Rural Negro Research Articles

“Upon the Young People of Our Race, by Our Own Literature”: Alice Dunbar-Nelson's “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils”

“Upon the Young People of Our Race, by Our Own Literature”Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils” Shawn Anthony Christian Alice Dunbar-Nelson was known for making compelling arguments about, on behalf of, and often to African America. Her 1922 Southern Workman article “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils” was an important element of this critical discourse. For example, early in its exposition, Dunbar-Nelson contends that “for two generations we have given brown and black children a blonde ideal of beauty to worship, a milk-white literature to assimilate, and a pearly Paradise to anticipate, in which their dark faces would be hopelessly out of place” (59). “There is,” she adds, “a manifest remedy for this condition, a remedy which the teachers of the race are applying gradually, wherever the need has been brought to their attention. We must begin everywhere to instill race pride into our pupils. . . . [W]e will give the children the poems and stories and folk lore and songs of their own people. We do not teach literature; we are taught by literature” (60). Authoritative and timely, Dunbar-Nelson’s “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils” advanced an educational philosophy predicated on countering racism as much as it was on harnessing the dynamic race pride that characterized the early twentieth century. As Nathan Huggins argues, the “ethnocentrism that generated self-determination as an Allied aim in [World War I] informed a new racial awareness among blacks throughout the world. The war also forced a reevaluation of Western civilization and encouraged non-Europeans to esteem their own cultures as being as valid and civilized as Europe’s” (6–7). Through “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils,” Dunbar-Nelson argued similarly that the study of literature from “their own people” was possible for African American students because a range of works—from Phillis Wheatley’s poetry to Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery—were part of a literary tradition that African [End Page 267] American teachers of primary and secondary school students could embrace as a curricular imperative. Even more, Dunbar-Nelson urged that “Negro Literature,” marginalized but constitutive of American literature, would combat the internalization of racist stereotypes and “broaden [students’] knowledge of literature, philosophy, and politics in order to act socially and politically” (Knupfer 121–22). In the context of African Americans’ circumscribed educational attainment by 1920, “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils” was a hopeful call to action. First, despite the visibility and resonance of W. E. B. Du Bois’s and other educators’ counters to the influence of Booker T. Washington’s advocacy of industrial education, “by World War I, vocational education was not only offered in the upper grades but also reached far down into the elementary grades” (Mohraz 67). The residual effects of sustaining African Americans’ education as training for “work and social adjustment” slowed currency in the belief that formal education should foster race pride, especially as “[t]he intended purpose of these schools [in the South especially] was to make black children think and feel that traditional, high-quality academic education was incongruent with their station in life” (Anderson 147). One educator from such an institution argued early in the century that for “those thoroughly acquainted with rural Negroes there can be no doubt that the education they need is that which will lead them to be frugal, self-respecting, and intelligently and purposefully industrious.” She continued: “The literary course at present certainly need not be more than elementary; but it should be thorough, and should include . . . a carefully arranged course in English and American literature” (Bemus 648, 652). Persistence of such thinking would compel Elise McDougald to argue in 1923 that many of her white counterparts were “still dazzled to a large extent by a one sided programme of vocational education for all Negroes” (219).1 Responding to the reliance on vocational education for African American youth, several educators broadened their instruction and rendered it racially affirming. Their efforts were similar to what Madge Scott experienced as a student in a segregated and white-controlled school system in Florida during the 1920s. A teacher herself in later life, Scott remembered that [e]ven though the schools were segregated...

The Jeanes Supervisors: Striving to Educate.

