The Rise of the Negro Assistant County Superintendent in West Virginia

Abstract

The Negro Assistant County Superintendent of Schools in West Virginia represents the highest step reached thus far in the struggle of West Virgiina Negroes for full participation in the administration of their schools. In order to appreciate the worth of this office, it is necessary to know the development of educational administration in West Virginia and to know the status of the West Virginia school system prior to the adoption of the county unit system and the prevailing conditions which the county unit system sought to remedy. The participation of Negroes in the administration of schools for Negroes began with the Negro trustees. The magisterial districts, created, from earlier times, were divisions of the county. They were formed for the purpose of facilitating judicial affairs. This made them rather easily administered school units also. The schools in the magisterial district made up the unit, the control of which rested with the Board of Education of each of these districts. In each magisterial district the Board of Education was an elective body of three members. These board members were elected from various parts of the district in order that the interests of all would be represented. The Board set the salaries of teachers, provided for teaching quarters, and set the school term. Details such as hiring of teachers, visiting schools, hiring of school janitors, provision of supplies and repairs, settling disputes arising between the school and the community, and seeing to it that teachers secured decent places in which to live were functions delegated to a small group of men appointed by the Board of Education. This small group of men were known as trustees. It was in this capacity that Negroes began their service as school administrators. The majority of the schools were of either the one-room or the two-room type. The large and complex school systems in towns and cities, which we know today, were unknown to the trustees because of the fact that they functioned at a time when life and education were simple in the State. Eight counties: Kanawha, Fayette, McDowell, Raleigh, Harrison, Putnam, Greenbrier, and Sumners, used Negro trustees for supervising the Negro schools. Other counties used white trustees to supervise the schools for both white and Negro pupils. The Negro trustees, like the white trustees, served without pay. Most of them had a meager education and some were illiterate. However, indications are that they gave good account of their stewardship. Often through their unstinted efforts and cooperation with the teachers in charge, the standard of the schools was raised and many needed materials of instruction were provided which otherwise could never have been obtained. Boards of education in those days furnished little or noth-