"Intellectual Freedom is here:" Alcorn University

The Mississippi state legislature created Alcorn University, Mississippi's first public HBCU, on May 13, 1871. The act was part of a broader program to expand public education within the state. I've had a hard time tracking down deliberations, but the decision to create the university appears to have been a compromise between the "radical" and moderate wings of the Republican Party. 

Providing a university education to qualified Black residents was a political necessity for Republican politicians. Despite being largely part of the frontier, Mississippi had long offered an elite education for white residents via the University of Mississippi. Not offering comparable educational opportunities to Black voters was politically unsustainable as the state had one of the largest Black majorities (55% of voters). The more "radical" wing of the state Republican Party supported forced racial integration of the University of Mississippi, and some preliminary steps were made in this direction. Once Republicans rose to power during congressional Reconstruction, one of their first acts was to re-organize the university. Among other changes, the governor was able to appoint a new Board of Trustees, and in the summer of 1871, he appointed Republicans to a majority of seats. The new appointments were a major step towards remaking the university as the trustees held the power to dismiss faculty members, many of whom were conservatives who had long taught at the university and were opposed to teaching Black students. 

Predictably, the prospect of integrating the university was an anathema to conservative Democrats. Although Republicans held political power, they were led by Governor James L. Alcorn, a white moderate who had been a slave-owning planter before the war. Alcorn and his supporters appear to have also opposed integrating the University of Mississippi, so they instead threw their support behind the creation of a second university for Black students. The result was the creation of Alcorn University.

The legislature generously endowed Alcorn University. Three-fifths of the funding Mississippi had received from federal government via the Morrell Act (which amounted to $113,400) went to Alcorn, and an additional $50,000 per year was provided from state funds. The responsibility for using these funds to establish the university was given to Hiram Revels, the university's first president. 

Revels was one of the most prominent Black politicians in 1870s. A Union veteran who had been born in North Carolina and raised in Ohio, he had moved to Mississippi after the Civil War to serve as pastor at an AME church in Natchez. He entered politics at the start of Congressional Reconstruction. At the time, Alcorn University was created, Revels was serving as a U.S. senator. He resigned the senate seat to become president of Alcorn University.

Revels was a moderate Republican and a close political ally of Alcorn University's namesake, James L. Alcorn. One of Revels's first duties was selecting a location for the new university. Originally, a location in Adams County, near the city of Natchez, was considered, but Revels ultimately chose to locate the campus forty miles northwest, in a rural part of Jefferson County. The location was that of a defunct Presbyterian-affiliated college (Oakland University) which Revels was able to purchase.

The campus consisted of the president's house, three dormitories, a dining hall, two halls that had housed campus literary societies, and several cottages. The novelist Chester Himes lived on the campus as a child in the 1910s, and he described a fictionalized version of the campus in his novel The Third Generation:

The college had originally been built for white students. But some years past, through a political deal, it had been turned over to Negroes. Traces of its former charm still remained.

The original buildings had formed a horseshoe about a spacious campus of shade trees dotting a level lawn. They were built of bricks and adorned by the tremendous, two-storied verandas supported by tall marble pillars which had become the architectural landmark of the old South.

At the curve of the horseshoe, overlooking the campus, stood College Hall with its thirty-three marble steps, then in bad decay, ascending to its pillared veranda. A beautifully designed wrought-iron railing, which had been imported from Italy, enclosed the staircase, and some of the original stained-glass windows still remained in the assembly hall where now church services were held.

To one side was the president's residence, a large white colonial structure with landscaped lawn and flower garden. The architect who designed it never dreamed that a Negro would once inherit it. 

Himes's "College Hall" is likely a stand-in for Oakland Memorial Chapel.

Oakland Memorial Chapel

Interior of Oakland Memorial Chapel

Revels purchased the old college campus in July. That month he also hired Alcorn University faculty. Lawrence W. Minor was hired as professor of Ancient Greek and Latin, John G. Mitchell as professor of agricultural chemistry and mineralogy, and John Blackburn as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy (i.e. science). All the men were well-educated. Minor and Mitchell had attended Oberlin College, while Blackburn had attended Dartmouth College.

All faculty members were Black. The number of college-educated Blacks in the United States was minuscule, so the racial make-up of the faculty likely reflected a conscious decision to try and placate Mississippi conservatives by avoiding a racially integrated campus.

In many respects, the professors were unlike the students they were charged with teaching. The vast majority of the college-age Black residents of Mississippi were former slaves who had grown up in rural areas. In contrast, Revels and Mitchells had been free before the war. Blackburn and Minor had been enslaved, but their fathers' had been their enslavers, and they had enjoyed lives of relatively privilege: each had been emancipated before the Civil War broke out and had received significant financial support from his father.

The first students arrived at Alcorn University around February 1872. A correspondent, publishing under the pen name "Don Carlos," described his visit to the National New Era newspaper. In his letter, he emphasized how the university reflected the changed nature of the post-war south: "The chapel bell which but a few years ago summoned the aristocratic Southerner to his duty, . . . now finds an echo in the chimes in the joyous hearts of a thousand new-born freemen." 

Campus map from a 1982 National Register of Historic Places Inventory.
National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form

Don Carlos's optimism for Mississippi's future is expressed eloquently in his description of the campus:

The "campus" is gently undulating from all points of this half circle towards the centre and front. It is covered with a forest of grand and proud oaks, festooned in the mossy drapery of nature, and rearing their lofty heads to the skies, in mute adoration of the new liberty over which they are now guardians. Truly, these old oaks themselves must open their sap veins and weep tears of joy at the sight which they now behold. As you pass into the "campus" through a spacious archway at either end of the semicircle, the tiny tendrils of the overhanging moss cling to the passer by and whisper in his ear the gladsome news – "Intellectual Freedom is here." 

Belles Lettres

President's House

Chapel and President's House

Classes began about a month after "Don Carlos" wrote his letter. Unfortunately, there is little information about the students and what they were taught. There were about forty students during the first year, and this expanded to over a hundred by the second year. Mississippi lacked both urban centers and a significant pre-war population of free people of color, the natural sources for college students. This was alleviated somewhat by financial support. Tuition was free for students, and each county was allowed to award three student scholarships which provided $100 each year.

The initial educational offerings were standard for an American university at the time. The university offered a two-year college preparatory program and two separate four-year college programs: a "classical" track and a "scientific" track. The "classical" track offered a fixed program that strongly emphasized the study of Ancient Greek and Latin but also included courses on mathematics, science, and English. The "scientific" track replaced the Ancient Greek and Latin with courses on modern European languages (French and Germany) as well as practical topics like navigation and free drawing. At least on paper, the university expanded its offerings in its third year and added courses on agriculture and mechanical engineering. It appears, however, that not all classes listed in the university catalogues were offered. A July 1873 article in the New National Era, a newspaper sympathetic to the university, published a letter from a trustee reporting that the teaching was mostly "elementary or preparatory" but more advanced courses in algebra, geometry, and Latin had also been offered. A more critical report written by state legislators in February 1875 stated that most of the classes offered were elementary courses in English grammar, arithmetic, geometry and reading, although the legislators had visited the campus during a chaotic period when teaching had been disrupted.