The Jeanes Supervisors: Striving to Educate (A Video Documentary), by Vernon F. Clarke. Atlanta, GA: Breaking New Ground Productions (2005 Beecher Road, Atlanta, GA 30311), 1995. 58 minutes, 40 seconds. $60.00, institutions; $50.00, individuals (prices include shipping and handling); VHS format, color and black-and-white. Reviewed by Michael Fultz, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The educational program described in this hour-long video documentary was initiated around turn of 20th century, when ferocity of racist hatred was openly proclaimed throughout South and very provision of schools for Black children was deeply contested. In 1907, Anna T. Jeanes, an elderly Quaker woman from Philadelphia, morally dismayed about state of tiny rural schools provided for African American children in South, was urged to act on her concern by Black educators such as Booker T. Washington. Jeanes subsequently provided a $1 million endowment to create a fund which bore her name, Anna T. Jeanes Fund, also known as Rural Negro School Fund, Inc. The purpose of fund was, literally and figuratively, to provide the next needed thing for African American education and African American communities in oppressive, segregated South when, in all too many cases, everything needed to be done. As a result of historic neglect of Black schools by White public officials, Jeanes Supervisors often served as ad hoc county superintendents of African American education, working to upgrade schools, improve teaching practices, and stimulate and coordinate community improvement efforts through a wide range of activities. Sad to say, however, despite their heroic efforts, Jeanes Supervisors mostly toiled in anonymity. Although occasional profiles and commentary on their activities in rural Black communities of South have been featured in bulletins issued by various Black state teachers' associations, their epic story has never fully been told. The Jeanes Supervisors: Striving to Educate provides a vital piece of this historic educational saga. Although video does not provide specific figures, by 1937-38 an estimated 474 Jeanes Supervisors were working in 505 counties in 13 southern states and in Virgin Islands. As it does make clear, however, their tasks were many. Jeanes Supervisors, majority of whom were African American women, served as ambassador-advocates, liaison-diplomats, teachers, curriculum specialists, in-service providers, health workers, and community organizers. The Fund's activities peaked during 1940s, spanning decades when funding for African American schools was unconscionably low, and culminated in 1960s, when, ironically, twisted visions of integration forced displacement of hundreds of Black educators. The persistent efforts of Jeanes Supervisors, including delicate role they played in negotiating with often hostile forces in White community, provided exemplary service in critical times, and program provided living models of dedication and perseverance in cause of uplifting African American education. …

Key Informants in Cottonville: Revisiting Powdermaker's Mississippi

In 1932 Hortense Powdermaker conducted field research in "deep south" Mississippi. After Freedom, a report of cultural life among rural Southern Negroes in a world dominated politically and economically by whites, was eventually published in 1939. Fifty years after its publication, this author, while collecting oral histories in the Mississippi Delta, became interested in tracing the impact of Powdermaker's visit upon the research site. One of the primary sources of information was Mrs. Isabel Ambrose Lee, the youngest sister of Hortense Powdermaker's key informant. This paper introduces the reader to that informant, Lillian Rogers Johnson, and elaborates on her life before and after Powdermaker's text. It also updates the reader on social conditions as they exist today in the "Cottonville" of After Freedom.

The Redistribution of the Black Work Force in the South by Industry

exodus of blacks from the South and their abandonment of farming as a way of life. And, within the South, there has been an extraordinary increase in the proportion of black women in the labor force accompanied, however, by a puzzling fall in the corresponding proportion for black men. Along with these trends there has been a remarkable shift in the distribution of black workers by industry that is much greater than that observed for whites. It is these differences in participation in broad industry groups that is the subject of this paper. Blacks were first imported for the purpose of raising tobacco, but it was cotton that accounted for the great influx of slaves, and it was cotton that was the mainstay of the black population until well into this century. As Myrdal stated: Most rural Negroes are in Southern cotton agriculture, which is particularly over-populated; backward in production methods; and hard hit by soil exhaustion, by the boll weevil, and by a long-time fall in international demand for American cotton.... In the beginning the Negroes were owned as property. When slavery disappeared, caste remained. Within this framework of adverse tradition the average Negro in every generation has had a most disadvantageous start.1

NEGRO FARM OWNERSHIP IN THE SOUTH

ABSTRACT Rural Negroes achieved farm ownership in the southern United States after the Civil War. The number of Negro farm owners has declined substantially from a peak of more than 200,000 around World War I, yet they remain significant in some areas. The small size of Negro farms, and the limited capital of their owners, will make their survival difficult. Many of these landholdings now have greater social value than economic significance.

