Raymond Gavins: It is my pleasure to welcome Professor James D. Anderson, whom I've known for a long time. 

Raymond Gavins: After earning his BA degree from Stillman College in Alabama, he went on to earn his master's in—PhD from the University of Illinois, where he is currently a professor in the history of education. His journal articles are extensive, covering at least three pages of his CV, and among his books is the Education of Blacks in the South 1860 to 1935, which has been the winner of three outstanding book awards from the American Educational Research Association, the American Educational Studies Association, and the Gustavo Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the US. Needless to say, I'm delighted, Jim, that you can be with us. 

James Anderson: Thanks very much, Ray. I'm also delight to be here and looking at the participants in this conference. As I said earlier this morning, I wish I could be here for the whole thing. Quite had a list of persons coming before you, and I wish I could hear what they have to say because many of them I read all the time and, some of them I know very well. 

James Anderson: And they as you probably know from at least reading my book or some of my works that my area's history of African American education. My topic this morning is to talk about educational institutions and teachers. 

James Anderson: Now I've said to Ray that that you can ask questions at any time. That won't disrupt me there. And and so that's no problem. Let me say a little bit about some of the things I've done since the book was published and things that I think are relevant to the topic this morning. 

James Anderson: One of the things I've done, I did in the fall, I spent a lot of time on was, there was a case in Alabama called Knight v Alabama, and it's a case of the historically Black public colleges, Alabama State and A&M in a suit, the state of Alabama in the Federal District Court in Birmingham. And that one has not been dissolved as of this date. It is nearing a decision. 

James Anderson: I think you are probably also aware of the Mississippi case, which is headed to the Supreme Court, and that was somewhat involved in that. 

James Anderson: And there's also been a case in Louisiana. But what has struck me from my involvement in the Alabama case, and also looking back on my book, was that one of the things we've tended to do with respect to the history of African American institutions in the area of higher education for a very long time, is that because most of our college students from the Civil War period, at least through World War ii, were enrolled in private colleges, and the public colleges were so underdeveloped by the respective states that we attended focus a lot on the history of African American private higher education. 

James Anderson: At least my chapter on higher education tends to focus very much on, on the private institutions there. But that is true of the history of African American education broadly. There's very, very little on the history of the African American public college there. And in some ways, it's coming to uh if not haunt us, at least, to to raise some very serious questions at a very important period in litigation concerning the future of those institutions there. 

James Anderson: Now, what I have to do for Alabama course was to prepare historical testimony about the origin and the development of public institutions for African Americans in that state from the Civil War period to really to the, the era of massive resistance through the fifties there. 

James Anderson: Now, the first thing that I learned as I was preparing this testimony was that there is no history of Alabama state, and there is no history of Alabama A&M. And there are very, very few articles on the history of those two institutions there. I also learned in my work for Mississippi that the same applies to Alcorn and Jackson State, which became a public college in 1940. There in contrast, however, there is a history of Talladega in Alabama. There's a history of Talula Mississippi, and so the same thing— 

Speaker 4: But they have written a history of Alcorn. 

Speaker 5: Yeah, there are two history of all, and there is a history of national state as well. 

James Anderson: A recent history. Oh, recent? 

Speaker 4: About 15 years old? 

James Anderson: No, it's about 15 that I knew the one 15 years old. But there's been no, there's been not been, there's not been one since then. 

James Anderson: Well, my point is that, that in the last 15 years or so, when in the last 20, in the last 15 years, that African American has been revised in important ways that we really don't have very few recent histories of African American public colleges. I mean, there's a history of, of some of those colleges that will go by, say 15 years or more, but say since that time, we, we've seen a lot of new histories of private colleges over the last two or three years, last four or five years, but not that many of the public institutions there. And as you are, as these cases come up, and they're very, his important historical questions that come before the courts there's really been no documentation of the development of these institutions, of their relationships to the African American community, of their mission, of their purposes. And all these questions come up in and, in litigation. And so we find ourselves having to go back to primary sources in order to answer these questions because they really are not, there's not a body of scholarship that's there that helps us to answer a lot of important questions about African American public colleges there. 

