Historic Columbus Foundation spotlights black education history

As part of Black History Month, the Historic Columbus Foundation’s monthly lunch-and-lecture session Thursday was a presentation about the history of black education in Columbus.

Elizabeth Barker, the foundation’s executive director, told the diverse crowd of about 75 in the Mildred L. Terry Public Library, “Historic preservation is so much more than saving old buildings. It’s about the people and the places that they care about. Historic Columbus is so thankful to be able to share our town’s history through programs like today. Sharing our stories in new ways is vital to our future and to educating not only our own residents, but also our visitors.”

The Terry library was called the Colored/Fourth Avenue Library when it opened as the city’s first public library for blacks in 1953. It was renamed in 1981 to honor its first librarian.

Thursday’s event featured three guest speakers: retired Wynnton Elementary School principal Libba Russell presented a timeline; retired Reese Road Leadership Academy principal Jeanella Pendleton talked about being a student when the Muscogee County School District was a segregated system and graduating when it was integrated; and retired MCSD music education coordinator Thomas Moffett talked about teaching in the two different systems.

Timeline

Russell, a historian for MCSD, noted that when Muscogee County was founded in 1826 and when Columbus was founded in 1828 neither included any public schools. The city’s first public school opened in 1867 and was for whites only, Russell said. The city’s first public school for blacks was opened in 1868, the former Claflin School, she said.

Muscogee County’s first black high school opened in 1930. It was named in honor of William Henry Spencer, who died in 1925 after serving as principal of the former Fifth Avenue School and supervisor of the district’s Negro education department.

The city and county school systems merged in 1950, creating the consolidated Muscogee County School District. White and black teachers were paid based on separate scales until the 1960s, Russell said.

Carver High School, named after Tuskegee botanist and inventor George Washington Carver, opened as MCSD’s second high school for blacks in 1962.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed suit in 1964 on behalf of MCSD black students because the pace of freedom of choice was too slow, retired Columbus State University history professor Virginia Causey reported, and Robert Leonard peacefully desegregated Baker High School that September.

The first public protest of segregation in Columbus was the following year, Russell said.

And despite the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing segregated schools in 1954, MCSD didn’t integrate until a 1971 court order dismantled its dual school systems after its “freedom of choice plan” approved in 1963 failed to integrate the district. As of 1970, out of the 67 MCSD schools, 15 still were all black and 12 still were all white, according to research by Causey.

Eddie Lindsey Jr. became MCSD’s first black teacher to receive a six-year certificate and a doctorate and the first black assistant superintendent, Russell said.

Student life

Pendleton, a lifelong Columbus resident and born in 1950, was educated in a segregated system until the 11^th grade. Despite a lack of resources in the black schools, she said, “Rest assured, you could single out a teacher in Muscogee County, because they were always well dressed. That was a requirement. They looked sharp.”

She fondly remembered the operettas produced at Fifth Avenue School. “We didn’t have a school of the arts, but we had the exposure to music,” she said.

Books were hand-me-downs from the white schools, stamped with their names. “I had no earthly idea where those schools were,” Pendleton said. “We kind of stayed sheltered in our own community.”

Regardless of the books’ condition, she said, black students used paper bags from grocery stores to cover them and protect them.

Pendleton called the Fourth Avenue Library, “a very special place for me. This library had the best cold water in the world. … The water fountain at Fifth Avenue was the kind you had to pump to get water, and it was not cold.”

But the hardwood floors at the Fifth Avenue and Second Avenue schools were so shiny, Pendleton said, “you could almost see yourself reflected.”

In grades 6-7, Pendleton credits Second Avenue band director Randy Moore for being “the reason I got to go to college because I earned a band scholarship to Tuskegee Institute, and it got started at Second Avenue with a second-hand instrument they had gotten from the white schools. But it was OK; it still helped us to learn and to master that instrument.”

Pendleton said the teachers “really, really cared about every child. … They would make sure children who were in need always had what they needed, whether it was clothes or resources of any kind. Teachers were highly respected and valued during those years.”

Pendleton attended Marshall Junior High School and Spencer High School. As an 11^th-grader, she “begged and cried” to attend Columbus High School under the freedom of choice plan, but her parents — both Spencer graduates — wouldn’t yield.

In 1971, under forced busing, Pendleton’s brother had to spend his senior year at Jordan High School. “That almost traumatized him,” she said, “because he did not want to go.” But he was allowed to march with Spencer during graduation.

Pendleton concluded, “Even though our schools were segregated, as an adult now I could see what was lacking, but when you put it in perspective of teachers and parents and the community working together to make sure you had everything and every opportunity, it was a good thing for me personally.”

Teacher life

Moffett graduated from segregated South Girard High School in Phenix City. The school’s band didn’t have a room when it started in 1957 and Moffett was a 10^th-grader, so students practiced in the attic, he said.

In 1964-65, Phenix City built another South Girard in another location, Moffett said.

After graduation from Florida A&M, his first teaching job was at Drake High School in Auburn. Drake also didn’t have a band room, Moffett said, so they practiced in a storage room under the gym.

In 1960, Moffett moved to Talbotton Road Junior High School, a former hosiery mill that was the first home of Columbus College, now Columbus State University. Moffett again didn’t have a band room. “We practiced in the cafeteria or wherever we could find a spot,” he said.

Moffett was promoted to assistant principal of Waddell Elementary School in 1978 and then principal of St. Marys Road Elementary School in 1981. He called both experiences “wonderful.”

For two months in 1990, he was principal of Dimon Elementary School until Jim Burns, then the superintendent, appointed him as supervisor of music for the district. The position was downgraded from director to coordinator, Moffett said. “The previous supervisor of music had a doctoral degree from Auburn; I had a doctoral degree from Auburn. He was a musician; I was a musician. I had been a principal; he had not,” he said. “So why did they downgrade it? I’m not sure, but I have a guess.”

Moffett retired from MCSD in 1993. He taught music and supervised student teachers at Troy State University as the school’s first black member of the music faculty.

As he finished his presentation, Moffett said, “We hear a question that’s asked often: Did integration hurt or help the black community? Well, I would hope that it helped, with all the things that went on during this time, with all the problems and the issues that came up.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2017 at 7:32 PM with the headline "Historic Columbus Foundation spotlights black education history."