An account of the July 1873 commencement exercises by a trustee provides a look at the atmosphere on campus. The event was attended by the trustees, the university's namesake James L. Alcorn (then a U.S. senator), Governor Ridgley C. Powers, and a number of state congressmen and senators. After exams were complete, Alcorn gave a speech, and the next day sixteen of the most accomplished students delivered public speeches, declamations and orations. The titles indicate an effort by students to connect with American history. The student Edward Moffit gave a speech titled "A Supposed Speech of John Adams," while George H. Johnson honored Republican politician Daniel Webster with a speech on the "Last Hours of Webster." A. B. Barnes spoke a contemporary political issue: the "Importance of the Union." Other speeches like "Classical Writers of Athens" and "Last Hours of Socrates," displayed students' knowledge of classical western culture. Notably, there were no speeches about "uplift" (e.g. the dangers of alcohol or the importance of hard work and thrift) as became common at schools like Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Also absent were any speeches with an overtly controversial theme.

Commencement ended with a speech by the governor. Governor Powers was an Ohioan who had fought for the Union during the Civil War. He had moved to Mississippi after the war to try and earn a living planting cotton. He had been elected as Alcorn's lieutenant governor but became governor after Alcorn resigned to accept a senate seat. Powers was a moderate Republican. Politically, he needed Black votes to hold political power, but he also needed cheap Black labor to profitably run his cotton plantation.

Powers's speech reveals the much of the contours of his support for his Black constituents. He expressed his full support for Black higher education and even indicated that they had tremendous potential: "Because Caesar and Napoleon, Homer and Virgil, Bacon, Shakespeare, and Milton all had white faces it did not prove but a greater than them all might still yet exist with a black face." Alcorn University, he said, was giving them the "key of knowledge," and he encouraged them to use it to unlock the treasurers of art and science.

The governor told those assembled that their university education would open up many professional opportunities, but he discouraged them from entering politics because it was a "uncertain and unsatisfactory" profession. He also emphasized that the students needed to balance their academic education with moral training because "perverted knowledge increase the power of doing evil, and leads to degradation." He encouraged them to show charity and work to defend and uplift others. 

Powers concluding his speech by predicting great success for Alcorn University. Unfortunately, his prediction was not realized, and the university collapsed into chaos only a year later. Problems first arose during the summer of 1873 when the state legislature sent a joint special committee to investigate conditions on the campus. The committee found that food services and housing were poorly maintained. Over the winter, two students had even died of meningitis. They also criticized the coursework as being too elementary and recommended more strict regulation of student admissions. 

The problems the committee reported appear to have persisted.  Professors Blackburn and Mitchell left the university in the middle of 1873. They were replaced by George R. Vashon, another graduate of Oberlin, and Douglass Carr Griffin, a Dartmouth graduate. Unfortunately, the situation continued to deteriorate. 

Dormitory #3

Dormitory #2

Events on campus are poorly documented, but a major issue appears to have been conflict between the students and university officials, especially the treasurer and superintendent Samuel J. Ireland. Ireland was responsible was responsible for campus food and housing arrangements, one of the main problems that the 1873 committee had reported. Students also charged that some professors engaged in profanity, lewdness, and drunkenness.

The superintendent also fought with President Revels, and the conflict concluded with Revels's  July 1, 1874 resignation. Revels was well-liked by many students, so his removal inflamed tensions on campus.

Revels removal reflected state-wide political conflict. In the 1873 election, the Republican Party had split into two factions: one dominated by Black voters and newcomers from the north, and another one dominated by southern Republicans and moderate democrats. James Alcorn, the university's namesake and an ally of Revels, ran as the second faction's gubernatorial candidate. He was defeated by Adelbert Ames. Ames was the one who removed Revels, partially as a way to take power from a political opponent. The negative press coverage of events at Alcorn University may have been, in part, an effort to attack Alcorn, a weakened political figure. 

Regards of the origins of the campus conflict, it became very serious in October 1874. Many students refused to attend recitations for two weeks and asked the executive committee of the board of trustees to remove Superintendent Ireland and three professors (who were not named by the press). Students charged that some faculty were engaging in profanity, lewdness, and drunkenness. 

Exactly what transpired is unclear. Some accounts state that the students protested by walking out in a gentlemanly manner, and the only act of violence was the cutting off of the tail of a trustee's horse. However, some politicians reported that the matter was much more serious. State congressman James Cessor told the legislature that the student protest was beginning to break out into violence. According to him, some students were injuring those who supported the faculty, and they had even threatened professors with pistols. Two conservative senators, William Henry Haywood Tison and R. H. Allen, proposed requesting that the President send troops to suppress the "rebellion" at the university, although this proposal appears to have been made with tongue-in-cheek as a criticism of federal military intervention in the south.  (Federal troops had recently been sent to Vicksburg to quell a riot, an act that angered many conservatives.) In any case, many legislators were outraged at the situation at the university. Senator William H. Gray, a Black Republican, said reports showed that the university was "a sink hole of iniquity and a gambling hell" where "the students are treated like faro banks than in a college." To address the situation, the legislature formed a joint special committee to form an investigation. 

The investigative committee reported on conditions at the university in February 1875. By the time the committee had arrived on campus, things had settled down. The trustees had requested resignations of all faulty and immediately accepted the resignations of three (presumably the three who were the focus of student anger). This placated the students, although many had left the university. The trustees reported that only about sixty students, mostly from families in the area, remained. The investigative committee did not report any accounts of violence, but a number of students complained about the superintendent, and they confirmed some of the charges against the faculty. 

In March 1875, following committee advice, the legislature discharged all the faculty, removed all officers, abolished the office of treasurer, and empowered the governor to remove trustees. The university remained open but only as a college preparatory school.

Even more dramatic changes took place in November. Following wide-spread political violence, conservative Democrats won an overwhelming electoral victory over the Republican government that had been in power. This marked the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. For generations, conservative Democrats would remain in political power, and African American residents would be almost wholly removed from political life. 

Despite these setbacks, Alcorn University continued to exist, and Hiram Revels was even re-appointed as president. However, it was a changed institution. A comparison of the 1872 description of campus by "Don Carlos" with the Chester Himes's later description vividly illustrates the nature of the changes. Where campus once had symbolized hopes to create a society where freedmen could take leading roles alongside former planter aristocrats, it became a symbol of lost antebellum prosperity and the degraded state of a Black population oppressed by segregation. 