James Anderson: So one of the things that I would like to encourage in terms of the kinds of projects that ought to be created, kinds of research projects that, that 

James Anderson: Should be created within African American colleges and also in various joint projects around the country as historical projects, which first document the origin and development of the African American Public College. 

Speaker 5: I would like to say that the Ohio State Black Studies Library has a fairly comprehensive collection of thesis dissertations on that topic. And so for a university with something that has doing something on Ohio State would be one to— 

James Anderson: And what I would like to see is that the, take those dissertation thesis, as well as archival materials, and begin to produce some secondary sources that will be available to people, not just in litigation, but be available to the general public, available to scholars, available to students, so that they might study the development of these colleges and come to understand their mission, their development, and have some sense of why they are at the point that they are currently and, what are some of the factors that have contributed to their development. 

James Anderson: But what we don't have is simply a ready body of secondary sources that people can turn to read about the origin and development of these institutions. And I think that's critical. And, here, and, also you'll find that for, for many institutions, I mean, every now and then, you do have a history of a particular institution that have mentioned, but for most of those institutions even the collection of information is not available. 

James Anderson: And where it has been collected, it's stored in boxes, and it's not very well organized. It'd be very difficult, if not impossible for any historian or any group of scholars really to take that material in it, in it, in its present state and, make it useful in terms of the development of history. 

James Anderson: So even the collection and the documentation parts of it really is, is very much underdeveloped at this particular point there. Now with that let me give somewhat an overview of the, of the African American Colleges. 

James Anderson: One of the things that I wanted to do in my book was to talk about all levels of African American educational institutions. And so that's why there's a chapter there on normal schools, a chapter on common schools, a chapter on high schools, as well as a chapter on college. 

James Anderson: So on the colleges. So at, at some point we can talk about all levels of African American educational institutions. Let me start with the colleges and then see where we go. From there, one of the things that that was the central question in Alabama case, the state of Alabama had argued that Alabama state had been founded as a normal school, and it had been operated as a normal school, and that the state was not required to fund Alabama state in the way that it funded University of Alabama because the University of Alabama was developed to be a comprehensive university, a liberal arts college, and therefore, any kind of litigation or any kind of demand for relief that Alabama state would be funded in the manner comparable to the University of Alabama was in fact to misrepresent the mission of Alabama State. 

James Anderson: And of course, in all these cases, the historical question of the mission of the African American colleges come up as an important legal issue, because if in fact, assumption is if in fact that its mission was to be a normal school, then it should be compared to other normal schools within that state. And of course, it should be funded accordingly, governed accordingly. And broadly speaking treated as a normal school there. The state also made the argument that Alabama A&M was not meant to be a land-grant institution as a counterpart of Auburn University, that in fact, it was meant to be a normal school, and that it only gave it land grant funding because of the requirements of the 1890 Moral Act. Again, its se question of the historical mission of these institutions. And and, then there were any number of historical questions related to that. 

James Anderson: What was the historic relationship between the African American community and these colleges? What was the or at least was there a history of deprivation? Have the state in any way deprive these institutions of the resources that they needed to develop there? And there were also specific historical questions about the relationship of these institutions to the development of African-American rural families agricultural extension work, farm demonstration work agricultural experiments stations and so forth. But a lot of questions in there that we had to have to try to answer there. 

James Anderson: Now the case that can be made for Alabama can be made for southern states in general. And so I would just sort of concentrate on Alabama, and then we can look at other states. Um in conjunction with that. 

James Anderson: One of the, one of the, the, the, the first questions I had to address was, what was the purpose for the founding of Alabama State College? And as I addressed that question, I realized that that is not something that we can automatically assume in terms of purpose submission. It really is something, it is a historical question. It's something that we need to explore, and we need to collect all the documents and the archival sources that come to bear on those questions. Then now, the state, of course, argue that it was found to be normal school. What I learned was that Alabama State— 

Speaker 6: Tell me what you mean by normal school, because maybe I'm 

James Anderson: Teacher training. Yeah. Normal schools, the schools to train teachers. And one of the things that I point out in the 20th century, normal school, by the way, is very different from a 19th century normal school. The 19th century normal school was actually below the high school level. 