Appendicitis, fibre intake and bowel behaviour in ethnic groups in South Africa.

SummaryInformation on appendicectomy-prevalence was secured on 15,317 16–20-year-old South African pupils and students—Negroes, Coloureds (Eurafricans), Indians and Caucasians. Data were also obtained on crude fibre-intake, frequency of defaecation, and transit-time of digesta.Among students, 18–20 years, appendicectomy was very uncommon in rural Negroes (0·5%) and periurban Negroes (0·9%), slightly more common in urban Negroes (1·4%), but very common in Caucasians (16·5%); prevalences in Coloured and Indian groups were low (1·7 and 2·9%). Rural Negroes had a far larger fibre-intake, greater frequency of defaecation, and much shorter transit-time; yet, in the four ethnic groups in urban areas, despite wide differences in appendicectomy-prevalence, data on these variables were similar. Differences in other aspects of the bowel milieu intérieur must therefore be sought.Corresponding studies were made on 1325 Caucasian pupils in Homes; their diet is less sophisticated (in respect of fibre, sugar and fat-intakes) than that of the general population. Pupils had slightly greater defaecation-frequency, lesser transit-time, and an appendicectomy-incidence only 23% of that of an appropriate control-group.The conclusion is reached that the causes of appendicitis are wholly environmental.

Food consumption of low-income, rural Negro households in Mississippi1

How do low-income, Negro families in the South spend their food dollar? This study reports a survey in three counties in Mississippi.

Affect Structure and Achievement in a Select Sample of Rural Negro Children

Of all the variables measured in the Equality of Educational Opportunity survey1 students' attitude toward school, their self concepts, and a sense of environmental control showed the strongest relationship to achievement. The affective measure of a student's feeling about himself and his destiny appeared to be more highly related to scholastic achievement of disadvantaged children than did all the school factors put together.

Cultural change and the ghetto

Ghetto literature, the product of intense feeling and dramatic experience, has always been the most readable material of American urban history, indeed the only books which could command a wide audience.1 Today inter-racial conflict and the segregated pattern of Negro housing in our cities encourage urbanists to seek analogies between the urbanization of European peasants in American cities and the urbanization of the formerly rural American Negro.2 Both literary tradition and current interest create a severe historical distortion. The first tells of the integration of American society through the diffusion of immigrants and their descendants from a first settlement in tight urban clusters to a later suburban inter-mixture. Although such a process of cultural change did take place on a massive scale in many cities, assimilation by way of a ghetto has always been a limited case in American urban history, limited both in time span and in membership. Most foreign immigrants to American cities never lived in ghettos, and most immigrant ghettos that did exist were the product of the largest cities and the eastern and southern European immigrants of

Peer-Concept Ratings in Rural Children

Comparison of peer perceptions of 95 rural Negro and 95 white elementary level students shows substantial differences across race in the factor structure on a form of Osgood's Semantic Differential. Caste, class, race, grade level, poverty level, or other factors should, in further studies, be related to the depressed peer evaluation of Negro samples should this low evaluation reappear.

Facilitative and Inhibitive Factors in Training Program Recruitment Among Rural Negroes

Journal of Social IssuesVolume 21, Issue 1 p. 110-125 Facilitative and Inhibitive Factors in Training Program Recruitment Among Rural Negroes C. Paul Marsh, C. Paul MarshSearch for more papers by this authorMinnie M. Brown, Minnie M. BrownSearch for more papers by this author C. Paul Marsh, C. Paul MarshSearch for more papers by this authorMinnie M. Brown, Minnie M. BrownSearch for more papers by this author First published: January 1965 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1965.tb00487.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume21, Issue1January 1965Pages 110-125 RelatedInformation

A Case Study of the Effects of Educational Deprivation on Southern Rural Negro Children

