Shelter in a Time of Storm

How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism

Jelani M. Favors

• Editore: The University of North Carolina Press
• Anno: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781469648347
• Argomento: Scienze sociali
• Categoria: Studi afroamericani

2020 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award
2020 Lillian Smith Book Award
Finalist, 2020 Pauli Murray Book Prize For generations, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been essential institutions for the African American community. Their nurturing environments not only provided educational advancement but also catalyzed the Black freedom struggle, forever altering the political destiny of the United States. In this book, Jelani M. Favors offers a history of HBCUs from the 1837 founding of Cheyney State University to the present, told through the lens of how they fostered student activism. Favors chronicles the development and significance of HBCUs through stories from institutions such as Cheyney State University, Tougaloo College, Bennett College, Alabama State University, Jackson State University, Southern University, andNorth Carolina A&T. He demonstrates how HBCUs became a refuge during the oppression of the Jim Crow era and illustrates the central role their campus communities played during the civil rights and Black Power movements. Throughout this definitive history of how HBCUs became a vital seedbed for politicians, community leaders, reformers, and activists, Favors emphasizes what he calls an unwritten "second curriculum" at HBCUs, one that offered students a grounding in idealism, racial consciousness, and cultural nationalism.

1

A Seedbed of Activism

Holistic Education and the Institute for Colored Youth, 1837–1877

And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

—Habakkuk 2:2

Octavius Catto was only thirty-two when he was murdered in the streets of Philadelphia. The students from the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) called him Professor, a title warmly bestowed on many Black educators by community members as a show of respect, regardless of academic rank.1 Indeed, Catto was well beloved throughout the Black community of Philadelphia, and at the time of his murder, he was on the cusp of becoming one of the most recognized activists for the freedom of African Americans throughout the country. Something of a renaissance man, he was the most popular instructor at the ICY, a political organizer, a soldier of the Pennsylvania National Guard, and captain and standout second baseman for the all-Black Pythian Baseball Club in Philadelphia. But the legend of Octavius Catto was grounded in his role as one of Philadelphia’s most assertive Black militants. He was greatly admired and respected by the city’s growing Black community, and his popularity as an activist and outspoken leader of the race was increasing up and down the East Coast. In one observer’s words, he was “the rising Catto.”2

October 10, 1871, was Election Day in Philadelphia. Much to the chagrin of white democrats, African Americans were making use of newly secured Fifteenth Amendment rights, of which Catto had been one of the most prominent champions. The streets of Philadelphia had long been marred by ethnic conflicts and racial antipathy, both before and after the Civil War. Historian Roger Lane describes the City of Brotherly Love as “marked by a kaleidoscopic series of clashes in which Irish immigrants ‘hunted the nigs’ in their little enclaves, nativist bigots attacked Catholic churches, and displaced workingmen resisted the new industrial technology.”3 The elections that year marked the first opportunity for Blacks to exercise their political voices, and they faced unprecedented backlash as a result. As the sun rose, a cacophony of violence transformed Philadelphia’s streets into a war zone. Black citizens sought shelter from frenzied whites who assaulted would-be Black voters, block by block, ward by ward, in an effort to intimidate them and reduce any semblance of Black political power.

The murder of Octavius Catto in 1871 was a major event in the early civil rights movement and was a significant blow to the ICY. Catto was targeted by assassins for being an outspoken proponent of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. “Scene of the Shooting of Octavious V. Catto, on October 10, 1871,” from the pamphlet entitled The Trial of Frank Kelly, for the Assassination and Murder of Octavius V. Catto, on October 10, 1871 (ca. 1871). Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (call # Wk* .799 v. 1).

Late that afternoon, Catto had a chance encounter with a young Irish hooligan named Frank Kelly. Recognizing Catto as he passed him on a crowded Philadelphia street, Kelly spun around and squeezed off three shots, one fatally piercing the young professor’s heart. Catto landed in the arms of a police officer who witnessed the murder as it unfolded. Nevertheless, Kelly was declared innocent of all crimes six years later in a highly publicized trial, despite numerous witnesses. One of those eyewitnesses was also shot by Kelly and, in the words of a local paper, “had no doubts of the identity of Kelly, who wore on his hat the badge of a deputy sheriff.”4

After being apprehended by city police, Kelly was quickly escorted from town by local law enforcement. He found refuge in Cincinnati, where he went to work for the Democratic city bosses.5 Upon his capture and return to Philadelphia in 1877, a local newspaper, the Philadelphia Press, characterized the culture of the city that produced such events by concluding that the die was cast “when the police force appointed by Mayor Fox suffered desperadoes of the Kelly stamp to override law, to escape arrest, and to permit the criminal classes to hold high carnival.”6

This miscarriage of justice was a harbinger of things to come. One Black observer of the court proceedings noted, “The acquittal of Frank Kelly, in Philadelphia, on a charge of murder, which was clearly proven, shows that no white man can be convicted in that city of murdering a colored man, no matter how clear the proof may be.”7 Without the ability to lean on the rights guaranteed to all American citizens, which were supposedly protected by the country’s most cherished institutions, African Americans would have to construct their own enclaves and refuges to regroup and launch new campaigns to demand justice.

