Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 2012 A Race to Educate: A Look at the Aims of the Student Life Programming at Hampton University, From 1930-1940, and Its Intended Effects on the Black American Cultural Identity Akela Louise Stanfield Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.edu/luc_theses Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Stanfield, Akela Louise, "A Race to Educate: A Look at the Aims of the Student Life Programming at Hampton University, From 1930-1940, and Its Intended Effects on the Black American Cultural Identity" (2012).edu/luc_theses/834 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact ecommons@luc. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.
Copyright © 2012 Akela Louise Stanfield LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO A RACE TO EDUCATE: A LOOK AT THE AIMS OF THE STUDENT LIFE PROGRAMMING AT HAMPTON UNIVERSITY, FROM 1930-1940, AND ITS INTENDED EFFECTS ON THE BLACK AMERICAN CULTURAL IDENTITY A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS PROGRAM IN CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY STUDIES BY AKELA L STANFIELD CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2012 Copyright by Akela Stanfield, 2012 All rights reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all of the people who made this thesis possible, starting with my incomparable advisor in the CEPS Department at Loyola University Chicago; Dr. Sobe served as a patient and faithful committee chair as I labored to finish this project with high quality and unmatched intellectual integrity throughout life’s ups and downs. He gave me the courage to research my heart’s desire: Black American Higher Education. He reminded me that the race is not given to the swift, but to the one that endures until the end.
I would also like to thank Hampton University and the staff of the Peabody Archives and campus museum for providing hundreds of unique historical accounts of Black American education from the 1930’s. Dean Woodson Hopewell introduced me at a young age to the rich history of Hampton University and proved a wonderful liaison as I conducted my research. Finally, I must thank two of the bravest Black women educating urban students today; Lydia K. Young and Dionne R.
They were more than CEPS classmates; they were my personal cheering squad. iii For my father, the man that made my education possible. To Uncle Cookie for giving me Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America at the age of 12. We are training not isolated men but a living group of men, - nay, a group within a group.
And the final product of our training must be neither a psychologist nor a brickmason, but a man. And to make men, we must have ideals, broad, pure, and inspiring ends of living, - not sordid money-getting, not apples of gold. The worker must work for the lory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame. And all this is gained only by human strife and longing; by ceaseless training and education; by founding Right on righteousness and Truth on the unhampered search for Truth.and weaving thus a system, not a distortion, and bringing a birth, not an abortion.
DuBois TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER ONE: PROGRESSION OF BLACK AMERICAN CULTURE 1 The Importance of Hampton Institute 5 The Use of Archival Research 6 CHAPTER TWO: INSTITUTE OF CULTURAL ADVANCEMENT: THE HBCU 9 The Hampton Model and the 19th Century HBCU 9 th W. Dubois’ Aspirations and the 20 Century HBCU 14 CHAPTER THREE: A SEASON FOR PROTEST 18 Dr. Art Howe’s Administration, 1930-1940 18 The Scottsboro Trials 24 CHAPTER FOUR: THE HBCU NORM: DIGNITY OVER PROTEST 27 A HBCU Audit: Cowards from the Colleges 27 Father of the Norm: Samuel Armstrong Chapman 31 CHAPTER FIVE: ADVANCING THE NORM: STUDENT HANDBOOKS 37 Gender Roles and Military Drill 40 Christian Duty 47 CHAPTER SIX: RESPONDING TO THE NORM: THE HAMPTON SCRIPT 49 Responding to Christian Duty 49 Responding to the Scottsboro Trials 50 Talented Tenth Rejecting the Call 52 In Name Only: The Student Self-Government League 56 Responding to Dr. Howe 58 CONCLUSION 62 REFERENCE LIST 64 VITA 68 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1 Copy of Hampton Institute’s 1926-1927 Student Schedule.
43 vii ABSTRACT In 2010 President Barack Obama announced a 98 million dollar federal funding increase in the proposed 2011 national budget for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). 1 With such an amount of money earmarked for the HBCU, questions arise about the importance of the HBCU in a seemingly integrated 21st century American college and education system. One approach to answering the questions is to look at the aims and outcomes of HBCUs during the 20th century, a time period when most were producing college graduates2 and compare them to the current aims and outcomes of the HBCUs, to determine the rate of progression. A major direction for past HBCU research has centered on how policy and leadership style have addressed student needs and whether or not those needs are presently relevant for the HBCU population.
“Obama's Budget Proposal: Some Benefits For HBCU's and Haiti.” Retrieved March 8, 2010 from http://www.com/april-d-ryan/obamas-budget- proposal-so_b_445532.html 2 Before 1900 few Historically Black Colleges and Universities conferred baccalaureate degrees. th According to W. Dubois 20 century study of the College-bred Negro; by 1900 there were 34 th Negro Colleges (HBCU’s). Dubois identified Negro Colleges in the 20 century as schools that offered a course amounting to at least one year in addition to the course of a New England High School, and offering collegiate training designed for the Negro race.