Faculty

1. Hyram R. Revels (1872–74)

2. Lawrence W. Minor (1872–74)

3. John G. Mitchell (1872–73)

4. John R. Blackburn (1872–73)

5. George B. Vashon (1873-74) 

6. Douglas Carr Griffing (1874)

7. Charles H. Thompson (1874)

Sources

1. "Personal." The Portland daily press. [volume], May 25, 1871, Image 2

2. The weekly Caucasian. [Lexington, Mo.], June 17, 1871, Image 2

3. Memphis daily appeal. [volume], June 17, 1871, Image 2

4. "A Life in Life." Nashville union and American. [volume], July 12, 1871, Image 1

5. The weekly Caucasian. [Lexington, Mo], July 15, 1871, Image 2

6. "The Colored Professor." The Cairo daily bulletin. [Cairo, Il], July 16, 1871, Image 3

7. "The State." Macon beacon. [Macon, Miss], July 22, 1871, Image 3

8. The weekly clarion. [Jackson, Miss.], August 17, 1871, Image 1

9. New Orleans Republican. [New Orleans, Louisiana], January 06, 1872, Image 1

10. "Governor's Message." The weekly clarion. [Jackson, Miss.], January 11, 1872, Image 1

11. "The Misappropriation of the Proceeds of the Agricultural Land Scrip." The weekly clarion. [volume], February 22, 1872, Image 2

12. "Letters from Mississippi." New national era. [Washington, D.C.], March 07, 1872, Image 1

13. "Items from Mississippi." New national era. [volume], April 04, 1872, Image 3

 

14. "'Alcorn University' in its True Light." New national era. [volume], May 02, 1872, Image 1

15. "Mississippi for Grant." New national era. [volume], May 16, 1872, Image 1

16. Chicago tribune. [volume], August 05, 1872, Page 4, Image 4

17. "The Martyr." The weekly clarion. [volume], January 09, 1873, Image 2

18. "The Governor's Message." The weekly clarion. [volume], January 30, 1873, Image 2

19. American citizen. [volume], February 08, 1873, Image 2

20. "Congratulations." The weekly clarion. [volume], February 13, 1873, Image 2

21. "Letter from Mississippi." New national era. [volume], March 20, 1873, Image 1

22. "Mismanagement of Alcorn University." The weekly clarion. [volume], April 10, 1873, Image 1

23. "Legislatures." Memphis daily appeal. [volume], April 11, 1873, Image 1

24. The Magnolia gazette. [volume], May 02, 1873, Image 1

25. New national era. [volume], June 19, 1873, Image 2

26. "Commencement at Alcorn University." New national era. [volume], July 24, 1873, Image 1

27. The daily dispatch. [volume], September 05, 1873, Image 3

28. "General News." Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel], September 06, 1873, Image 2

29. The Potter journal and news item. [volume], September 24, 1873, Image 4

30. Memphis daily appeal. [volume], December 26, 1873, Image 1

31. "Personal." New Orleans Republican. [volume], April 09, 1874, Image 1

32. "Prof. Geo. B. Vashon." New national era. [volume], July 02, 1874, Image 2

33. "Current Paragraphs: Religious and Educational" Knoxville journal. [volume], July 23, 1874, Image 3

34. "Ireland's Tammany Tricks at Alcorn University" The weekly clarion. [volume], August 13, 1874, Image 2.

35. "The University Purchases – A Card from S. J. Ireland." The weekly clarion. [volume], August 20, 1874, Image 2

36. American citizen. [Canton, Miss], September 26, 1874, Image 2

37. The weekly clarion. [volume], November 19, 1874, Image 3

38. The weekly Louisianian. [New Orleans, La.], November 21, 1874, Image 3

39. New Orleans Republican. [New Orleans, La.], November 22, 1874, Page 4, Image 4

40. The Daily clarion. [volume], January 13, 1875, Image 2

41. "Notes from the Capitol." The Daily clarion. [volume], January 18, 1875, Image 2

42. "A Lively Time Over the Alcorn University Matter." The Daily clarion. [volume], February 02, 1875, Image 2

42. "Notes from the Capitol." The Daily clarion. [volume], February 05, 1875, Image 2

43. "Alcorn University." The Daily clarion. [volume], February 27, 1875, Image 2

44. "House – Forty-Sixth Day." The weekly clarion. [volume], March 04, 1875, Image 3

45. "The Alcorn University Bill." The weekly clarion. [volume], March 11, 1875, Image 4

46. National Republican, June 30, 1875, Image 4

47. "Alcorn University." The Greenville times. [volume], July 03, 1875, Image 1

48. "An Apostate to His Race." National Republican., December 27, 1875, Image 1

49. "Alcorn University." The weekly clarion. [volume], January 12, 1876, Image 1

50. "Letters from Oberlin, Ohio." New national era, November 23, 1871, p. 1.

Edgar Joseph Edmunds

Edgar Joseph Edmunds, known almost universally as E. J. Edmunds, was a remarkable product of the unique atmosphere of nineteenth century New Orleans. He was born in the city on January 26, 1851 to Edgard Amroise (or Edgar) and Rose Euphémie Foy Edmunds. Both Edgar and Rose were free persons of color.

E. J.'s family was fortunate because New Orleans was home to one of the largest and most affluent communities of free persons of color. The community was a product of Louisiana's origins as a French colony. A number Frenchmen who immigrated to the city entered into romantic relationships with Black women. Only rarely would couples marry, but such relationships, termed plaçages, were recognized legally and socially. This stood in contrast to other states where romantic, or sexual, relations between white men and Black women, while not uncommon, were largely ignored and unrecognized.

By the time E. J. Edmunds was born, free persons of color made up about about 8,000 (or 7%) of the nearly 120,000 residents of New Orleans. Most were of mixed race and could trace their parentage to plaçages. They spoke French and held skilled jobs such as druggist or carpenter. 

E. J.'s parents were part of this community. His father worked in retail. His first jobs were as a clerk and a salesman but he later became director for a dry-goods company. His work brought him into contact with manufacturers in the northeast and Europe, and he even traveled to France. He saw enough financial success that he was able to purchase his own home near Tremé, the neighborhood featured in the TV series of the same name. 

From The Industries of New Orleans

A photograph of E. J. shows that he was very light-skinned, so his parents were likely of mixed race. Unfortunately, I can't find any information about E. J.'s paternal grandparents. His father first appears in records when he was in his twenties. 

More is known about E. J.'s material grandparents. His grandmother Rose was the product of a plaçage. Her mother was Zelie Aubry, a French-speaking woman of color who had been born in Louisiana. Her father was the French immigrant Prosper Foy. Zelie and Prosper has become romantically involved by 1810, a few years after he moved to New Orleans. Prosper and Rose never married, and Prosper even became romantically involved with other women, but he remained in contact with Zelie and her family and supported them financially.

While E. J. would later became active in efforts to uplift freed people, his family had participated in the practice of enslavement. His grandfather Prosper tried farming, first at a plantation just outside the city and then at one in St. James Parish. Both plantations were maintained with the help of enslaved workers. 

The plantations were relatively modest operations. There were eighteen enslaved people on the first plantation, too few to make Prosper a member of Louisiana's planter elite. I have not been able to find any records of what crops Prosper grew, but the main cash crops in the region were rice, sugar, and tobacco. Prosper likely focused on subsidence crops and livestock (growing corn and raising hogs) and tobacco as rice and sugar planting required a larger labor force than was available to him. 

The grandmother Zelie did not try her hand at farming, but she used enslaved domestic labor to run her household as did her brother Florville Foy. E. J.'s mother Rose never enslaved anyone, but she grew up in the presence of enslaved workers.

E. J. was only eleven years old when New Orleans was occupied by Union troops during the Civil War, so he had little personal experience with slavery. His formative years were spent as people in the city struggled to readjust to the changes brought about by the Civil War and Emancipation.

Living in New Orleans, E. J. was fortunate to have access to one of the best educational systems in the south. Louisiana was one of the few southern states that had supported public schools during the antebellum. At the start of the Civil War, about ten-thousand students (or one in four free school-age children) were attended public school. The public schools were whites-only, but the city also supported a number of private schools and, unlike other parts of the south, there were no laws prohibiting the private education of Blacks.