James Anderson: And most people don't realize that, that if you graduated from one of the secondary academies or high school in the 19th century, you actually had an education that was superior to a normal school of education. The normal school, as it was founded in the 19th century, was a teacher training institute that really was comprised of the ninth, 10th, and 11th grade there. And see, the common school then was grades one through eight there. 

James Anderson: The high school was not a part of compulsory attendance, I mean, of required education. That—let me put it this way, no state was obligated to offer a high school education in the 19th century. Any obligations the states felt were to what was called a common school education, or an elementary education, which we would call today, one through eight. 

James Anderson: So once you would finish the eighth grade, you would take two additional years of academic work in the 19th, 10th grade, and 11th year would be the practice teaching year where you would do methods and psychology and pedagogy and practice teaching. 

James Anderson: So they actually had two additional years of academic work, plus a professional year, and then you got a normal school certificate then. So the students that were going into the normal schools were very young, you know, 13 to 14 years old, and then actually coming out of that institution at about 11th grade level there. So therefore, high school education was in fact superior. 

James Anderson: Now, what happens with the normal schools as, as in many cases, the normal schools are older than the land grant. I mean, Illinois State is older than the University of Illinois. And so a lot of states, the normal schools were founded first even before land grant institutions. 

James Anderson: But in the 20th century, as states began to require a BA in order to teach in the high school level first, and then an elementary level, the normal schools were transformed into colleges there. And so our 20th century conception of Illinois State is a normal school, or Michigan State, which was a normal school in Michigan, is that they were colleges, but they were not colleges in the 19th century nor were they high schools, they were literally about a year below the high school level there. Okay. 

James Anderson: So when the state argued that Alabama state was founded the normal school, it simply meant that it was founded to the Teacher Change Institute in, in the 19th century sense, and then was developed as normal schools were transformed in the 20th century. But that his main mission always was to train teachers and, therefore it was never meant to be a comprehensive state university. 

Speaker 7: Yes. While you, at that point, will you please clear up something in my mind about the existence of public high schools in the South. At what point in time are you arguing that public high school decree, Black or White? 

James Anderson: Okay. Public high school began to emerge in the south in the post civil War period, even in the 1870s, 1880s. But they were very, very few there. I mean, one of the first African-American public high school, of course, was ware high school in Augusta, Georgia. And there was Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri, by the way, which was one of the earlier high schools in the 1870s and was a public high school. 

Speaker 6: What year you say 1870. For both of these? 

James Anderson: No, Ware was created in 1880. 

Speaker 6: 1880. One in St. Louis? 

James Anderson: It was about 1876. Right. 

Speaker 7: So then I can't argue that the normal school certificate would be equivalent to the high school diploma. 

James Anderson: No, not in, not in the 19th century. See, Tuskegee offered normal school certificates, and Hampton offered nor normal school certificates, and both certificates were below a high school degree diploma. 

Speaker 7: And you conclude that based on the 11th grade rather than 12th grade. 

James Anderson: Yes. 

Speaker 6: But you can argue, say this school exists in Georgia, that there, that was a high school in the South. Hmm. That was a Black high school in the South since where high school existed in, in Georgia. Oh, yeah. That prior to 1910. 

James Anderson: Oh, yeah. That were Black high schools was probably 1910. Yeah. Where high school in Augusta, Georgia was one of them. And of course, Missouri was part of the, the southern section and one of the former slave states. And some of the high school existed in Missouri in the late 19th century as well. 

James Anderson: But they, they were very few and far between, huh? 

Speaker 6: These were private schools? 

James Anderson: No, they were public high schools. Ware was the public high school in Augusta, Georgia. That's why the famous Supreme Court case that I talked about, the Cummins decision, which closed Ware in 1899, was so significant to the development of African American public high schools. 