Tributes to Catto poured in from across the country. Mourners at his funeral reflected the diverse cross section of people whose lives the fallen activist had touched. Catto’s biographers Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin write, “Crying students from the Institute for Colored Youth were part of the procession, as were Pythians, military officers, members of the City Council and the state legislature, literary-society friends, one infantry brigade, three regiments, eight other military detachments, and 125 horse-drawn carriages.”8 Drawing more than five thousand people, Catto’s funeral had an attendance that was on par with that for President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession, which had come through the city just six years earlier. The solemn service memorializing the slain leader was, as W. E. B. DuBois writes, “perhaps the most imposing ever given to an American Negro.”9 Local schools, city government, and many city businesses shut down for the day in an attempt to properly honor a man who, despite his young age, had established himself as a titan in the early movement for Black liberation and civil rights. His friends and contemporaries eulogized him, both in Philadelphia and across the country. But few had any inkling of how quickly the dialogue on Black citizenship and the enfranchisement of Blacks’ freedom rights would deteriorate.

Black institutions would be essential to protecting communities from assault and generating space for organizing, education, and the creation of counternarratives. Drawing from antebellum traditions of resistance, communities would rely on vital Black institutions such as churches, lodges, and, most importantly, schools.

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Institution building was an enterprise of the utmost necessity for Blacks in antebellum America, and Philadelphia was teeming with various enclaves. Northern Blacks utilized what little space was afforded to them to create mutual aid societies, churches, fraternal organizations, civil rights organizations, literary societies, and schools. The Black enclaves of Philadelphia opened themselves to escaped slaves looking to reunite with loved ones or those seeking rest and shelter before continuing their push farther northward. Mutual aid societies doled out resources to the poor and marginalized Black citizens of the city while Masonic and fraternal groups sharpened the leadership of the Black community by providing rites of passage and rituals that emboldened members, who were presented with forums for spirited debate on the future of the race. The formation of these Black institutions laid the groundwork for Black independence and ensured the cultivation of resistance and activism.

One of the more unique and significant channels for the articulation of Black personhood was found in the numerous literary societies spreading throughout the North. Through the collective efforts of these organizations, literacy was directly connected to both the cause of emancipation and the recognition of freedom rights. Scholar Elizabeth McHenry notes, “Their organized literary activities were a means of educating individuals who would be prepared to perform as and would consider themselves capable, respected citizens.”10 Perhaps the most significant of the Philadelphia literary societies was the Banneker Literary Institute, founded in 1854. While the membership of this organization was a literal who’s who of Black men in Philadelphia, there were also a number of students from the ICY who were in attendance. Members were drilled in various topics, and a rotating lecture circuit existed in the organization. Topics of discussion included metaphysics, logic, mathematics, natural history, and of course the present condition and future of African Americans. On March 10, 1858, William Henry Johnson, a veteran supporter of the Underground Railroad and Banneker Literary Institute member, stood before the brotherhood and delivered a stirring lecture titled “The Right of Suffrage.” The minutes of the meeting state that Johnson “lectured last evening before the Banneker Literary Institute, Walnut Street, above Sixth, on the principles of suffrage in the application to the African race. His address was eloquent and argumentative, and was frequently interrupted by prolonged and cordial applause.”11

More than any other initiative, the pursuit of education represented the pregnant potential of both the present and the immediate future. Both adults and children filed into makeshift schoolrooms to do more than simply gain skills that would help them integrate into American society. Theirs was a search for voice, identity, and justice. In one of his many tours through Pennsylvania, nationally known activist and race leader Martin Delany expressed his belief in the necessity of Black education and what it could become. Delany reported to Frederick Douglass his findings on the topic of education as a traveling correspondent for the abolitionist newspaper the North Star, writing that in meetings he held with local Blacks, he was “endeavoring to awaken an interest among our brethren in their own welfare, by showing them the necessity of acting and doing for themselves—that we must, in fact, become our own representatives in presenting our own claims, and making known our own wrongs.”12 Black activists like Delany understood that whatever slice of heaven on earth was obtainable for Blacks would be secured by those men and women who were equipped with the literary and rhetorical skills to articulate their call for justice. Thus, the distinction between the mission of the Black church and that of Black schools was quite clear.13

