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A View from the Top: The Founding President’s
Vision for Literacy at Florida Agricultural Univerisity
“We seldom study the condition of the Negro to-day honestly and carefully. It is so much easier
to assume that we know it all. Or perhaps, having already reached conclusions in our own minds
we are loth to have them disturbed by facts” (Du Bois 1903, p. 99).
“The school has a three-fold mission-Normal, Agricultural and Mechanical. It is the Normal
School for the Negro section of the Florida public school system. It is also the Agricultural and
Mechanical School for the Negro youth of the State. The plan is to send into the Negro schools
of the State properly trained teachers; to the farms and shops well-equipped artisans; and to the
State at large intelligent, law-abiding and thrifty citizens. The academic work is thorough and
progressive, covering that of a good secondary school. (Young, p. 210)
“We will have to make a paradigm shift as we face the fact that some things are more important
to us in achieving our goals than others. We want to establish a College of Dental Medicine,
distance-learning initiatives, and create a new environment for teaching and learning. Since 80
percent of our budget is in personnel, we are going to have to look at every part of the university
to determine its relevancy to meeting our future needs”. (Ammons, 2011, website)
These three epigraphs capture the essence of the trajectory of Blacks in their struggle for equal
footing in the realm of education and the scope of this essay. Over one hundred years ago, WEB
DuBois engaged in a controversial discussion concerning the status of the “Negro” which has
outlived its orator. A proponent of the “Talented Tenth,” Du Bois the fact that it is still with
hushed tones and shrugged shoulders that scholars address—if at all-- issues concerning
educating African Americans and other marginalized groups for that matter catches the careful
scholar’s eye. His political contemporary, Booker T. Washington, argued for a compromise in
educating Blacks per his 1895 speech, “Up from Slavery,” which implied that Blacks would be
satisfied and better served with a vocational education, as opposed to a liberal arts education.
While there is a wealth of scholarship concerning the two, their polemic speeches and writings
have traversed into the 21st century, especially evidenced in schools historically designed to
educate Blacks in the U.S.: historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
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More specifically, traces of this debate could be evidenced in the current discussions
about the curricula trajectory of ?
Therefore, Du Bois’s acknowledgement of the
shortsightedness of humankind and its ability to selectively and conveniently see these
commonalities when it is most beneficial or profitable to them becomes extremely relevant to the
topics discussed in this essay (Du Bois, 1903) . In other words, it is the sole purpose of the
researcher to present the facts while investigating their accuracy and larger implications.
Meanwhile, President Thomas DeSaille Tucker, the first president of what is now Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), wrote letters and speeches that address many
of these same concerns as it related to the Tallahassee, Florida—centered university: providing
the Black matriculants with a liberal arts education, one that directly opposed the HamptonTuskegee Model, and thus provided seedlings for the cropping of a shifting ?
This drive is a familiar one when reflecting on the leadership of this university. Neyland
concurs:
Higher education in the South during the early years was inseparably intertwined with the
personalities of presidents who headed the respective institutions of higher learning . . .
Since Blacks were legally prohibited from participating in and significantly influencing
the political processes which brought adequate appropriations from state legislatures,
their survival was dependent mainly upon the ability of the presidents of these institutions
to persuade the legislatures to give support to their causes” (1976, v).
Thus, this research project is an attempt to unpack the “facts” concerning the integral ways the
formative presidents, namely President Young, had radical visions for the State Normal College
and Industrial Institution, now known as Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, and the
surrounding community grounded in literacy. By understanding the university’s leadership, one
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can gain a greater insight into its founding vision while gauging the relevance or necessity for
upholding this vision for the future.
Recently, President James H. Ammons, President of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical
University (2011 FAMU), proposed a plan that, as he terms it, is a “paradigm shift”(website) : he
plans to focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. These
changes are the direct result of the financial crisis in the state of Florida. As a result, Ammons
has had to restructure the University to maintain its existence and secure its growth over the next
ten years, which ultimately results in significant budget cuts and programmatic changes (FAMU
web).