James Anderson: Because what the Supreme Court said was that the southern states did not have to maintain high schools for African Americans while maintaining high schools for Whites there that equal separate but equal did not apply to the high school level, that it only applied to elementary school. 

James Anderson: And that made the, the, the rare case extremely a critical and very pivotal in the development of public secondary education for African American. 

Speaker 6: What year was that Ware decision? 

James Anderson: 1889. No, no, yeah, the Cummins, 1899. Yes. It was called the Cummins decision, but it was about Ware high school in Augusta, Georgia. 

James Anderson: There, so there were a few high schools in the 19th century there, and they were public high schools there, but there were hardly, I mean, lemme put it this way, if you high schools for Whites in the south really developed between 1919 and 30, by 1930, the majority of southern Whites were enrolled in public secondary schools. 

James Anderson: Right. By African Americans and by southern Whites southern states. Here I'm talking about the 16 former slave states there. And and so in those 16 states, between 1,919 30 public high schools develop four Whites for African Americans. 

James Anderson: There I am convinced, I think that, 'cause my book stopped in 1935, and then I, the last table on high schools go to the, the 1940s. 'cause what that table shows is that in the 1940s, only about 22%, I believe, somewhere right around 20% of the African Americans of high school age were even enrolled in public high schools in the 1940s, in those 16 states, which is to say that 80% were not even enrolled. 

James Anderson: Now, mind you, I'm not talking about attendance. I'm talking about just having your name written on the registrar. And the principal reason for that was there were no public high schools for African Americans to enroll in. 

Speaker 6: As late as 1944? 

James Anderson: Now, if you move forward in time, even in 1950s, it was still the same way. The first generation of African Americans and the 16 former slave states that could regard public secondary education as a universal opportunity was the generation of the 1960s. That's how recent public secondary education has been available to African Americans in those 16 states. 

Speaker 8: Excuse me, I don't really understand what you're saying. 

Speaker 6: You mean on a pervasive basis? That's what you mean? 

James Anderson: No, I mean, in terms of the majority of African Americans being enrolled in public secondary institutions. 

Speaker 5: But you, you, you're understanding also that there were pub private high schools available for Black. So they were not that the numbers are somewhat misleading. When you said that there were many, many private schools. 

James Anderson: Now you're right, there are private schools, but even if you combine the public with the private, the majority are still not enrolled. 

Speaker 8: Okay. You talking about the majority? 'cause I was about to say, I'm going to my 50th high school reunion on the 26th, and that was a public high school that had been established in 1917. 

James Anderson: That's true now. Okay. Okay. This is one of the things, you see this, that's why it's good to get schoolpeople together so that they could realize that it's a unique experience in important ways. 

James Anderson: Now, here is one of the things that I do with—because one of the time I was talking with a friend, he was talking about how good that his high school was. And he actually was in a, in a system from one through 12. Grades one through 12, and he talked about what a good education they got. 

James Anderson: I said, you know, it probably never occurred to you what happened to all the students in your school, but if you would go back and get your first grade pictures and follow through to the 12th grade and see who was there in the 12th grade, you would begin to get a sense of the different experience of different people. The same thing holds true for high schools in general. You are going to a fifth— 

Speaker 8: 50th— 

James Anderson: 50th reunion. 

Speaker 8: Yeah. But that was in New Orleans, was it not? 

James Anderson: And I talk about that in New Orleans was one of the earliest, I mean, actually, New Orleans is late getting the high school compared to uh some other southern cities there, because I, I deal with New Orleans in my book and the struggle to get a public high school, which was an important struggle in New Orleans. And the, the public high school in New Orleans comes after 1930. Well, there's one in 1917, but which is, is supported in part by the by the city. But in terms of the full support for public high school in New Orleans, it actually comes after 1930 in terms of giving full support for public high school. 

Speaker 8: 35 was a part of Orleans Parish schools. 