Yet African Americans were aware that they would not easily be admitted into the emerging American middle class. Blacks who suffered under the great weight of slavery and the entrenchment of racism in the North knew through their blood-stained experiences that America had no intention of freely parting the seas of democracy or opening the lucrative coffers of capitalism. Whether they were the children of slaves or the offspring of members of the Black aristocracy, Black youths had no inroads to American citizenship, a reality that was reinforced by the proliferation of white supremacy. Consequently, powered by the tools of literacy, they called for the recognition of both their civil and human rights and started a battle that would be waged through the construction of schools and the training of youths to serve as foot soldiers for a growing movement.

This crusade was of the highest priority for men such as Abraham Shadd. A veteran conductor on the Underground Railroad and one of the most respected activists in America, Shadd became one of the principal organizers of the country’s first national gathering of African Americans, held in Philadelphia in 1830. At the third national convention, held on June 13, 1833, Shadd served as the keynote speaker and addressed the crowd on the topic of creating schools, declaring, “The most meritorious institution, in the vindication of the natural, civil, and political rights of the coloured people, ought, and we trust does, occupy a distinguished place in the feelings and affections of our people.”14 Shadd set the tone for the future demands of African Americans, emphasizing the importance of creating Black educational institutions that crafted a holistic vision of liberation and imparted that vision to youths who would serve this cause. The mission of these schools was not simply to prove the self-worth of Black youths, and it certainly was not to beg for their placement in the brotherhood of mankind. It was, rather, to defend the “natural, civil, and political rights” African Americans knew belonged to them as children of God.

With Black activists elevating the demands for justice in the North and feverishly working to weaken the stranglehold of slavery in the South, the 1830s opened as a challenging decade for the burgeoning movement. There was a lot of work to do. The dawn of the Jacksonian Era and the ascendency of the “common man” meant very little to marginalized African Americans. As James Horton and Lois Horton write, “This ‘age of the common man’ was the age of the common white man, as Black men (and all women) lost their franchise in many states.… As race became a more powerful determinant of political participation among common people, it became more difficult for nonwhite Americans to assert their rights.”15 Blacks launched a counterattack grounded in moral suasion, though David Walker initiated a more aggressive tone with his publication of An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829, while activists such as Maria W. Stewart, Lydia Maria Child, and William Lloyd Garrison employed their religious convictions to convince America of its sins. “We have been imposed upon, insulted and derided on every side,” writes Stewart of the Black race. “These things have fired my soul with a holy indignation, and compelled me thus to come forward, and endeavor to turn their attention to knowledge and improvement; for knowledge is power.”16

The long road to justice and citizenship would be paved with education. The articulation for and defense of Black rights was a primary function of Black institutions, a fact not lost on white detractors who attacked these establishments. African Americans rallied together to fend off the rising aggression. Clearly the North was no promised land for African Americans. Hollow professions of democracy, which were rising as working-class whites cast their ballots for the first time in the young republic’s history, only served to agitate African Americans who were frustrated to the point that many pondered withdrawal to foreign lands. White abolitionist Oliver Johnson recalled one Black youth saying, “What’s the use in my attempting to improve myself when, do what I may, I can never be anything but a nigger?”17 Nevertheless, African Americans remained faithful to the potential of education, their resolve to defend their humanity, and the confidence they held in each other to continue lifting upward in spite of such conditions. To achieve these goals, they began to carve out space from which they could mount the necessary crusade.18

In 1837, storm clouds gathered swiftly for African Americans in Pennsylvania. Whatever claims they may have had on the democracy being professed by the young nation were being placed up for debate at a constitutional convention being held in the state’s capital of Harrisburg. Pennsylvania was one of only five free states out of twelve that actually gave voting privileges to Black males at the beginning of the decade. New York added property requirements for would-be Black voters.19 Concerned African Americans observed the convention with great interest, knowing that removal of voting rights would strike a mighty blow to the future of the race. Historian Julie Winch documents how the proposal to disenfranchise Blacks moved quickly from a casual suggestion to a deliberate and swift act. “When the delegates to the Reform Convention assembled in Harrisburg on May 2, 1837, it was not with the intention of regulating the political status of Blacks,” writes Winch. “As in other states, a constitutional convention had been called in Pennsylvania to remedy what were seen as abuses in the existing constitution, particularly the restrictions barring poorer whites from the polls. However, the question of Black voting rights was raised almost immediately with a proposal to exclude Blacks from the ...