At least on paper, schools in Louisiana were integrated after the Civil War. An 1868 clause in a constitutional revision explicitly prohibited racial segregation of public schools. However, many whites persisted in opposing racially integrated schools. Despite such resistance, E. J. and his siblings were able to obtain educations. E. J. attended the Fillmore School. It is unclear when exactly he began attending. He may be a "Master Edmunds" who was one of the students mentioned in a June 1870 newspaper report on public exercises held at the end of the school term. He is explicitly mentioned in a newspaper report published a year later.

During this time, E. J. and his siblings may have been passing as "white," at least on occasion. Both E. J.'s brother Arnold and his sister Olivia attended white-only schools before school integration was passed into law. Olivia attracted negative public attention in 1868 when conservatives newspaper began critically reporting that she and twenty-seven other Black students were attended the Bayou Road Girls School, a school that had always been whites-only. Some students were expelled, but Olivia was allowed to continue to attend after her family claimed she was white and provided a birth certificate as supporting evidence. The birth certificate had been filed in May 1868, and it replaced an older certificate that identified her parents as free persons of color. (The new certificate did not identify the parents' race.) A similar brith certificate was filed for E. J.

E. J.'s attendance at the Fillmore School is anomalous. The school was a grammar school that largely served students considerably younger than him. When he graduated, E. J. was twenty years old, six years older than the average student. Moreover, his later achievements show that he was well-educated and certainly had learned to learn in classes aimed at fourteen-year-olds. 

In June 1871, shortly after graduated from the Fillmore School, E. J. made the remarkable decision to travel to Paris, France to take the entrance exam for École Polytechnique. The school is an elite science and engineering school that educated France's technical elite. It offered a two-year program in science and theoretical mathematics. Graduates were then placed into more specialized schools that trained them for professions like the military, civil engineering, and science. Those who attended the school around this time included the distinguished mathematician Henri Poincaré who enrolled in 1873.

E. J.'s decision to apply for admissions to the Polytechnique was a bold one as admissions was highly competitive. Applicants were required to be French citizens, hold the equivalent of a high school diploma, and pass a highly competitive examination. E. J. presumably claimed citizenship though his grandfather and presented his diploma from the Fillmore School. He also passed the admissions exam, although just barely. He was ranked near the bottom of his class: 135th out of the 144 students admitted. 

It is unclear how E. J. was able to pass the exam as it tested material that went well-beyond what was taught at the Fillmore School. When E. J. took the exam, it heavily emphasized the mathematics, and included a number of questions on topics such as descriptive and analytic geometry. This went well beyond the curriculum offered at Fillmore which provided rote instruction in basic arithmetic. The test would have been challenging to many America college students, and even students studying in France's superior educational systems often sought additional private tutoring to prepare for the entrance exams. Prior to traveling to France, E. J. must have engaged in significant self-study or tutoring, but unfortunately there are no records of what exactly he did.

At the Polytechnique, E. J. faced considerable challenges. The school's curriculum was difficult for even the best of students, and E. J. had the additional burden of studying in a foreign country, far away from his family and friends. No information is available about how he was received by his classmates. As one of the few (possibly the only) foreign students in his class, he certainly stood out. His mixed-race background was also highly unusual (only one other Black student had studied at the Polytechnique and that had been decades ago), but this may have gone unnoticed as E. J. could easily have passed for white.

Despite these challenges, E. J. succeeded at the school. He was not one of the top students (he remained rank in the bottom quartile of his class), but he passed. On February 10, 1873, he was transferred to the École d'Application de l'Artillerie to receive training as an artillery officer. Completing the school would have positioned E. J. for a successful career in the French military, but he left the school around 1874 without completing a degree. As with much about his education, there is no record of how this impactful decision was made.

By spring 1875, E. J. had returned to the city of New Orleans. It is not entirely clear what he did in the intervening year. He may have spent that time in Germany studying at the University of Strasbourg as he later wrote that he had been educated there. (Strasbourg became part of the Germany Empire in 1871 following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.)

E. J. returned to New Orleans to work in education. Educational opportunities for Blacks had expanded greatly while E. J. had been in Europe. The politically influential Black politician P. B. S. Pinchback had been elected to the school board. A majority of the board was Black, and its members included several of Pinchback's political supporters. The board worked to remake the educational system of New Orleans and improve opportunities for freedmen. E. J. had much to offer them as his studies in France placed him within the ranks of the best education man in the state.

E. J. was first appointed as principal of Sumner School, a newly opened all-Black school. However, he had only served a few months when the school board gave him an appointment that would become more controversial: an appointment as teacher at the Boys Central High School. Boys Central was regarded as the premier public high school in the state. It attracted students from elite private academies. 

Boys Central was regarded as a "white school," but racial boundaries had not always been strictly enforced. E. J.'s brother A. J. had not only attended the school, but he even graduated valedictorian in December 1872. However, racial tensions within the had risen in the intervening two years. The conservative press harshly criticized efforts to expand educational opportunities, and matters came to a head in December 1874. On December 14, some Black girls attempted to take the entrance exam for the "white" high school in New Orleans. They were turned away and the students at the school issued a public letter protesting efforts to integrate school. The next day (December 15), students at Boys Central issued a similar letter protesting against efforts to integrate their school. Tensions erupted in violence two days later (on December 17). A number of white youths, including students from the Boys School, traveled around the city, visiting "white" public school and forcibly removing all Black students they found. Members of the Black community, armed with clubs and brickbats, assembled in opposition, and a "general row" broke out nearby one school. The fight left one Black man (Eugene Duclostenge) dead and two police officers (Officers Cheevers and Williams) injured. To avoid further violence, the school superintendent closed the public schools for remainder of the term. Spring and summer passed without major incident, but there was every reason to expect that E. J.'s appointment would cause further disruption.

E. J. was appointed as one of the six teachers at Boys Central on September 11, 1875. On the first day of class, his presence was predictably a source of conflict. The senior students (eleven students in total) left in protest upon leaving of E. J.'s presence. After the school day ended and E. J. left the school, a young man in late teens or early twenties went up to him and "grossly insulted him without any provocation." E. J. responded calmly and simply withdrew from the encounter.

Following the student walkout, conservatives newspapers intensified their criticism of the school board and their decision to appoint Edmunds. While they were successful in provoking public anger, they were unsuccessful in getting E. J. removed. P. B. S. Pinchback and the rest of the school board continued to support him.

The controversy surrounding E. J. had died down by the end of fall. He remained in the position until spring 1877. That was a chaotic time for the entire state. Both political parties claimed to have won the 1876 election, and two different bodies organized as the state legislature until fall when the Republicans conceded defeat. The conservatives Democrats who were swept into power quickly worked to undo the changes brought about the Reconstruction government. For E. J., this meant a decline in his professional fortunes. 

In April 1877, a new school board, now dominated by conservatives, was appointed. Two months later they re-segregated the public school system. Despite the controversy that had surrounded his appointment at Boys Central, E. J. was regarded positively by the new conservative school board. While it was impossible to employ him at the newly segregated Boys Central, the board appointed him as principal of the new Colored High School (also known as Academic School No. 4) in November. One month later, when they opened the Peabody Normal School for Coloreds, they appointed E. J. as both assistant principal and math professor. 

E. J.'s job prospects at his new positions were bad. Not only was he now working within a racially segregated school system, but he was doing so at a time when the newly elected conservatives were making severe budget cuts. E. J.'s salary was reduced and was given only limited resources for running the new schools.