To his credit, Ammons has spent most of his three years in office attempting to assuage
the impact of these cuts, to the tune of approximately 200 jobs—including faculty positions, still
shocks this University’s community, especially those who are immediately affected. When he
initially called for meetings to address the state of affairs with all of its on campus constituents
within his first year in office, he eagerly accepted suggestions from employees, students, and
staff alike, yet he reminded all that his plan will be primarily influenced by the financial
condition of the state of Florida. Yet, his financial woes have not impeded upon his quest to
make the University a competitive institution.
The origins of HBCUs require a closer look in order to better understand the challenges
of FAMU. These intentional educational communities were not randomly selected, but
oftentimes forged together by laws such as Jim and Jane Crow and other injustices. Historically,
Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) ,by their mere existence, are counterculture. Though
other institutional types have distinguished themselves, Carmen Kynard and Robert Eddy define
HBCUs in terms of Perry’s definition, stating that these sites are “’intentional educational
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communities’ that have served as ‘counterhegemonic figured communities’ on the American
educational landscape” (Perry, Steele, & Hilliard cited in Kynard & Eddy, year). In other
words, HBCUs, along with Hispanic serving institutions (HSIs) and Tribal Colleges, have
always been identifiable by their unique aims to prepare students of color for the
professionalization, being the “central, primary locus of defining and constructing an education
for racially/economically subordinated students in the United States (W27).
M. Christopher Brown II and Kassie Freeman note Roebuck and Murty’s similar
understanding of the HBCU: “HBCUs, unlike other colleges, are united in a mission to meet the
educational and emotional needs of black students. They remain the significant academic home
for black faculty members and many black students” (xii). These facts are significant when
considering over a century worth of pedagogical practices that have been in practice within these
institutions.
After spending most of my adult years working and enrolled in a HBCU, I have observed
Some patterns of behavior that can be supported by literature about the African American
community as a whole. Students typically understand that their professors are to be addressed by
the title “doctor,” even if it were not the appropriate identifier. Faculty reserve the right to “close
their door” and candidly speak to any of their students about “the real world.” Faculty and
students usually celebrate their university’s legacy, honoring founding fathers especially during
homecoming. Beverly J. Moss in A Community Text Arises, posits that
“shared cultural knowledge (or understanding, including norms, ideology, and artifacts)
contributes significantly to the roles and expectations of participants, intertextual
relations, and just about everything else in this [African American churches] institution .
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That is, there are expectations and shared experiences that dictate ‘the way we act’ and
‘what we recognize as acceptable behavior…’” (8-9).
Situated in Florida’s panhandle, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, or the
State normal institute [get accurate name?] was founded on October 5, 1887 in Tallahassee,
Florida under the leadership of Tucker [complete name]. Though his biography is elusive, he is
generally remembered for being a proponent of a liberal arts education, which made him
countercultural during a time when educating Blacks in the South primarily meant teaching them
a trade (Anderson, 34). The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute became the
programmatic model for systematically instructing Blacks in the South in that assuaged the fear
of empowering the ex-slaves with what they wanted most, literacy. Anderson details the passion
that freed Blacks, as a collective, had for becoming literate citizens. This institute became the
prototype in their “curriculum, values, and ethos” even though the curriculum was ironically a
juxtaposition of a “Yankee” and former slave’s ideology (Anderson, 33). In essence, Armstrong
attempted to ameliorate the notion of education in the South while desiring to assuage the
cataclysmic retaliation of ingrained racism.
The Morrill Act of 1862, which was established to democratize education, provided the
legislature that gave funding for the establishment of Black land-grant institutions, institutions
that centered on a comprehensive approach to learning: it combined a scientific, technical, and
practical approach to higher education. At land-grant institutions, “science and not [the]
classics” was to be the focus (Neyland, 2). Prior to the act, religious institutions funded the
majority of schools for Blacks. Although these schools helped to educate many Blacks, the
Black community continued to suffer from a high illiteracy rates. In the Tenth Census of the
United States, documents define literacy as the ability to read and/or write. In the Compendium
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of the Tenth Census (1880), part of Table 137 is listed as “Illiteracy by states and territories”.
