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Honoring Black Women in Bay Area Who fought for Equal Education for Children

Not many people think of California as having deep roots embedded in slavery, and practices of white supremacy. California was admitted as a free state on Sept. 9, 1850. Pioneer Blacks and those who came during the Great Migration, were in search of freedom, yet they were met with the same oppressive racism and hostility that existed in the South.

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12 months ago

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By Rev. Dr. Martha C. Taylor

One of the most egregious laws enacted in the State of California was the denial of Black children having an equal opportunity for education.

Not many people think of California as having deep roots embedded in slavery, and practices of white supremacy. California was admitted as a free state on Sept. 9, 1850. Pioneer Blacks and those who came during the Great Migration, were in search of freedom, yet they were met with the same oppressive racism and hostility that existed in the South.

Blacks were aware that the key to upward mobility was education. It is important to note in Black history that, as the late Alice Childress, playwright, actress and novelist once said Blacks “are the only racial group within the United States ever forbidden by law to read and write.”

Though not as extreme as the anti-literacy laws of the South, one racist California law stated: “every school, unless otherwise provided by special law shall be open for white children…. On the other hand, “The education of children of African descent…shall be provided for in separate schools.”

Further, Black parents were forced to pay public school taxes for white students, while Black children attended separate schools that were not equal.

Many inequities were addressed through the Black Church, the institution described by C. Eric Lincoln as the social, cultural, political, location for the Black Community; it was their school, forum, political arena, social clubs, art gallery and much more.

Ministers and others formed four California Colored Conventions with a focus on racial uplift from 1855-1865, which provided Black Churches to address concerns about state laws.

In the Bay Area and other places, the Black Church became the educational institution for Black children.

St. Cyprian African Methodist was the first organized Black church in San Francisco (later renamed Bethel AME) in 1852. Two years later, on May 22, 1854, the church served as the first schoolhouse for 23 Black children in the basement of the church. Children from elementary to high school age shared the same room with no books.

In Oakland, the First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) established in 1858, also was the first school for Black children.

Black women played key roles in the education of Black children.

Mrs. Elizabeth Thorn Scott-Flood opened a private school for colored children circa 1857 in the old carpenter schoolhouse that was abandoned by whites for being inadequate. Lydia Flood-Jackson, daughter of Elizabeth Flood, was a race woman who also fought tirelessly for education and women’s rights.

Lydia Floyd Jackson fought tirelessly for education and women’s rights. Wikipedia.org photo.

Lydia Floyd Jackson fought tirelessly for education and women’s rights. Wikipedia.org photo.

Ten years later, the first public colored school in Oakland was taught by Miss Mary J. Sanderson, near 10th Avenue and E. 11th Street in an area previously known as Brooklyn, an annex of Oakland. The school closed as Black families began to move out of the area and relocate where work was available.

Bits of history often fall between the cracks if not taught or discussed. Long before the 1954 landmark case involving 8-year-old Linda Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, where the Supreme Court struck down the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson ‘separate but equal’ decision, there was a case in San Francisco that dates to 1874.

In Mary Frances Ward vs. Noah Flood, the 11-year-old was denied enrollment to Broadway Grammar School, a white school near her home strictly based on her race. The matter advanced to the California State Supreme Court which ruled that Ward’s rights were not violated because there was an all-Black school near her home.

But the next year, with the support of white citizens, the school system changed. According to historian Alfred Broussard “the segregated school was more expensive to operate on a per pupil basis than were the larger white institutions.”

Looking down the corridors of time, Black Lives have always mattered.

We honor our ancestors who struggled for equality when we continue the struggle; the fight has not been won.

Vivian Rodgers was the first Black female to graduate in 1909. Vivian Osborne, a local graduate from Berkeley High School, 1914 applied to U.C. Berkeley with excellent academic records but was required to take four entrance exams.

Ida Louise Jackson, a pioneering Black woman graduated in 1922 from U.C. Berkeley, becoming the first Black public school teacher in California.

As we honor women during this month, let us also remember men who struggled for achievement through education.

Alexander Dumas Jones of San Francisco was the first Black to enroll at UC Berkeley in 1881, followed by Charles Edward Carpenter as the first Black graduate in 1905.

There are so many more, some known, others unknown. As James Weldon Johnson wrote in his poem that became the “Black National Anthem,” ‘Let us march on til victory is won.’

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

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4 days ago

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March 17, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 - 21, 2023

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Activism

Richmond Promise Scholarship Application Deadline Closes March 17

Qualifying applicants can receive up to $1,500 annually for four years toward their post-secondary educational goals at a two-year or four-year college and/or while pursuing a Career Technical Education Certificate at any not-for-profit institution in the U.S. 

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6 days ago

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March 15, 2023

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Scholarships are available for high school graduates who want to go to a two-year or four-year college or a nonprofit vocational/technical school. Photo courtesy of Richmond Promise.
Scholarships are available for high school graduates who want to go to a two-year or four-year college or a nonprofit vocational/technical school. Photo courtesy of Richmond Promise.

