she earned her degree, Evelyn began teaching art at Greensboro High School in 1948. In the beginning, her employment was unofficial because Alabama law prohibited severely handicapped individuals from working as teachers. However, due to Evelyn’s inspiration, legislation to repeal the discriminatory law was enacted in 1953. The following year, the trailblazing educator became the first severely handicapped teacher hired by Alabama public schools. In addition to this victory, she inspired the city of Greensboro to provide accommodations for mobility-impaired individuals, even before required by law.

After teaching for a few years, Evelyn returned to college and in 1964 earned a Master’s degree in Counseling from the University of Alabama. She then taught English and Spanish and served as a guidance counselor at Greensboro High School.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Evelyn worked to make major contributions to her community. 1977, she served on the Alabama Governor’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. She was also a founding member of the Greensboro Friends of the Library.

Throughout her life, Evelyn earned many accolades for her work as an educator. In 1974, she was named an Outstanding Educator, and the following year, she was honored as the Outstanding Counselor of the Year. In 1977, she was recognized as the Alabama Handicapped Professional Woman of the Year.

After a career that spanned over 30 years, both official and unofficial, Evelyn retired in 1982. In 1976, Alabama Educational Television aired a short documentary film about her life as an educator and champion for disabled children. In 2011, she was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame.

Evelyn Anderson passed away on Oct. 7, 1998, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, following a brief illness. She was 72 years old. You can read more about this Chalkboard Champion at Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame.

 

Educator Mary Harris “Mother” Jones also a tireless union organizer

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Educator Mary Harris “Mother” Jones dedicated her life to the improvement of the lives of others as a tireless union organizer. Photo Credit: Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries.

Many hardworking educators dedicate their lives to the improvement of the lives of others. One of these was Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, a teacher, dressmaker, and union organizer.

Mary Jones was born in 1837 in Cork City, County Cork, Ireland, the daughter of impoverished tenant farmers. She was just a teenager when her family immigrated to Canada to escape the Irish Potato Famine. Later, her family moved to the United States.

Perhaps because of her own struggles, all her life, Mary was passionate about the welfare of children and the underprivileged. Following her graduation from normal school at age seventeen, she became a schoolteacher, first at a convent in Monroe, Michigan, and later in Memphis, Tennessee. It was in Memphis that she met and married George E. Jones, an iron molder and union member. Tragically, the young schoolteacher lost her husband and all four of their children, all under the age of five, in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867. Next, Mary relocated to Chicago and established a dressmaking shop. Unfortunately, the workshop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Following the demise of her business, Mary began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers Union. She helped coordinate several major strikes, and she also co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. Because she referred to the union members as “her boys,” Mary was often referred to as “Mother” Jones. Mary gained fame for mobilizing the wives of striking coal miners to march with brooms and mops in an effort to block strikebreakers from crossing the picket lines.  In 1902, one American district attorney called her “the most dangerous woman in America” because of her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners.

In 1903, Mary was greatly disturbed by the inadequate enforcement of child labor laws in mines and silk mills in Pennsylvania, so she organized one hundred youngsters in a Children’s March from Kensington, Philadelphia, to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York. In the procession, the children carried banners that proclaimed, “We want to go to school, and not the mines!”

Mary Harris Jones died in Adelphi, New York, on November 30, 1930, at the age of 93. She was buried in Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois. In her honor, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones Elementary School in Adelphi was named after her. This amazing former schoolteacher will always be remembered as a Chalkboard Champion.

The intrepid Prudence Crandall: Connecticut’s Female State Hero

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Prudence Crandall

Intrepid teacher Prudence Crandall named Connecticut’s Female State Hero. Photo Credit: Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame.

There are many courageous teachers who have made great sacrifices for the sake of their students. One of these was Prudence Crandall, a Connecticut teacher who lost everything she owned in order to educate African American girls in a time when doing so was unheard of.

In 1831, Prudence, a Quaker by faith, opened a boarding school for young ladies in Canterbury, Connecticut. By the end of the first year, she had earned the praise of parents, community members, and students throughout New England. Then one day an African American student named Sarah Harris asked to be admitted to the academy. Sarah said she wanted to learn how to be a teacher so she could open her own school for Black students. Prudence knew admitting an African American student would generate some resistance from her neighbors, but after some soul-searching, she decided her conscience and her religious convictions would not allow her to refuse the request. Unfortunately, Prudence had severely under-estimated the resistance she would encounter for this decision.

Figuring the complaint from her detractors was that she was operating an integrated school, the intrepid teacher closed her academy for white girls and re-opened as an academy for “misses of color.” That just made the situation worse. Her action caused ripples all the way up to the US Supreme Court and resulted in Prudence’s brief incarceration in the local jail. After lawless community members set fire to her school, Prudence was forced to close the academy and leave town.

Years later, however, the courageous stance taken by Prudence Crandall resulted in the intrepid teacher being named the Female State Hero for Connecticut. You can read more of the gripping account of what happened with this unflinching educator in my second book, Chalkboard Heroes, now available on amazon.com.