CANNOT READ and CANNOT WRITE are listed under these tables, which leads one to
believe that the definition of literacy in 1870 (p. 1654-1655) was such. In another part of the
same table, showing data from 1880, there is ONE column entitled “Returned as Unable to
Read”, with no gender or race specified, and the rest of the columns are listed as “Returned as
Unable to Write” with race and gender specifications. One could ask, “What race or gender is it
that cannot read?”, or, “Why did the government imply that it was more important to write than
to read?” Shirley Wilson Logan discusses how “some manifestation of literacy . . . is implicated
in one’s rhetorical abilities” (Liberating Language: Sites of Rhetorical Education in NineteenthCentury Black America; 4); thus creating room within the definition of literacy for those who
would traditionally be deemed illiterate, such as rhetor? Sojourner Truth (4).
From 1890 to 1930, there were no specifications of literacy, or columns specifying what
gender/race could or could not read or write. One can infer that the numerical data provided in
the census reports from 1890 to 1930 is irrelevant, since there is no real definition of literacy in
the US Census reports in that 40 year time period. For example, in the 1900 Federal Census (the
Twelfth Census), the total numbers of both Black and White illiterate school age children (10-21
years) are misrepresented. The reported total of Black illiterate children in Table 57 of that
census is reported as 64,816, and the reported total of White illiterate children is 19,184, which
comes to a total of 84,000. The census reported the total as being 84,285 (p. 74). One could
accredit these conflated numbers to the high rate of human error.
However, Geneva Smitherman would argue that these documents perpetuate the disparity
in our educational system. She questions records, such as the Census, because they fail to record
from an African American perspective. Much of how Blacks spoke and wrote (and continue to
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speak and write) are largely informed by an African worldview (Smitherman). This worldview
coalesces the spiritual and material aspects of existence where the spiritual aspect dominates the
secular (75). This unifying of the sacred-secular, as she terms it, is evident in Black colleges and
universities, especially FAMU. Since most of these colleges received funding and support from
most churches, an emphasis of the spiritual existence has always played a prominent role in the
affairs of the University.
Smitherman notes that the mainstream notion of literacy has been used as the standard for
African American literacy:
with such close linguistic-cultural contact, the influence of the majority culture
and language on its minorities is powerful indeed, and there is great pressure on the
minorities to assimilate and adopt the culture and language of the majority. However, this
pressure to maintain home language and culture while blending much of the dominant
culture is an attribute that makes black literacy unique.
Smitherman calls it the “push-pull” momentum that, much like W.E.B. DuBois’s “double
consciousness”, accounts for the push towards white culture and the simultaneous pull from it
(10-11).
Other unique unquantifiable Black ways of knowing are rooted within the community
involvement. According to an African purview, “all modes of existence are necessary for the
sustenance of its balance and rhythm” (Smitherman 75). In other words, we are interdependent
upon each other and nature, so “individual participation is necessary for community survival.
Balance in the community, as in the universe, consists of maintaining these interdependent
relationships” (75). Therefore, many Black campuses are spaces that have intersections between
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a strong sense of spirituality and a strong push towards education. They are often deemed
interdependent. The federal government believed the land-grant institutions would combat
illiteracy, and its focus on agricultural and mechanical arts would prepare students for the
constant changes of the industrial world (Neyland 1, 21-22).
Royster goes through great lengths to contextualize her need to provide an alternative
way of studying African American literacy acts because there is a rich history of controversy
surrounding literacy. The polemic term hinges upon the field’s reduction of the term as simply
meaning one’s ability to read and write. Scribner and Cole urged scholars to reach for a more
nuanced understanding of literacy in their study of the Vai people. Shirley Brice Heath’s
extensive case study allows us to see that literacy is specific to certain sites and Moss also asserts
that “literacy is defined in context,” thus requiring a more specified study (Moss 4). This
understanding of literacy excludes the multifaceted ways of knowing evident in African
American discourse, as Royster, Moss, Richardson, Delpit, and other scholars of African
American scholars argue. Bishop Walter Ong is one who privileges literacy as the progression of
a more developed society, oversimplifying “primitive” cultures that do not always value writing
in the same ways or for the same purposes. This linear and narrow understanding of literacy
problematic because there are cultures, like African American, that intertwine writing and speech
acts.