However he did consider Hampton Institute graduates frequently in his study. Hampton was a normal school that produced many of the Black communities’ teachers, and was accredited a college by 1930. viii However, what the research has failed to do is specifically look at the intentions and effects of student life as well as student life programming3 for measurement of HBCU purpose and value. Through the archival research of Hampton University’s4 student-facing publications such as student handbooks and student newspapers this study aims to uncover the original aims and goals of the HBCU.
The aims and goals are highlighted through pinpointing the institutionally advanced norms. An analysis of this material indicates that the institutionally advanced norms of the HBCU, according to student voice, during the 20 th century aimed to combat the stigma of the “shiftless Negro” stereotype by emphasizing the dignity of labor, mandated Christianity, and assimilation while depreciating the value of political and social rights. The research also indicated that student response to these norms shifted from compliance to protest over time. Notably absent from the research are discussions of suffrage and HBCU curriculum.
This study is a part of a rising body of research observing the need for minority institutions, specifically the HBCU. In using the generally unused source of student handbooks and HBCU student publications from 1930-1940; this project highlights the importance of student voice in assessing the aims and outcomes of the institutions. 3 The latter and former create student culture. 4 Formerly Hampton Institute.
ix CHAPTER ONE PROGRESSION OF BLACK AMERICAN CULTURE The definition of Culture is a debated and divergent topic in scholarship. Michael Cole’s, Roy Goodwin D’Andrade1 founded definition of culture in the Harvard published essay “What’s Culture Got to do with it,” states that culture is “the full range of socially inherited (extra genetic) accomplishments of past human activities that serve as crucial resources for the current life of a social group… embodied in language and social practices…It is the species-specific medium of human life. It is also, so to speak, history in the present.”2 After consideration of Cole’s definition assumptions can be made; culture is a method that humanity uses to sustain itself, culture is a by-product of humanity’s experiences, and that humanity produces culture which contains the necessary information to ensure the continued "progress" of humanity. However, on 1 Roy Goodwin D’Andrade is a cognitive anthropologist that has worked heavily in the subject matter of cultural models and human motives.
His work intersects with African –American studies through his studies of African American family structure. His definition of culture relies heavily on the idea that it is learned. He described culture in his 1981 work, The Cultural Part of Cognition as a very large pool of information passed along from generation to generation, composed of learned "programs" for action and understanding. What’s Culture Got to Do with It? Educational research as a necessarily interdisciplinary enterprise.
1 2 assumption in particular frames this research; culture is not spontaneous nor genetic but created and consequential. And for centuries the transmission of culture has taken place within Educational institutions. Collective experience is where culture is birthed but the schoolhouse, whether it is a grammar school or university, is where it is advanced. For Black American culture the process has been no different.
Africans in America, whom in this research are referred to as Black Americans and Negroes, were officially emancipated from the American system of slavery in September of 1863. However in order for this emancipation to be complete America had to recognize humanity in whom it had for centuries deemed inhumane. If Cole’s stated definition is true; humanity is proven through the medium of culture and culture is advanced through education and its institutions; education was absolutely essential for Black Americans removal from a state of total disenfranchisement. Consequently, creating a cultural identity that America could and would be willing to locate Black American humanity within became an aspiration of the HBCU education3.
Because the cultural progression from slave to an indefinite location for nearly 4 million Negroes (roughly 13 percent of the American population)4 was at stake, the education of Black 3 Given the historic focus of HBCUs on the education of Black students, Walter Allen (1992) identified six specific goals endemic to these institutions. One of the six goals of HBCUs includes the maintenance of the Black historical and cultural tradition (and cultural influences emanating from the Black community). The color of success: African American student outcomes at predominantly White and historically Black public colleges and universities. Harvard Educational Review, 62, 26-44.
4 Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) pp 239-42. 3 Americans following their emancipation was greatly debated by White America during the decades leading up to the 20th century. Who exactly were Negroes if they were not slaves? On one hand the population that had once enslaved them was bitter and war torn, and had no aspiration to educate their lost spoil. On the other hand the population seen as the emancipators of these people had an ambition to educate the newly freed slaves.
Yet, both of these groups served as the American majority, were White, and readily admitted there was a Negro problem.5 Therefore, a Hegelian philosophy of education, hinged on the divergent former stated desires of the White majority, was framed for Negroes. It was a philosophy that supposed Negroes should be educated in their correct (not necessarily equal) position in American society, or in other words, dictated their culture and forced within its confines. From this school of thought many if not all Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) were formed.6 The majority of HBCU’s were founded during the American Reconstruction in the years 1865-1877,7 through private and/or public funding. The majority of 5 The Negro problem was a summative term used to describe what freed slaves were to the majority (Whites) in American culture.
It was used often by politicians and social leaders, both Black and White as a sort of rhetorical problem with various solutions that America was seeking to solve.