To make matters worse, poor finances and racial segregation were not the only problems facing E. J. He also began experiencing serious health issues. The June examinations at the Colored High School were conducted by E. J.'s assistant as illness left him confined to his home. The exact nature of his illness was never described, but health problems were widespread in New Orleans during this time. As a major port city with a humid, subtropical climate, New Orleans had often experienced public health problems, and the situation been made worse by the Civil War as an influx of refugees taxed a public health system already strained by the collapse of civil government. Conditions became especially deadly in 1878 as an epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through the city. Over ten-thousand people died, and a fifth of the population fled the city.

Citing his health problems, E. J. resigned from the Normal School in November 1878. It is unclear how long he remained at the Colored High School, but he had left by 1880. That year he returned to Paris and taught English, French, and mathematics. 

E. J. only remained in France a short time as a new opportunity opened up. After major setbacks following the Republicans' 1876 political defeat, Pinchback and his allies were able to pass a bill creating Louisiana's first Historically Black University: Southern University. When the university opened in spring 1881, E. J. was one of the university's first two professors. However, E. J.'s relations with the university trustees was unhappy one. In June, the trustees issued a report criticizing E. J.'s conduct. They accused him of a "frequently absenting himself without giving any reason" and "mainly working rather to the detriment than to the interest of the institution." E. J.'s frequent absences could have been the result of his failing health, but there also seems to have been major conflict between E. J. and the trustees. Over the summer, the trustees began reorganizing the university, and E. J. communicated to the trustees that he was a candidate for the presidency. The trustees did not publicly respond, but they did pass a resolution notifying all the university's professors that their position had been vacated in June. This marked the end of E. J.'s time at Southern University.

After leaving the university, E. J. again left New Orleans, this time for the town of St. Joseph. St. Joseph was a small town of about five hundred people that was in the northeastern part of the state, on the Mississippi River. The move was a natural one in light of E. J.'s health problems as it allowed him to escape the public health problems prevalent in nineteenth century American cities. At St. Joseph, E. J. continued to teach and opened a school. However, he continued to suffer from health problems. Problems became so bad that he was unable to work and ultimately was set to the Louisiana Retreat, a insane asylum. He remained there until his death in 1887. 

Sources

1) Zelbo, Sian. “E. J. Edmunds, School Integration, and White Supremacist Backlash in Reconstruction New Orleans.” History of Education Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2019): 379–406. 

2) Zelbo, Sian. (2020). "Edgar Joseph Edmunds (1851 – 1887), Mathematics Teacher at the Center of New Orleans’ Post-Civil War Fight Over School Integration" [doctoral dissertation]. Columbia University.

The Professors of Alcorn State: Douglass Carr Griffing

D. C. Griffing
From Dartmouth Library

Douglas Carr Griffing (b. January 4, 1845; d. July 10, 1925)

Mississippi. Black.
Education: Oberlin College (no degree), Dartmouth (A.B.?), Harvard University (no degree)
Occupation: dealer in boots and shoes, 

Douglas C. Griffing (often misspelled "Griffin" or "Griffen") was born in Rodney, Mississippi in 1845 to Henrietta Griffing and an unknown father. Henrietta described herself as widowed in the 1880 census. Little is known about Douglas's early life. Douglas described his father as being born in Massachusetts in the 1880 census, Ireland in 1900, and Wales in 1920. The information provided by Douglas is almost certainly false. At the time, he was passing as white, so he had good reason to conceal his birthplace. Other information he provided to census takers is verifiably false. He described his mother as being born in Massachusetts in 1880 and 1900 and in Tennessee in 1920, but she described herself as being born in either Virginia or Tennessee (records are contradictory). One possible explanation for the confusion surrounding Douglas's parentage is that his father was his enslaver.

Douglas first appears in records as a student at Oberlin College. He completed the preparatory school and several years of college. He then moved to Dartmouth College in 1872 and graduated with an A.B. degree the next year. Afterwards, he pursued legal studies at Harvard University, but he left after a year without completing a degree. Instead, he returned to the town of Oberlin and served as an agent for the New National Era newspaper (a Republican newspaper founded by Frederick Douglass). 

In July 1874, Douglas was elected professor at Alcorn University. This was a chaotic time for the school, and it is unclear if he did any significant teaching. In October, disorder broke out on the Alcorn campus because of conflict between students, faculty, and administrators. The trustees requested the resignations of all professors, and three professors (not named) immediately resigned. By March, Douglas was removed from his position as the state legislature declared all professorships vacant. 

Douglas remained in the region after his professorship was declared vacant and was active in Republican politics. At an April 1876 colored State Convention, he was appointed as one of the delegates to a convention in Nashville. Records of the Alpha Delta Phi states that he was a state senator in 1876, but this appears to be an error as he does not appear in a photograph of that year's state senators.

By 1878. Douglas had left Mississippi. That year he moved to Kansas and worked as a land agent. Later, he had moved to Kearney, Nebraska and was working as a "dealer" in boots and shoes. Around this time, he began calling himself "D. C. Griffin" and claiming to be a white man from Massachusetts.

Douglas moved to Jamestown, North Dakota in 1892. He remained there until he retired. He was living in Chicago, Illinois around 1899, but he eventually settled in the town of Redlands, California. He remained there until his death in 1925. 

Sources

1. "Agents for the New National Era." New national era. [volume], October 01, 1874, Image 4

2. The Daily clarion. [volume], April 04, 1876, Image 2

3. Catalogue of the Alpha Delta Phi. 

4. Year: 1870; Census Place: Oberlin, Lorain, Ohio; Roll: M593_1235; Page: 638B

5. Year: 1880; Census Place: Kearney, Buffalo, Nebraska; Roll: 743; Page: 256B; Enumeration District: 154

6. Year: 1900; Census Place: Jamestown, Stutsman, North Dakota; Roll: 1232; Page: 9; Enumeration District: 0179; FHL microfilm: 1241232

7. Year: 1920; Census Place: Redlands, San Bernardino, California; Roll: T625_129; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 178

The last Clariosophic students: W. McBirney Sloan

William McBirney Sloan
The State April 8. 1928

William McBirney Sloan in ca. 1894
The State, April 8, 1928

William McBirney Sloan
Courtesy of Anna via FindAGrave.

William McBirney Sloan (b. August 25, 1854; d. December 10, 1931)

South Carolina.  White.

Occupation: clerk, lawyer, revenue driver, railroad agent. 

Father's occupation: clerk of the House of Representatives, grocer, merchant. 

W.  McBirney Sloan was born in Pendleton, SC in 1851 to John Trimmier Sloan and Eliza Ann Benson Sloan. His older brother Robert Sloan was also a student at USC and a member of the Clariosophic Society.

The year McBirney was born, his father John was elected to the position of clerk of the House of Representatives. He served as clerk over 25 years. He served consecutive terms until 1869, when the Republicans took control of the state government, and returned to the position in 1877, when Conservatives regained control.

Before becoming clerk, the father John had worked as a merchant. By 1860, he had accumulated considerable wealth and owned 61 enslaved workers. John is described in more detail in the entry for McBirney's brother Robert.