In A Community Text Arises: A Literate Text and A Literacy Tradition in AfricanAmerican Churches, Moss identifies one of the key problems with privileging one definition of
literacy: “This discussion of literacy in composition studies is not about one’s ability to read and
write; that represents too narrow a definition of literacy. The discussion is more about the
relation between how language is used and what counts as literacy. Far too many past and
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current discussions about African-Americans’ literacy and language skills paint us in a negative
light” (2). She continues to uncover the stigma attached to this alternate way of knowing,
correlating the myths entrenched in hegemonic society concerning Black communities that
ultimately were reflected in statistical data designed to hinder scholarship, the Bell Curve
discussions for example, within this community (Moss 2). Moss initiates the “forced
relationships” between home and school literacy (4) by surveying ethnographic research that
repeatedly amplify the disparity between community literacies or home literacies among within
diverse populations (Moss 3).
Geneva Smitherman also broadens the definition of African American speech acts—the
function of literacy-- to include language and style, noting that the two usually overlap
(Smitherman 3). In her often quoted text, Talkin and Testifyin, she illustrates both the layering of
language and style common in African American culture: “Here the language aspect is the use of
the be to indicate a recurring event or habitual condition…But the total expression…also reflects
Black English style, for the statement suggests a point of view, a way of looking at life, and a
method of adapting to life’s realities” (3). She concludes that “Black English, then, is a language
mixture, adapted to the conditions of slavery and discrimination, a combination of language and
style interwoven with and inextricable from Afro-American culture” (3).
Smitherman goes on to discuss the varying speech acts typical to the African American
community, of which includes inflection or preacher style and narrativization, that are evident in
student writing and writing behavior. In one study of African American students’ writings,
Arnetha Ball “noticed formulaic patterns of repetition, intimate dialogue with the reader,
storytelling as a transitional device, and popular African American idioms” (Ball qtd. in Redd
79). Other common identifiers within African American speech are as follows: “redundancy,
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preaching, folk sayings, wordplay, word coining, image making, indirection, alliteration, and
rhyme” (Campbell; Gilyard and Richardson; Noonan-Wagner; Smitherman “African American”;
Redd; Thompson “Rescuing”; Troutman qtd. in Redd “Keepin’ It Real” 79).
In her article, “Keepin’ It Real: Delivering College Composition at an HBCU,” Teresa
Redd provides an example of this range of common interests within the African American
community. She notes that writing as liberation is embedded in African American history, citing
Frederick Douglass, Thomas Jones, Ida B. Wells, and many others (73). Redd makes the case
that this rich, African American heritage is not limited to an oral tradition, but enriched by both
an oral and written tradition. In fact, she makes parallels to writing behaviors among present
African American youth and African customs.
However, it is noteworthy to stress that Black colleges are no more ubiquitous than Black
people, or any people for that matter. Although they are similar to predominantly White
institutions in many ways, their historical traditions and their levels and types of support make
them distinct. Like many other institutions of higher learning, Black colleges reflect the
diversity that is so characteristic of the United States’ postsecondary education system” (Brown
and Freeman xii). In spite of turbulent times, these institutions have repurposed what was
supposed to be a site of oppression into a site of liberation. These colleges, often under dire
situations, used minimal resources and maximum potential to create access for African
Americans in hegemonic society. In making a conscious effort to examine how the historical
expectations and political atmosphere necessitate informed epistemological and pedagogical
practices.
Understanding literacy practices, especially those specific to these rhetorical sites of
education (Logan) are extremely important when understanding the ways in which the dominant
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culture perceived the literate lives of Blacks, especially when considering that these statistics
determined the levels of support and the types of education were allowed in these raced spaces.
In the U.S., literacy has been measured through census information; however, the question of
how accurate census information is comes to the forefront of many arguments regarding this
measurement system. In 1787, one hundred years prior to the founding of The State Normal
College for Colored Students, the 3/5 Compromise was enacted, which counted Blacks as 3/5 of
a person for tax and voting purposes. She provides a rich overview of Black dialect dating back
to 1619, when “a Dutch vessel landed in Jamestown with a cargo of twenty Africans” (5).
