Black History, Education
Nannie Helen Burroughs
Among the most outstanding African-American educators of the post-reconstruction era of the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century were Dr. Anna Julia Cooper and Ms. Nannie Helen Burroughs. During this extremely difficult and rocky period for African-Americans these dedicated sisters were confronted with the arduous tasks of struggling for racial uplift, economic justice and social equality.
Nannie Helen Burroughs became a school founder, educator and civil rights activist. She identified African-American teachers such as Anna Julia Cooper as important role models. She attended public schools in Washington, D.C., graduated with honors in 1896, studied business in 1902, and received an honorary M.A. degree from Eckstein-Norton University in Kentucky in 1907. (more…)
Black History, Civil Rights, Education
Juliette Derricotte
1897-1931. Juliette Dercotte was an African-American educator and political activist whose death after receiving racist treatment after a fatal car accident sparked outrage in the African-American community.
Raised in Athens, GA., Ms. Derricotte was educated in the public schools and at Talladega College. She was the first woman trustee of the College (appointed 1918). Ms. Derricotte was a renowned speaker, traveling across the U.S. in support of black colleges and education.
She was a delegate at the convention of the World’s Student Christian Federation in 1924 and 1928, where she represented all American college students. She served the YWCA as the National Student Secretary, resigning in 1929 to become Dean Of Women at Fisk University.
She was born the fifth of nine children of Isaac Derricotte and Laura Derricotte, a cobbler and a seamstress. As a child, she was hopeful of attending the local Institute and was crushed when her mother told her she would be unable to due to her color. This event helped shape her perception of the world and her desire to change people’s racial prejudices. (more…)
Education
On April 29, 1854, Lincoln University becomes the nation’s first historically Black degree-granting institution of higher education.
Located in Pennsylvania and originally founded as the Ashmun Institute, the university was renamed in 1866 in honor of President Abraham Lincoln, revered among African Americans for his 1863 decree to emancipate the nation’s millions of enslaved people. Founder John Miller Dickey, who was white, had long been involved in the ministry, and with the help of his wife Sarah Emlen Cressen, provided philanthropic services to African Americans in the community. Dickey made efforts to enroll a freedman, James Amos, into other schools to prepare him for ministry, but when no one would admit him due to his race, Dickey trained Amos himself.
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Education
Marguerite Thomas Williams was born in Washington, D.C. on December 24, 1895. She received her Bachelor of Arts degreee from Howard University in 1923 and a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1930. Marguerite Thomas Williams earned a Ph.D. in Geology from Catholic University of America in 1942, as the first African American (male or female) to earn a doctorate in geology in the United States.
Dr. Williams was employed as a teacher in Miner Teachers College (now part of the University of the District of Columbia) from 1923-29. Dr. Williams served as Chairman of the Division of Geography (1923-33) and served from Assistant Professor to full Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, Miner Teachers College, from 1943 to 1955. Marguerite Williams also served as an Instructor for the Evening School at Howard University, 1944.
Education
At Blackwell became the seventh African American to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics and is considered by many to be the greatest black mathematician. He in the first African American to be named to the National Academy of Science and in 1979 won the von Neumann Theory Prize.
Education
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson (January 4, 1890 – September 10, 1976) was an American educator and pastor. He served as the first African American president of Howard University from 1926 until 1960. Johnson has been considered one of the three leading African American preachers of the early 20th-century, along with Vernon Johns and Howard Thurman.
Johnson was born on January 12, 1890, in Paris, Tennessee, to parents who were former slaves. His father was Reverend Wyatt J. Johnson, a preacher and mill worker. His mother, Carolyn Freeman, was a domestic worker for one of the prominent families in town.
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