James Anderson: Yes. Yeah. Okay. And, Atlanta didn't get a public high school until 1924 there. Now, if these were the major cities getting high schools in 24, and that's just one in Atlanta, by the way, for all of the Black public school students in, in the city of Atlanta and in New Orleans, they're getting them. And, that period, imagine what's going on where most of the African Americans live, which is not in Atlanta and not in New Orleans, and not in Birmingham, but in the rural areas, the African American population is virtually 75 to 80% rural. 

James Anderson: So what do they have? They don't have high schools. You see, and that's how the numbers fall out the way they do there. And when you look at differential patterns of schooling whether you lived in Durham or lived in Atlanta, or in New Orleans, or in Birmingham or Mobile, or in Savannah, you had access to a public high school if you lived in Oggie, Alabama, or  Como, Mississippi and places like that now. 

James Anderson: And for a long time, I couldn't figure that out. 'cause my mother, when I was going to high school, we had, when I was high school in my hometown, my mother used to say to me that she had completed school and had her diploma, and then she went back when the high school came. And as a kid, that would puzzle me. What do you mean you went back when the high school came? I mean, the high school was always there in my mind, only to realize that No, when she went to school, there was no high school, no public high school. And so then the public high school came later, and then she went back to try to get the high school diploma there. That is a more typical for the African-American experience. And so it's actually the 1960s where the first generation of African Americans and the 16 former slave states actually have access to public secondary education on a universal basis. 

James Anderson: There. Would the numbers be significantly different in the border states such as Oklahoma? The numbers are gonna be significantly different in places like Texas, Kentucky Missouri. 

James Anderson: And Missouri, I talk about a little bit. 'cause I was involved in cases. Missouri's gonna, in some ways very typical also in Maryland and and Oklahoma. I think some of the board of States, you're gonna, you, you're gonna get some significant differences there. 

James Anderson: Now, Missouri, for instance, had a highest, I mean, Sumner was all in, in the city of, of St. Louis. But when Sumner was founded, most of the African Americans lived in St. St. Louis County, not in the city of St. Louis. It was through migration right around the period of World War I, that, that shift from the county to the urban area began to occur. 

James Anderson: But when that high school was founded, then there was Lincoln High School founded in Kansas City, and for decades, Lincoln High and Kansas City and some the high and St. Louis were the only two public high schools in the state of Missouri or African American, only two. 

James Anderson: So anywhere else in that whole state, you did not have access to public high schools. And that's why when I did some oral interviews of people in St. Louis, for instance, Congressman Clay from from St. Louis, he told of his family having to give up their farm and move into the city of St. Louis so that the children would've access to a high school education because nowhere else was their high school available to them. Okay. 

James Anderson: Now, some of the high school in St. Louis, the next high school in St. Louis, after some was, was, was really constructed around 1930. So it really went for a period of about 60 years, was some to been in the only public high school. Okay. 

Speaker 6: Well, what about Lincoln? Uh university. It was first called Lincoln Institute. Yeah. It was that, that was designated as the high school, and it was called Lincoln Normal Institute, 

James Anderson: Right? It was actually founded as an agriculture and mechanical college. And then it was, it functioned as a normal school for the training of teachers. And then it was actually became the, the land grant for the state of Missouri after the 1890 more act there, because Lincoln was the only public college in the state of Missouri for African Americans. 

James Anderson: And then developed into both land grant, normal school and liberal arts, who actually served all three functions there, but was founded as an agricultural and mechanical college in 1866. See, there were very few colleges, about four, where the states tried to respond to the 1862 Land Grant Act by creating Black Land Grant. All Coin Mississippi was the only real public land grant. I mean, the others were sort of quasi-public, private Claflin College and was used as a land grant. And Hampton was used as a land grant in Virginia and later, after 1890 that the land grants really developed. But Lincoln was one of those institutions as well, that was founded as an agricultural, mechanical college. 

Speaker 6: Well, okay. Because the soldiers, the Black soldiers put their wages together, their pensions in order to create that institution for Blacks. 