Since extant records noting the ways in which these Africans communicated with the
Dutch, Smitherman suggests that we examine the patterns within African American
communities. She notes that there is little empirical record of the cultivation of this hybrid form
of literacy known within African American communities. Smitherman also states that it was not
until 1771 that a Black person recorded Black speech patterns and writing. So, the larger
question is who decides what literacy counts? Given the historical evidence of discrimination,
mainstream notions of literacy have the propensity to leave our students behind. Although these
Census records depict an increase in literacy among Blacks, the percentage of illiterate Blacks
are more than twice as many as the illiterate Whites. This is an indication of how unimportant it
was for Black people to be counted, for whatever reason, accurately. This unimportance
continued to spread throughout the federal census, in regard to determining how many people in
general actually existed in any given area in the United States.
Defining literacy has been a slippery task. However, when considering the rich literate
legacy of HBCUs, namely FAMU, its extended to include literary acts that may not traditionally
subscribe to the traditional definitions of reading and writing: developing a vision, such as
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becoming a social advocate or serving in the Black community. Jacqueline Jones Royster made
this distinction in Traces of a Stream, as she championed to bring awareness to the many
“literacy arenas” of African American women on the nineteenth century. Royster’s observations
of these women’s literate actions foreground our literacy definition: “. . . African American
women present to the world their visions, values, and desires—with one of those desires . . .
being a desire to inspire advocacy and activism in the interests of humanity and particularly the
African American Community” (23-24).
As it is the foundation of all extended definitions of the term, this way of understanding
is quite necessary and implicit in the extended versions. These literacy events are reflective of a
community of people who created a community-driven campaign for “universal education”
(Anderson). With an attempt to implement this plan during Reconstruction, slaves envisioned
gaining the ability to read and write as a means of liberation. This ideology was not a new
concept to them; Logan and other scholars have indicated that there were other sites of rhetorical
education for enslaved blacks long before they ever were able to establish a school.
Unfortunately, due to the racial climate of the time, the federal government had to pass
the Morrill Act of 1890, which forbade racial inequality, to ensure that Black land-grant
institutions receive funding. However, Florida did not accept the terms for Black land-grant
institutions until 1891. Therefore, when FAMU opened in 1887, it did so solely from money
from the state in the sum of $4,000. Not all states denied their Black land-grant institutions
funding. Mississippi received $188,928 for land-grant institutions and $113, 351 or 3/5 went to
Alcorn University, a Black land-grant institution and $77,577 or 2/5 went to the University of
Mississippi, the White land-grant institution. Although FAMU started with meager funds, the
strong leadership of Thomas DeSaille Tucker and Thomas Van Rennssalaer Gibbs allowed the
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school to grow and develop into an institution that promoted literacy and therefore, made long
lasting economic and political impacts on the black community (Neyland 3, 54).
Although the federal government provided the legislature and financial backing that
allowed for the founding of many black land grant institutions, it was the vision of African
American leadership that made them into institutions of literacy and power even in their first
days, and FAMU stands as example of such an institution. FAMU opened on October 3, 1887 as
the State Normal College for Colored Students (SNCCS).
Although SNCCS officially began under the presidency of Thomas DeSaille Tucker, the
history of SNCCS begins with Thomas Van Rennssaller Gibbs, vice president, of the college. In
1884, Gibbs became a member of the state House of Representative, and in 1885 attended the
Florida Constitution Convention, where he lobbied for the bill that resulted in funding for
SNCCS. Many people believed the governor would appoint him president, but White political
leaders did not want Gibbs in such a powerful position because of his affiliation with other Black
social and political leaders. Governor Edward Perry, former Confederate general, appointed
Tucker president, believing he would adhere to Southern politics of White dominance and
supremacy. Under Perry’s tenure, the legislative branch rewrote the constitution and changed
policies in order to disenfranchise Blacks; Perry worked to reverse the progress Blacks had made
during Reconstruction. In regards to education, he supported the notion that Blacks were to learn
trade skills and not the liberal arts; he did not believe Gibbs would support mechanical and
industrial instruction, so he appointed Tucker president. (Ellis 154-155; Neyland 54).