In the spring of 1959, the Prince Edward County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors in voting not to reopen its public schools rather than comply with a court order requiring school desegregation, brought about one of the most unique and catastrophic events in the history of American public education (Green, Hoffman, Morse, Hayes, and Morgan, 1964). This massive resistance effort on the part of the County Board of Supervisors affected approximately 1800 white and 1700 Negro children. Before the final decision to not allocate funds for the public school system in the County, the local white leadership formed the Prince Edward School Corporation which later provided the structure for the present private school system for the white children of the County. No such consideration was given to the educational needs of the Negro children. The latter action of Prince Edward County officials found few whites without formal schooling from June, 1959, to September, 1963 (four years) and the majority of the County's Negro children were left without consistent formal instruction. In the fall of 1963, an integrated private school known as the Prince Edward County Free School Association was opened with the assistance of the United States Department of Justice and six Virginia educators. It was attended by most of the Negro and a few white students. This school system was in operation from fall, 1963, through June, 1964.

The Rural Negro Population of the South in Transition

The Rural Negro Population of the South in Transition

The County Unit System of Georgia: Facts and Prospects

AMONG THE NUMEROUS DEVICES used in the United States to thwart popular control of government, perhaps none has such notoriety as the county unit system of Georgia. Rural, minority control of state government lingers in most states of the union, but in none has this control been made so secure as in Georgia. In other states, popular majorities have been able to gain limited access to government through the governor; however, in Georgia minority control even of the governor, as well as of other executive officers and the higher judiciary, is assured by the county unit system. Some people insist that apportionment in the rural-dominated legislature and the county unit system are two different problems. Yet actually they are very closely related: county unit votes are distributed according to the number of members in the county delegation to the state House of Representatives two for one. The constitution of Georgia provides that each of the 8 most populous counties shall have three representatives in the House of Representatives; the 30 next most populous counties, two each; and the remaining 121 counties, one each.' Re-allocation is made after each decennial census. The sparsely populated counties dot the map of the whole state, but principally they stretch across agricultural Middle and South Georgia (see Map I). Furthermore, it is in this agricultural area that the percentage of Negroes in the population is highest (see Map II). And, as is true throughout the South, wherever rural Negroes are concentrated, there rural whites most effectively disfranchise them, legally and extralegally (by the use of such devices as literacy tests and direct physical intimidation, respectively), and otherwise dominate society. The small, agricultural counties, by sheer weight of their number, are able to overwhelm in the state legislature the populous, urban counties, located principally in industrial North Georgia and along an industrial and commercial belt in Middle Georgia.2 This rural, white dominance through number of counties is reinforced by the narrowness of the spread from one to three in county representative strength in the House. Since county power in the decisive Democratic primary election, through the county unit system, is an exact multiple of county strength in the House, and since whites dominate politics in the many rural counties, the politics of Georgia is agrarian and white supremacist. By the Neill Primary Act of 1917, as amended,3 any political party that holds a statewide primary must determine the winners by application of the

Problems of Rural and Urban Southern Negro Children

Problems of Rural and Urban Southern Negro Children

The Future of the Negro Voter in the South

The question of the future of the Negro voter in the South breaks itself neatly into two aspects: namely, the continued expansion of the simple right to vote and the use made of the ballot by those presently enfranchised. The likelihood of continued expansion is suggested by the tremendous increase in Negro registration between 1944 and 1956. Prior to the Smith v. Allwright decision in 1944, an estimated 150,000 Negroes were qualified to vote in elections other than the all-important Deva-, ocratic primary. Today the number of Negroes qualified to vote in all Southern elections is an estimated 1,250,000, or about one quarter of the five million Negro adults living in the South in 1950. This increase is all the more remarkable since it has won a remarkable degree of acceptance by Southern whites. To be sure, this acceptance is not uniform throughout the region. Nor has it been an enthusiastic acceptance; many whites regard Negro voting as a necessary evil. Yet widespread acceptance of Negro voting even by those who deplore it is significant. Consider the newspaper account of a questionnaire mailed to candidates in the 1956 Alabama primary by the White Citizens Council. One of the questions read: Will you solicit the Negro vote? Note that even this organization conceded that there was a Negro vote to be solicited. In predicting future increases ill Negro voting, a reasonable hypothesis is that Negroes will continue to find it easy to register in those areas where they have so far encountered little opposition and will continue to have trouble registering in those areas where they have encountered difficulties heretofore. Assuming that the past is a guide to the future, the first step must be to identify those areas of permissiveness and resistance to Negro registration during the last thirteen years. In a general sense, one can say that Negroes have least difficulty registering and voting in the larger cities of the South. Southwide, from Richmond to Houston, large cities offer relatively few obstacles to Negro political activity, whereas the rural Negro often has a harder time registering. However, this must not be construed as saying that the larger the city the larger will be the percentage of Negroes twentyone and over who are registered. There is no direct relationship between the size of the city and the percentage of its potential Negro electorate which is qualified to vote. Thus, Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama, does not have so large a percentage of its Negro residents registered as do some of the smaller cities of the state. Other factors, such as the ability and vigor of Negro leadership, will have a bearing on rate of registration. Regardless of this variation in rate of participation among cities, the authors of all the