James Anderson: Now that's, and that's not uncommon. I mean, that's a pattern around throughout the south, I mean, Alabama state, I started with that, and I'll just use this example, was founded as Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama in the, the late 1860s, 1865. Really then, and it was founded by African-Americans there, they paid for the buildings they were the board of trustees. It was wholly owned and operated by African Americans. Then they met with the American Missionary Association, which was helping to found and support African American colleges and, normal schools at that time. And so it became a joint venture between the African American community and the American Missionary Association then. And that is a typical pattern of the soldiers of African Americans. And one of the things that if you, when you, when you initiate projects to look at African American education institutions, one of themes that you really want to emphasize is just that is the African American contribution to the development of those institutions. 

James Anderson: And let me sort of give you some sense of why it was important using Alabama state, again, as an example. Now, it became a state institution in 1873. And the reason was that you had at that time, and that's why the reconstruction period, I think is, is, is so significant, not only in Alabama, but in all the other states, is that because you had African American politicians and voters, that the development of higher education in all those states at that time was a matter of compromise and negotiation there. I mean, the state of Alabama was not free to develop Auburn University as a land grant without responding in some way to African American needs. You had at least 20 some blocks in the house at that time. You also had a Black member of the State Board of Education, which was in charge of all of the institutions higher education. 

James Anderson: So the African Americans who are politicians and who are members of the State Board of Education are starting to negotiate for their slice of the pie in terms of autonomous institutions for African Americans there. And so there were a number of normal schools in the state of Alabama, both private, and there were a for public there. 

James Anderson: Now, Payton Finley, who was on the State Board of Education, said, but what about a state liberal arts college for African Americans? I mean, we have the University of Alabama and all taxes are going to support the University of Alabama. What do we have for the African American children? 

James Anderson: So the states said, well why don't we establish an institute for African Americans, because we don't want African American children to go to the University of Alabama? And the compromise between the African-American and Republican Coalition and the State Assembly, and also people like Finland and the State Board of Education was just that. 

James Anderson: So they pegged Lincoln normal as a state university. So in 1873, the African-Americans in Marion gave Lincoln normal to the state of Alabama, because the state made a promise and a pledge to develop it into a liberal arts university as a counterpart of the University of Alabama. That, that was the pledge. 

James Anderson: Now shortly after that, these couple years later, 1875, you get the return of White supremacy in the state. And effectively the end of reconstruction. African Americans are voting, but their votes are very much controlled by the White Democrats in Black belt counties. They really forced out a political office through both legal and extra legal means there. And so then the state turned around and said, well we don't have to follow through on this promise. And so it appropriates $4,000 a year for Lincoln to develop it as a university there. 

James Anderson: Now, in 1887, Lincoln moves from Marion to Montgomery because there's a race ride in Marion because of the college being located there. There's another college called Howard College. It's a college. The White students got into a fight with the Black students, and the whole town got an uproar and said, this college has to be removed from Marion then. And so the state then decided to relocate it in Montgomery, Alabama. 

James Anderson: Then as the Alabama Colored People's University, excuse that was the name of it there. Now, the Whites in Montgomery said, no, we do not want an African American college here, because that is gonna incite the local citizens to to try to be equal to Whites, or that African American with the higher education is very difficult to control. So the Whites in Montgomery began to fight the relocation of Alabama state to Montgomery. 

James Anderson: So they filed suit against the college. Right. And in the famous case, Elsberry versus Say, in Alabama in 1887, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the founding of Alabama Colored People's University of Montgomery violated the 1875 Constitution, because the 1875 Constitution disallowed the support of the university from the Common School fund. 

James Anderson: Now, that was important because the Common School Fund was where they took the money to support Lincoln. They didn't give money or funding to Lincoln normal in the way that they funded Alabama, university of Alabama. 