Unbeknownst to Perry and other Southern officials, Tucker believed in a liberal arts
education, a belief that most likely stemmed from his academic roots in the liberal arts. Tucker
was born in Sierra Leone but was brought to the United States by missionary George Thompson,
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who was part of the Mendi African Mission. In 1860, he attended Oberlin College, took
numerous classes in the classics and humanities, classes such as Latin, rhetoric pedagogies, and
astronomy and graduated earning the highest grade possible. After graduation, he worked as a
teacher in Georgetown, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana. However, due to dissatisfaction
with the teaching profession, he attended law school at Straight University. He graduated in
1882 and practiced law in Pensacola 1883-1887.
Tucker had no teaching or administrative experience in the mechanical and agricultural
arts. He understood the need for such training but believed in a liberal arts education because it
granted blacks an opportunity to access the political and legal world. Under Tucker’s realm,
SNCCS opened with a preparatory and normal program. The college needed a preparatory
curriculum because students who went to schools that only operated for a few months in the year
or could not attend school regularly were not ready for the normal program. The preparatory
course work consisted of algebra, Latin, music, drawing, and bookkeeping, courses student took
to qualify for the normal school if they failed the entrance exam.
The normal course work consisted of Latin, higher math, physiology, astronomy, general
history, rhetoric, pedagogics, and natural, mental, and moral philosophy. By 1896, an academic,
intermediate, and even a model school w as added to the school. Tucker stated,
Having long since recognized the painful deficiency of the training of the scholars who
enter from the public schools, our has been systemized with a view to the removal of this
defect; the foundation to the attainment of this purpose consists, in part, in the
establishment of a model school presided over by a superior teacher.
Tucker taught English, rhetoric, and the classical subjects, and Gibbs taught math and science.
SNCCS started as a normal school, a school to train teachers and in so doing, laid its foundations
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in the arts and sciences (Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June 30, 1898, 124-125;
Neyland and Porter 12-18).
It was not until 1890 that SNCCS housed all the departments required of a land-grant
institution: mechanical arts, agriculture, and literary. Tucker believed it was “the practical
education of a combined literary and industrial kind and the result is to obtain the greatest good
at the least outlay to both State and patron.” (Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June
30, 1900, 203) Tucker was committed to providing students with the training that would allow
them to succeed in life but believed all training, literary or otherwise, began with a literary
foundation.
Even within the schedule, literary work came first. For example in 1896, literary work
started at 8 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m. and industrial work started at 2 p.m. and ended at 5 p.m. He
believed “[the college’s] work is to train teachers, but we are keenly alive to the industrial phase
of the life of the young people who are soon to wield the destinities of the State for good or for
evil” (Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June 30, 1896, 125). He believed education
would make a great impact on the community. He promoted the idea that teaching students
liberal arts would make them ready for the world and communicated the success he saw in his
approach.
The school has largely revolutionalized the life of the race in the community in which it
is located. It is the voluntary testimony, time and again, of the most influential citizens of
Tallahassee that the Normal School has effected a marked and happy change in the social
status of the colored people; that its diffusion of intelligence and high moral principles
has raised them to more elevated motives of duty to which they have been hitherto
indifferent (Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June 30, 1896, 125-126;
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Neyland 54-55; Neyland & Porter 35).
Tucker expressed his philosophy in not only words but in how he spent the college’s
annual budget. For example, in 1896, he allocated money from the Morrill Fund into five
categories: English Language, $4,320.10; Agriculture, $2,018.77; Mechanical Arts, $1,790.49;
Economics Science, $1,360; and Mathematics and Natural Science, $1,250. He put more money
in English language because he understood that for Blacks to be successful as farmers, masons or
welders, they needed to be literate and knowledgeable of the arts and sciences, so they would
understand the philosophies that American society and the world was modeled after, therefore,
allowing them to have a better understanding of how the world worked and their place in it
(Neyland 54-55; Neyland and Porter 35; Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June 30,
1896,125). Although, the liberal arts took precedence, Tucker did establish a mechanical and
industrial presence at the college. By November 1890, the mechanical department opened under
Professor Fred C. Johnson, and the university required all male students to take courses in
practical and theoretical farming and females to take courses in farmhouse wifery (Neyland and
Porter 23-25).