Calling all high school seniors from Richmond and North Richmond: The Richmond Promise Scholarship Application period for the 2022-2023 school year closes on Friday, March 17.

High school seniors and GED students under the age of 24 who reside in Richmond and North Richmond and attend public, private, or charter schools in West Contra Costa County are eligible to apply for the scholarship.

Qualifying applicants can receive up to $1,500 annually for four years toward their post-secondary educational goals at a two-year or four-year college and/or while pursuing a Career Technical Education Certificate at any not-for-profit institution in the U.S. 

Students can also petition for an additional two years of extra funding. Throughout the process, the program provides supportive services to participating scholars from high school through college graduation, including support with identifying and applying for financial aid.

Richmond Promise launched in 2016 with a $35 million, 10-year investment by Chevron Richmond. The funds are part of a $90 million community benefits agreement between the City of Richmond and Chevron connected to the $1 billion Refinery Modernization Project.

To apply for the Richmond Promise Scholarship, go to https://richmondpromise.tfaforms.net/81. Need some help? Reach out to Richmond Promise at scholarships@richmondpromise.org. Learn more about the organization https://richmondpromise.org/

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report

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Bay Area Native Dr. Terri Jett Honored by Indiana’s Butler University

Terri Jett arrived at Butler University in 1999 to begin her teaching career as an assistant professor of Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies after earning her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from Auburn University. Originally from California, Jett was unfamiliar with the Hoosier state, but was drawn to the energy of the faculty and students she met at Butler and the opportunity she saw for connecting her teaching and research with the broader Indianapolis community.

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1 week ago

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March 14, 2023

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Dr. Terri Jett poses with Butler Blue, the mascot of Butler University. Photo courtesy of Butler University Stories.
Dr. Terri Jett poses with Butler Blue, the mascot of Butler University. Photo courtesy of Butler University Stories.

By Jennifer Gunnels
Butler University Stories

Bay Area native Terri Jett was received a Distinguished Faculty Award at Indiana’s Butler University.

Terri Jett arrived at Butler University in 1999 to begin her teaching career as an assistant professor of Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies after earning her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from Auburn University.

Originally from California, Jett was unfamiliar with the Hoosier state, but was drawn to the energy of the faculty and students she met at Butler and the opportunity she saw for connecting her teaching and research with the broader Indianapolis community.

More than 20 years later, Jett has excelled at the work she set out to do. Last year, she was named a 2021-22 Distinguished Faculty Award recipient for her profound contributions to Butler University over the course of her career.

In many ways, Jett has been a trailblazer at Butler, including becoming the first Black female to earn tenure, and in 2020 becoming the first Black female to be promoted to full professor. Along with her teaching responsibilities as a member of the faculty, Jett has taken on numerous additional roles over the years including faculty director of the Hub for Black Affairs and Community Engagement (the Hub), member of the Steering Committee of the Race, Gender, Sexuality Studies Program (RGSS), faculty senator, and Faculty Fellow at the Desmond Tutu Peace Lab Think Tank. She also served as Department Chair from 2007-2014, a role she has currently resumed as interim while the current Chair is on sabbatical.

Jett has developed almost two dozen courses — core, departmental, honors, and even taught in our Washington D.C. Semester Program — and is always eager to seize on opportunities to take her students beyond the borders of campus. She has led students on numerous occasions to Selma, Alabama with the Honors course Voting Rights in Black and White: The Case of the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March. She says walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge is always a moving and eye-opening experience for her students that brings the Civil Rights Movement to life in new ways.

Of the many courses she has taught, Jett says one of her favorites to teach is the Politics of Alice Walker, which she teaches nearly every summer. Prior to the pandemic, Jett also offered the course several times at the Indiana Women’s Prison and was able to bring some of her Butler students to visit her class in prison.

Jett is committed to doing good things in the world herself and is known in the Indianapolis community for her service and activism. She currently serves on the board of Indiana Humanities and is appointed by Mayor Joe Hogsett to the Indianapolis Land Improvement Bond Bank Board. She also moderates a series on local PBS station WFYI called Simple Civics, which provides short civics lessons and was nominated for a Great Lakes Region Emmy in 2020 and again in 2021.

Jett says her community activism is inspired in part by a desire to demonstrate how to be an engaged citizen for her students as well as a desire to connect her teaching and research to issues happening within the community.

“And I do it because it’s fulfilling,” she said.

Though Jett has various roles within and outside of Butler, she finds satisfaction in discovering ways to integrate her teaching, research, and service. For instance, her research focuses on agriculture and food justice, and last year she leveraged her area of academic expertise and her role as Faculty Director of the Hub to partner with Indy Women in Food in hosting the organization’s first conference on Butler’s campus focused on food insecurity in the city.

“I’m thrilled when I’m able to do that,” Jett said. “All of the hats that I wear are sort of constantly engaged at the same time, and I like that I get to work like that. I’m not running from one thing to the next, I feel like my work is layered with multiple connection points.”

This article is part of a series honoring the 2021-22 recipients of the Butler University Distinguished Faculty Award. Printed with permission.

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