James Anderson: They took the money from the Black school children out of the Common School fund, and then gave that money to Lincoln normal there. And so the, the Alabama Supreme Court said, you cannot fund a university out of a common school fund. You can't fund a normal school out of there. The state then decided, well, in that case, we'll just run it as a normal school, despite its own legislative acts, which had founded it and said specifically that it was to offer a liberal arts education to African American students that was comparable to what was being offered to White students by the University of Alabama. 

James Anderson: The state decided to run it as a normal school. The fact of it was not founded as a normal school, and it made no sense for African Americans who had founded Lincoln to turn it over to the state to run it as a normal school, since it already was a normal school. It was only turned over to the state to be developed into a comprehensive university there. 

James Anderson: Now, back to this point about African American contributions, as you raised with, with regard to Lincoln from its founded in 1873 until 1930, the state of Alabama did not give a single building to Alabama State University. Not one single building. 

James Anderson: All the buildings that went to make up Alabama State University were donated by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama. 

James Anderson: Yeah. And not only the buildings, but the money to maintain the institution in large part also came from African Americans more on an annual expenditures. You look at the annual expenditures for, for that institution, more money came from the African American community than from the state of Alabama for a very long time. And this tend to be true in other states. Yes, you're gonna find the same pattern in other states there the same pattern. Okay. 

James Anderson: And so, you know, and you began to see about the development of the physical plans of the African American public colleges, because if you look at University of Alabama, they're the same period in terms of all kinds of professional schools. And it's enlargement in terms of its endowment, its annual expenditure, it's physical plan, all is being donated by the state, while Alabama state is really not getting a single building during the same time period there. 

James Anderson: So one of the important things with respect to the, the, the autonomy of African American institution is to look at that dimension there. And, , and in some sense, they were public in name only, in terms of how they operated and how they were maintained. It was pretty much as though they were private institutions there. 

James Anderson: And so in, in, in a very important sense, they were autonomous for a confluence of reasons. One, the African Americans have this important relationship to the institutions and maintain them as autonomous institutions in some respect. But don't forget, the states force them to be autonomous because its refusal to support them in any significant way. 

James Anderson: Now, the state did not allow them autonomy, respect to governance or control. The states actually controlled them, and they were legally state institutions there. And the state one of the interesting things that I discovered was that, that the African Americans were still trying to develop Alabama state into a liberal arts college and continued to offer college degrees through the early 19 hundreds. And finally, in 1919, the state of Alabama made it very clear to them that we do not want this to be a college. And so it passed along, which disallowed Alabama state to be a college and restricted it to a junior college. And in the same year, it passed a law, which disallowed Alabama A&M to be a college and restricted it to a junior college, even though it was received in federal funds to be an agricultural and mechanical college. 

James Anderson: Now, with those acts in 1919, the state of Alabama eliminated public higher education for African Americans, all public higher, all higher education was then private. 

Speaker 9: Yes. I'm wondering, to what extent did the Booker T. Washington, Samuel C. Armstrong industrial conglomeration, quote unquote, you wanna call it, that impacted on the, and the autonomy of a school like Alabama State or Alabama A&M, say, from about 1900 to about 1920? 

Speaker 9: Certainly. I mean, if, it seems to me, if you consider autonomy could we say it was sort of like a little autonomous fiefdom on the part of whoever ran the scope? Was there direct influence from Booker T. Washington for example, in terms of the curriculum and that type of thing. 

Speaker 9: And I suppose the state of Alabama would have you know, applauded that type of thing as opposed to a more classical type of curriculum 

James Anderson: That, that that philosophies clearly has impacted African American normal schools and colleges throughout the era. Washington has various kinds of relationships to these institutions and also various kinds of impact. For instance, of course, Washington wanted Tuskegee to be the Land grant there, as opposed to A&M that the problem we had was that after the— 

James Anderson: There was a law passed in 1890 in Alabama, which allow the county superintendents to appropriate school funds according to their wishes, as opposed to the law dating back to the 1868 Constitution, which specifically required an equitable division of the common school fund on the basis of race, which meant that African American children throughout the 19th century got a proportional share of the common school fund. 