The community supported Tucker’s vision and supported him in other leadership
positions. For example, in August 1889 at Bethel Baptist Church, community and educational
leaders met to discuss educational issues. There they formed the Association of Colored
Teachers and elected Tucker as president and Gibbs as vice president. The association’s purpose
was to raise educational concern and to affect legislature. The organization was necessary
because of discrimination Black teachers faced. Black teachers did not have access to the same
resources white teachers had and also made less money. The association gave Black teachers a
voice. It also was an example of the role the church played in education. Not only did the
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church advocate for education in the Black community. The church itself became a space for
learning. As Fisher states in Toward a Theory of Black Literate Lives, “…churches, schools,
newspapers, bookstores are institutions that have afforded Black people opportunities to preserve
literate traditions while cultivating future leaders” (15). Churches were the location for
numerous meetings (Neyland and Porter 25-26, 27; Fisher 15).
Unfortunately, White southerners were not interested in Blacks developing as teachers
and in general, citizens of the world. They only wanted Blacks to learn the agricultural and
mechanical skills that would keep Blacks poor or working class citizens; therefore, the White
elite only wanted a school that would achieve that goal. Fortunately, during Tucker’s early term
in office, he reported to Albert J. Russell, a superintendent of public instruction that either did
not believe in White Southern ideas of Black education or did not make monitoring the Black
college a priority. Therefore, Tucker had freedom to stir SNCCS in the direction he believed
was the best for the Black community. Unfortunately, Russell lost his position to Sheats in 1893,
a White Southerner who believed Blacks needed a college program that was mostly based on
agricultural and mechanical training.
However, SNCCS had both a literary and industrial program. By 1901, the college
consisted of a literary department comprised of a normal, prepatory, academic, intermediate, and
model program, and an industrial department consisted of an agricultural, mechanical, dairying,
printing, and domestic science program, and a musical course consisting of piano. Sheat did not
believe Tucker had any intentions of creating a strong agricultural and mechanical program, so
he made Tucker justify his curriculum and budget. By September 6, 1896, Sheats had to approve
all of Tucker’s requisitions. After Tucker realized the Board of Education, Sheats, and the
majority of those in power wanted to create an institution that supported racist ideals of the
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South, he resigned as president of SNCCS on August 10, 1901 and resumed work as an attorney
(Neyland 56; Neyland and Porter 38, 46-47; Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June
30, 1900, 205; Florida Department, Bi-ennial Report ending June 30, 1902).
While President Nathan Young, the second president, replaced Tucker, he did not remove
his vision. Instead, he enhanced it by balancing the science component with his predecessor’s
(and his own) passion for the Classics. Yet, some would question whether President Ammons’
new vision is undoing what these founding presidents established. Ammons is arguably in a new
crossroads: he has to compete with internet colleges, such as the University of Phoenix. And, this
shift towards a digital age is already evidenced in the campus lifestyle. Ammons is
recommending a major shift towards distances learning initiatives (web), but he has already
begun restructuring programs, such as foreign languages and fine arts. He has even released at
least eight English faculty. Considering this university’s aims, and other HBCUs for that matter,
shifting from the liberal arts education might appear to be counterproductive if he intends to
uphold the founding president’s vision.
Yet, Ammons could be making the necessary changes that will preserve the wealth of
literacy rooted in this institution while contributing a new literacy curricula into the university’s
historical biography. In the end, this research will hopefully encourage other researchers to
provide further studies concerning HBCU presidents and their roles in influencing the culture of
the university, including how their ways of knowing is still valued within this academic space or
shifting in new directions, and thus may even require a different method of analysis.
19
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Royster, J.J (1994). Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change among African American
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A very interesting treatment, Kendra. I enjoyed the FAMU history in particular. I like your
approach to weaving it into the background materials on literacy and literacy counts among
African Americans in particular.
At the same time, the entire essay suffered a bit from a coherence problem. You tried to wrap
your arms around so many issues that it was hard to follow and know where you were going at
times. The first few pages need a re-write to fit with the rest of the paper.
You also have some editing issues which detract from the paper overall. Remember, your paper
represents you and indirectly, your thought processes so make it “look” good.
A good discussion overall with the noted deficiencies.
Good to have you in the class! Best of luck in your program.
Content- 27/30
Presentation (grammar, editing, APA, etc.) – 3.5/5
Total: 30.5/35