Serological response of a rural Negro population to the Sabin-Feldman cytoplasm-modifying test for toxoplasmosis.

SummaryUsing the Sabin-Feldman “dye test”, 987 sera from the rural, Negro population of Fayette County, Tennessee, were tested for antitoxoplasmic antibodies. The following conclusions were established: 1. There is no significant difference between the sexes at any age with regard to anti-toxoplasmic antibodies. 2. With the exception of the youngest age group, the percentage of positive titers in the population increases with age. 3. There is a highly significant shift of modal titer, from positive at a dilution of 1:64 or higher in persons under 20 years of age to 1:16 or less in persons 20 years of age or more. 4. Considerable evidence can be seen of a bimodal distribution of titers, with an abnormally large number of undiluted positive sera. 5. When the data for each age group are standardized to the actual census population, the overall prevalence of positive reactors is 29.9 per cent for all positive titers, and 21.8 per cent for titers of 1:16 or higher.

Vocational Aspirations, Intelligence, Problems and Socio-Economic Status of Rural Negro High School Seniors on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Their Implications for Vocational Guidance

The vocation problems and adjustments of Negro youth are similar in general to those of other American racial groups, but there are several factors which operate to make satisfactory and intelligent adjustment more serious for them. In the states which operate upon the philosophy of the separation of the races, the Negro youth are exposed to many inequalities in the educational, economic and social life of the several communities. Schools and job opportunities in many instances are not on a par with those of other racial groups. These factors have a tendency to differenciate the function of vocational guidance, especially for the Negro in Southern rural areas. According to the records the percentage of rural Negroes who pursue training beyond high school is very small and mortality in the high schools is large. It is evident that over three-fourths of the high school graduates do not continue their education beyond high school and that these same graduates are forced to find employment in the local communities. Job opportunities based upon the type of labor engaged in by the majority of Negroes particularity in Marylands rural areas are limited to unskilled labor (farm and factory), and domestic service occupations.' Guidance services and techniques have been neglected along with other phases of education resulting from existing segregated schools. An examination of the literature shows that studies dealing with the dynamics which

Patterns of Family Limitation in a Rural Negro Community

Patterns of Family Limitation in a Rural Negro Community

Problems of Rural Negro High School Seniors on the Eastern Shore of Maryland: A Consideration for Guidance

A study of the problems of rural Negro high school seniors represents a phase of a general investigation concerned with the dynamics that condition the vocational aspirations and adjustments of rural youth. Education of today's youth should be concerned with providing the experiences that will help them develop into happy and useful citizens. Subsequent adjustment to the complexities of life is dependent upon the ability of the individual to meet problems with insight and understanding, resulting in a plan of action that will make proper adjustment possible. Guidance of today's youth, therefore, should be concerned with the extent that such problems may condition present and subsequent adjustment. It is, the opinion of the writer that the problems of youth bear a direct relationship to their aspirations and act to condition t h e i r vocational choices as well as present adjustments to those phases of life which make for happy citizenship. Problems reflect needs, and the needs'of youth cannot be properly provided for unless systematic and objective studies are made to reveal these needs. Several writers have stressed the importance of identifying problems of high school pupils. Cheyney1 points out that the pupils have in-school and post-school problems that have not been