The Sloan family moved to Columbia in April, 1865, two months after the city had been devastated by federal troops led by General Sherman. In Columbia, McBirney attended the Columbia Male Academy. At the academy, Arthur studied alongside a number of other future USC students including Holmes Agnew, Charles W. Parmele, Charles J. and Edward M. Babbitt (sons of USC Professor Babbitt), Arthur D. Rivers, Edwin W. Screven, and John P. Thomas Jr.

In Fall, 1872, McBirney matriculated at the University of South Carolina. That Spring, he was admitted into the Clariosophic Society. At the start of McBirney's second year at USC, the first African American student matriculated in the university. McBirney was left school in protest.

After leaving the University of South Carolina, McBirney began reading law at night. He was admitted to the bar, although he never started a legal practice.

McBirney played a small but significant role in the election of 1876. That year the outcome of the election was contested. According to ballet counted the Conservative candidates for state legislature in the counties of Edgefield and Laurens won the election. However, the number of votes cast in those counties exceeded the number of registered voters, so the Board of State Canvassers did not certify the election outcome. The Board was dominated by Republicans, and Conservatives alleged that the Board's action were improper and politically motivated. The outcomes of the elections in Edgefield and Laurens had national significance. They had the potential to determine both the  gubernatorial and the presidential election.

The newly elected state legislature was required by state constitution to meet on November 28. However, on that day, the  election dispute still had not been resolved. To guard against political violence, President Grant stationed federal troops at the Statehouse. When the legislature was to convene, federal troops limited access to the Hall of the House. When the Conservative candidates from Laurens and Edgefield tried to gain entrance, they were refused. In protest, the Conservative members-elect left the Statehouse and convened elsewhere (in Carolina Hall). Members were then sworn, and elected positions like Speaker of the House were filled. McBirney's father John was elected clerk and McBirney assistant clerk. 

Two days later, on November 30, the Conservative members-elect tried again to gain entrance to the Statehouse. This time the members-elect from Laurens and Edgefield were granted entrance. However, Conservatives and the Republicans had each elected a Speaker of House. Each Speaker declared the other illegitimate, and confusion broke out as Democrats and Republicans tried to address the two speakers simultaneously.

Concerned that violence would break out, McBirney gave his father two pistols which he had been carrying. He then left the Statehouse and spent the half a day searching for more firearms. However, although tensions remained high, no violence broke out and the legislatures remained in the hall day and night for the next four days.

On December 3, a rumor spread that the Republicans were plotting to bring in a group of African-Americans from Charleston and have them forcibly remove the members-elect from Edgefield and Laurens. In response, thousands of armed Whites from all of the state came to Statehouse to support the Conservatives. 

As armed Whites assembled outside the Statehouse, violence again threated to break out in the Hall of the House. Later McBirney recounted that one of the most dramatic moments was when a visitor came to the hall shortly before the  Republican Speaker of the House arrived. Although an old friend of the Speaker, the visitor was strongly opposed to the actions of the Republicans. the Speaker entered the Hall, the visitor approached the speaker's stand and told him, "If anything happens, I'll kill you."

Despite the large presence of armed men at the statehouse, no violence broke out. Republicans and Conservatives continued to challenge each other over the election outcome, but they did so through the press and the legal system. On December 14, the Conservatives declared their candidate, Wade Hampton, the elected governor. However, the Republican governor did not recognize their decision. Hampton tried to demonstrate that he was governor in February, 1877 by issuing a pardon to a convict. 

At the time that Hampton issued his pardon, most of the guards at the state penitentiary were African-American. Conservatives were concerned that the guard who respond to Hampton's pardon by releasing all the prisoners in protest. As a precaution, the local Conservative paramilitary group the Governor's Guards was asked to furnish a squad of men to act as prison guards. McBirney was among the members chosen to serve as guards. They were sworn in and remained at the prison for ten days, until the court ruled in favor of Hampton's pardon.

The dispute over the election outcome finally came to an end in April, 1876 (four months after Hampton claimed to have been elected). That month President Grant order that the federal troops guarding the Statehouse be withdrawn. Recognizing that Conservatives were likely to tried to seize political power through violent force and Republicans would unable to offer effective resistance, the Republican gubernatorial candidate announced that he would no longer dispute the election outcome.

A few years after the election, in 1879, McBirney entered city politics. That year he was asked to run as city alderman for Ward 1. He declined to run but was voted into office anyway. He ultimately served 4 terms as city alderman.

Around this time, McBirney went into business. He helped run the general merchandise firm of Sloan and Blakely. McBirney spent most of the 1880s working as a merchant, but in 1893, he began working for the government. That year the Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland was elected. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected since the Civil War. South Carolina Conservatives benefitted from his election by receiving federal appointments.  One of Cleveland's first appointments was the appointment of Confederate veteran D. Frank Bradley as South Carolina's internal revenue collector. McBirney became Bradley's chief deputy.

McBirney served as chief deputy collector of the internal revenue for a few years. He then returned to the position of assistant clerk of the House. After some years as assistant clerk, he returned to business, selling coal and business.

McBirney had returned to working for the federal government by 1890. By that time, he had been made a railway agent and was working at the Columbia office of the Seaboard Air Line. 

During this period, McBirney became increasingly involved in city politics. He ran for city mayor in 1892. He lost the election, but was then elected to fill the unexpired term of an alderman who had died. Two years later, in 1894, he ran again for mayor, and this time he won the election. He was reelected and ultimately served from 1894 to 1898.  During McBirney's time as mayor, the city of Columbia began to modernize. His administration was responsible for installing street lights than used electricity rather than gas and for replacing horse cars with electric trolley cars. He also worked to bring manufacturing, especially cotton mills, to Columbia. He pushed to lower taxes on mills and decrease transportation costs to encourage businesses to move their mills to the area. 

Later on life McBirney worked in the United States internal revenue department, serving  for 18 years .  He was also a special United States gauger for the state alcohol dispensaries.  

In December, 1931, McBirney suffered from pleurisy which developed into double pneumonia. He died of the illness on December 10, while hospitalized. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. 

Sources Cited

1) "'Wallace House' Officer Recalls Stirring Days." The State. April 8, 1928. p. 5.

2) "Sloan Rites Are Arranged." Columbia Record. December 9, 1931. p. 12.

2) 1860; Census Place: Pendleton, Anderson, South Carolina; Page: 256; Family History Library Film: 805212

3) 1870; Census Place: Columbia, Richland, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1507; Page: 91A; Family History Library Film: 553006

4) 1880; Census Place: Columbia, Richland, South Carolina; Roll: 1238; Page: 242A; Enumeration District: 162

5) 1900; Census Place: Columbia Ward 1, Richland, South Carolina; Page: 15; Enumeration District: 0084; FHL microfilm: 1241539

6) 1910; Census Place: Columbia Ward 1, Richland, South Carolina; Roll: T624_1471; Page: 13A; Enumeration District: 0079; FHL microfilm: 1375484

7) 1920; Census Place: Columbia Ward 1, Richland, South Carolina; Roll: T625_1707; Page: 28B; Enumeration District: 80

8) "Death of Col. John T. Sloan, Sr." The Anderson intelligencer, August 28, 1895, p. 3.