James Anderson: That was the, the important thing about Horace Mann bond's famous article that was published in the in inaugural issue of the Journal of Negro Education about the Alabama Constitution of 1901. 

James Anderson: He demonstrated that in, in, as of as of of 1900, that African Americans got a proportional share of the Common School fund. But the 1890 law allowed them to really take control of the tax receipts from both tax receipts, from both Black and Whites, and to allocate those funds largely to White schools. And Booker t Washington understood this. And so there was a meeting in Montgomery following the passage of this law in which Booker t Washington criticized this new law. But right away, the Montgomery, Montgomery Advertisers said he would get a little uppity and little Oliver, his place, and therefore they punished him by not giving him the land grant. Council, who was up at the Huntsville was able to outmaneuver Washington and get the Land Grant, because Washington fell into disfavor precisely time that the state legislature was making the decision about the Land grant then. 

James Anderson: But that was this constant struggle over land grant funds, land grant functions like an agricultural experiment, station agricultural extension work. Quite often the state of Alabama would use Tuskegee as the institute to do that as opposed to A&M, even though A&M was a land grant there. 

James Anderson: So these relationships were there, but in terms of the curriculI think that's where the impact was the greatest there because by that time officials in the state of Alabama well understood the Hampton philosophy and officials in Georgia understood it, and officials in Florida understood. And you see a series of persons being dismissed and also of institutions being changed in accordance with their perception of that. Florida A&M is a good example with Nathan B. Young, who was there, who eventually went to Lincoln after he left Florida A&M. 

James Anderson: But Nathan Young had developed A&M into a, a fairly decent college. And the US Bureau of Education had said that this is one of the few land grant institutions that was really a solid college. And, but the governor of Alabama at that time, I mean the governor, governor of Florida, Harding at that time, he was the candidate for the governorship, was alarmed by this and said, we can't have Florida A&M as a college there. And so he made the issue part of his political campaign and said that Florida A&M Development as a college represented all that threaten rule Whites. And so he was elected, and Nathan Young was dismissed, and Florida A&M was restricted to being a vocational school as opposed to college in Savannah. Robert—I mean, Richard Wright was dismissed from Savannah State for the same reason. 

James Anderson: And the same thing happened at A&M and also, in fact, A&M was renamed the normal School and Industrial Institute. It was founded as Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. But the state renamed it in accordance with that philosophy. So this philosophy is affected institution after institution and state after state. And, the arguments come up again and again. Not quite often Washington himself is entangled in these arguments. I mean, it was rumor that he was the one who informed. I mean, you should, one of the things that's interesting Richard writes own autobiography. He writes about the fact that Washington had informed the White board of trustees in Georgia, that Savannah State was sort of quietly or a subterranean liberal arts college, that it was only pretending to be an industrial college. And so they called Richard Wright in to chastise him for not developing sort of a Hampton type normal industrial institute in Savannah. 

James Anderson: And Wright said that he was able to manipulate that situation simply by saying to the Whites that he asked them if they were gonna allow a Negro from Alabama to come into Georgia and tell them how to run their schools, (laughter) 

James Anderson: And and that's when they said, well, that's okay. Just go ahead and do as you're doing, because he just sort of put the ball in back in their court. But, but this kind of relationship was going on through that whole period as to whether these institutions would become what they were envisioned to be, either land grant or liberal arts college, or whether they would in some way conform to this model of normal school industrial education there. And I think there's hardly an institution that escaped that that that fight. Yeah. 

Speaker 9: I just want 

James Anderson: Go ahead. 

Speaker 9: Wanted to raise another question on this. This is one of my research areas, so it's fascinating. But to what extent do you feel that the influence of Book Tate and Samuel say Armstrong, who every time I read about, you know, such I don't know, quote unquote, a monster of sorts, to what extent do you say this having an effect on higher education Black colleges today? I, I seem to see a thread that can traced all the way back to, say, the 1860s. And I say a continuous, a continuous historical thread. You know, I guess I, I can almost document it back to 1868. 

James Anderson: Well, here are the things that I see is, um,