'sivilizing Freedmen in Arkansas: the Branch Normal College

An artist's depiction of the Arkansas river as viewed from Little Rock.
The view from Pine Bluff would have been similar

J. C. Corbin
From Wikipedia

On September 27, 1875, visitors to Pine Bluff, Arkansas could witness a scene that they could well mistake for a malaria-induced hallucination. In the middle of this rough river town in the Arkansas Delta, a scholarly-looking Black man was welcoming students to a newly opened college. That man was J. C. Corbin, a forty-two year old graduate of Ohio University and the founding principal of the Branch Normal College, Arkansas's public Historically Black College.

The mere existence of the college was a remarkable achievement. The college had been created by the state legislature two years earlier. This was a time when the state government was dominated by a Republican Party that strongly supported Black Arkansans. Much had changed in the intervening two years. The Republican party had collapsed in chaos, and political power was gained by conservative Democrats that included the state's former slave-owning elite. The new government rolled back many of the changes enacted by Republicans, but it preserved some measures enacted to support newly freed slaves as a paternalistic gesture intended to "fuse" Black voters with conservative Democratic politicians.

The early history of the Branch Normal College is of interest because it represents an unusual road in the development of higher education for freed slaves. Most HBCUs founded during this era were founded by men with a background either in the military or in missionary work. Fisk University's founding president Erastus M. Cravath was a white pastor affiliated with the American Missionary Association. Howard University was founded by the Union general O. O. Howard. Booker T. Washington, the most famous African American educator of the nineteenth century, was neither a military officer nor a missionary, but he had been mentored by Samuel C. Armstrong, who was both the son of missionaries in Hawaii and a former Union general.

Pine Bluff during the nineteenth century

Pine Bluff was a natural place to provide services for freed persons as the town had become a regional center for Black life. The town is located in the south central part of the state, on the Arkansas river. The surrounding area is part of the Arkansas Delta. In the years before the Civil War, aspiring planters brought large numbers of enslaved workers to the area as the Delta offers superior conditions for cotton-growing.

Census records clearly tell the story of this growth. In 1850, there were just under six thousand people living in the county. Ten years later, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the population had more than doubled to just over fifteen thousand. Throughout this period, just under half (or approximately forty-five percent) of the population was enslaved.

As a river town, Pine Bluff played a central role in this growth. The most efficient mode of transport in southern Arkansas was along a river, so aspiring planters arrived in the town by boat and then, after establishing themselves in the countryside, sent their cotton there to be sold at market. The town grew even faster than the surrounding countryside: the population increased four-fold, from just under three-hundred residents to almost one-thousand four-hundred. 

After the war broke out, the town's population swelled as freed slaves from the countryside went there seeking refuge. The town became a safe haven in fall 1863 when Union troops took control and set up a refugee camp. Soldiers remained there and even maintained an office of the Freedmen's Bureau until spring 1869. By 1870, Black residents represented nearly sixty-five percent of the town's population. This was a dramatic change. Before the war, they had been a substantial presence but never a majority.

The conditions that drew freedmen to the town also made it a challenging place to run a college. While Pine Bluff offered great economic opportunity before the war, it had never been an easy place to live. The town was subject to frequent flooding, and the climate was subtropical with hot humid summers. This made for an unhealthful, malarial environment that forced newcomers to go through a long and difficult period of enduring sickness while they acclimated. 

The war, especially the large influx of refugees, strained Pine Bluff's meagre public infrastructure, so problems with sanitation worsened the already bad public health conditions. Disease ran rampant through the freedmen population, and mortality rates soared.

In the face of these considerable obstacles, Corbin had few resources to support the newly formed college. During the first years, the college was run out of a rented house that also served as Corbin's residence. He was the sole faculty member and was even responsible for menial tasks like cleaning the classrooms. 

Skeptics would have questioned the value of providing Corbin with even this modest level of support. Slaves had largely been deprived of education, and Arkansas had only a negligible population of free persons of color. During the first few years after the war, the Freedman's Bureau and missionary societies had run schools for free slaves, but teachers focused on imparting basic skills like literacy rather preparing students for college. Corbin's own official reports on the college communicates a sense of frustration with the difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified Black students. So, who were the students?

Map of Pine Bluff in 1869. The location of the Branch Normal in 1875 is indicated in red.
From Arkansas Digital Archive

The first students at the Branch Normal College

The first class of students consisted of seven students drawn from Pine Bluff and Drew County (another county located in the delta). The students appear to have come from families of relative privilege. Consider the student Robert Allen. Robert was twenty years old and was living with his parents in Drew County. Robert was born in Arkansas, but his parents had moved from out-of-state (from North Carolina and Virginia). There's no record of Robert's family before the war, but they were almost certainly enslaved. (No free persons of color lived in Drew County in 1860). Robert's father was a wagon maker and a carpenter. These were skilled professions that put the family on firm economic ground and enabled the father to purchase real estate.

Also a member of the first college class was Angeline Vester. Angeline was thirteen years old, much younger than Robert, and had moved from out-of-state. She had been born in Louisiana and had moved to Drew County with her mother and stepfather. The stepfather was a Union veteran (formerly a private in the 98th Colored Infantry), and he likely brought the family to Arkansas to take advantage of the availability of farm land. By the time Angeline began her studies, the family was running a farm.

Pine Bluff in 1908
The location of the Branch Normal College in 1883 is indicated by the light blue dot.
From the Library of Congress

The Branch Normal College in the 1880s

The college graduated its first student in 1882, seven years after it opened. A second student graduated the following year. Both students, James C. Smith and Alice A. Sizemore, remained at the Branch Normal to work as teachers, the first ones Corbin hired. Both were in their earlier twenties, so they had little direct experience with enslavement, but they had grown up around people who did. No information about Alice's background is available, but James seems to have come from a background similar to that of Robert Allen. James was born in Arkansas, but his parents had moved from out-of-state (from North Carolina, likely forcibly by an enslaver). His father worked as a carpenter and wheelwright.

The college moved to permanent facilities in January 1883. The new location was a modest one: a two-story brick building constructed on a twenty acre plot in the western outskirts of town. The college still offered no living facilities, so students continued to live off-campus in rented rooms.

The Branch Normal College in 1908. Only the left-most building existed in 1883.
The right-most building is a dormitory that was built in 1887.
The building between them is a shop building constructed in 1893.
From the Library of Congress

The college celebrated its achievements at a June 1883 public ceremony held to mark the end of the academic term. The event was held off-campus at St. John's AME church. The nature of the event reveals a bit about how Corbin ran the college. The event opened with a prayer by Rev. Sylvester Hutchinson, likely the pastor at St. John's. This was followed by three student speeches: a salutatory (or welcome speech) on "Fame," a speech on "The Human Hand," and a graduating address by Alice A. Sizemore on "The Past." At the end, Frank J. Wise, a prominent white lawyer,  presented diplomas. Music was played between the speeches. The first speech was preceded by the singing of the anthem and Hallelujah by the college choir. The "First Regimental March" was played next, following by "Spirit Creator of Mankind" by the Belgian composer Louis Lambillotte, and finally Gloria from Mozart's Twelfth Mass. 

The song "First Regimental March" was likely the "Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment." Singing this son was an act of major political significance. The song was written during the Civil War, and it is sung to the tune of "John Brown's Body." The lyrics proudly proclaim Black soldiers' opposition to the Confederacy. Some lines are "We are going out of slavery; we're bound for freedom's light; / We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africans can fight" and "[Former enslavers] will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and kin." This was a remarkably bold act by students and faculty at a college funded by a state legislature dominated by former Confederate soldiers!

While not as blatant, the rest of the event also held political significance. The speeches displayed academic knowledge and were the types of speeches delivered by students at Predominantly White Institutions during the 19th century. When had graduated from Ohio University several decades earlier, Corbin had delivered a speech on "The Dangers of Literary Distinction." Compares these speeches to those delivered by students at HBCUs like Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. At a similar exercise held in 1882, the titles of Tuskegee student speeches included "Go to Work" and "The Drunkard's Daughter." The content of the speeches was not recorded, but the titles suggested that they were exhortations to avoid vices that whites alleged were prevalent among freedpersons.

Later that year, in December, the Branch Normal College held another public exhibit. At this event, students gave speeches displaying their knowledge of classical culture. One student delivered a declamation of Anthony's Oration over Caesar, while another gave one on "Rome." Other speeches emphasized students' connections to American culture. One student read a selection from George Washington's Inaugural Address, another spoke on "Revolutionary soldiers."

The music choices suggest similar attitudes. The songs played at the June event were taken from the European musical tradition. This ran counter to common expectations. In public music performances, especially those held for white audiences, students at HBCUs typically played music that came from (sometimes real, sometimes imagined) Black traditions such as spirituals.

A closer look at Branch Normal Students

We can get an unusually close look at Branch Normal students during the 1880s thanks to the work of an interviewer employed by the Works Progress Administration. In the 1930s, the WPA sponsored a project to interview freed slaves. Among those interviewed was Joseph Samuel Badgett, a former at the Branch Normal. Here's what Badgett told the interviewer about his experiences:

After that I went to Pine Bluff. The County Judge at that time had the right to name a student from each district. I was appointed and went up there in '82 and '83 from my district. It took about eight years to finish Branch Normal at that time. I stayed there two years. I roomed with old man John Young.

You couldn't go to school without paying unless you were sent by the Board. We lived in the country and I would go home in the winter and study in the summer. Professor J.C. Corbin was principal of the Pine Bluff Branch Normal at that time. Dr. A. H. Hill, Professor Booker, and quite a number of the people we consider distinguished were in school then. They finished, but I didn't. I had to go to my mother because she was ill. I don't claim to have no schooling at all.

John Young is listed in the 1893 college catalogue as living in Pine Bluff, but I can't find any other information about him. The other two people he mentions were deceased at the time of the interview, but they had been prominent educators and religious leaders.

Former Branch Normal student A. H. Hill
From "The Sons of Allen"

A. H. Hill was Andrew Henry Hill. Hill was born after the war (in 1870) in Brentwood, Tennessee. I haven't been able to find much information about the parents, and in particular, it unclear if they were free or enslaved. When Hill was a child, the family moved to Monroe County and started a farm. When he was a young teenager, Hill became active in the AME church, but instead of immediately entering the ministry, he decided to enroll at the Branch Normal College. He completed his studies there in 1899 and then went to Ohio to attend Wilberforce University. He graduated the university three years later and then returned to Arkansas to serve as a minister at an AME church in Fort Smith. He also served president of Shorter College (an HBCU in Little Rock that is affiliated with the AME church) for almost a decade and was a minister in Pine Bluff.

Joseph A. Booker
From Encyclopedia of Arkansas

Professor Booker was Joseph Albert Booker. His life before the war is relatively well documented. In 1859, Booker was born enslaved on a plantation near the modern town of Portland, Arkansas. The plantation was run by John P. Fisher, an early settler from New Hampshire. By the time Booker was born, Fisher's plantation was a sizable farm of 600 acres which was cultivated by fifty-five enslaved workers. 

Booker experienced great hardship as a child. Both parents died when he was a baby. According to one account, his father was whipped to death for teaching other slaves to read. Booker remained on Fisher's plantation until after the Civil War. By 1870, he and his sister were working as farm laborer for a Black farmer (Jonia Georg).

A modern photo of the Fisher plantation where Booker was born
From Wikipedia

Booker followed a path similar to that of Hill. He became interested in Christianity as a teenager (although he joined the Baptist church rather than the AME church) and enrolled at the Branch Normal College. The timeline of his studies is a little confused. Badgett says that Booker was at the school in 1882 or 1883, but accounts of Booker's life state that he attended from 1878 to 1881. In any case, at some point, he left the college and moved to Nashville, Tennessee in order to attend Roger Williams University, a now defunct HBCU founded by white abolitionists. He stayed at the university for five years, earning a bachelor's degree in 1886. Booker returned to Arkansas after completing his education. He served as minister for a church in southern Arkansas for year, and then he was elected president of Arkansas Baptist College, a HBCU in Little Rock. He remained in that position for the rest of his life.

Booker credited J. C. Corbin for instilling in him a deep love of learning while he was at the Branch Normal College, but politically, the two differed in important respects. Booker was a supporter of Booker T. Washington and even hosted him when he visited Arkansas. In keeping with Washington's views, Booker advocated a conservative political approach that emphasized accommodation over confrontation. In the 1900s, he served on a city vice commission charged with cleaning up Little Rock's red light districts, and he was appointed by the governor to a race relations committee created in response to a major 1919 race riot. 

Joseph A. Booker
From AARG

Joseph Samuel Badgett was not a major public figure like Booker or Hill, but his life is also well-documented. In his interview, he says that his mother was enslaved and "had Indian in her." The last statement is consistent with other public records which record her race as "mulatto." Joseph was born during the last year of the Civil War, so he was born into slavery but had no memory of being a slave. 

Joseph says nothing about his father in his interview, and federal census records are contradictory about basic facts concerning him. The father is described as being born in Ohio in 1900 and 1910, but the 1940 census states he was born in Texas. One possibility for this silence and confusion is that the father was his enslaver, or another white man living in the household.

Joseph's enslaver was likely Madison Badgett, the only adult male with the last name "Badgett" who was recorded as living in the county in 1860. That year, Madison Badgett enslaved two women whose ages match the ages of Joseph's mother and older sister. No enslaved men were in the household, lending further support to the theory that Joseph's father was his enslaver. 

After emancipation, Joseph's mother found work as a domestic servant, and he helped support her by working as a farmhand. Joseph was educated in the state's newly formed public schools, and his teachers included J. C. Smith. Smith was likely teaching between terms at the Branch Normal College to earn some extra income.

His WPA interview focuses on his early life, but Joseph achieved major personal success after leaving the college. He settled in Little Rock and worked as an upholster and then as a barber. At the time of his interview, he had owned his own home for decades.

The Branch Normal College changed significantly after Corbin left. His departure was part of a wave of changes throughout the south as populist politicians rose to political power and created the Jim Crow political system that sought to reduce Black citizens to a state of near-slavery. At the Branch Normal, Arkansas politicians worked to replace the college's academic coursework with training for semi-skilled professions. The campus environment during the 1920s was depicted by novelist Chester Himes (whose father had been on the faculty) in his autobiography and, in fictionalized form, in his novel The Third Generation. Himes depicts the Branch Normal as a wild place where the children of poor and ignorant sharecroppers learned to become "good farmers an' good blacksmiths an' good Nigras," in the words of the governor in The Third Generation. The learning of classical western culture that Corbin had promoted was entirely gone.

Map of Pine Bluff in 1923. The location of the college is indicated in red.
University of Arkansas Library