Women's History Month 2004
Mar. 21st, 2004 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sff_corgi_ljAlice Jackson Stuart
In August 1935, at age 22, Alice Carlotta Jackson became the first African American to apply to the all-white University of Virginia. Small numbers of women had been admitted into the graduate and professional schools in earlier years, so the issue was her race rather than her gender. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, states could segregate by race so long as they provided "equal" facilities for blacks and whites. Since none of the black colleges and universities in Virginia offered a master's degree program in French, an African-American citizen of Virginia who wanted to pursue an advanced degree in that field would have to attend an out-of-state school.
Jackson, a Richmond native and daughter of a pharmacist, completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Virginia Union University in Richmond and had taken some additional courses at Smith College in Massachusetts. Her application to the U.Va. graduate school for an MA in French was denied by the Board of Visitors on the basis of state's Jim Crow educational policies and "other good and sufficient reasons."
One voice from within the University community, The National Students League, protested the Board's action "because it implies the desirability of continuing educational inequality." A small (not over 20 members) but vocal Communist student organization, the NSL wrote a highly publicized letter to the BOV and President John Newcomb condemning their actions and also held a public forum for the students to discuss this controversial issue. Coverage of the protest in national newspapers, such as The New York Times, brought more attention to the case and pressure on the Board. President Newcomb also received half a dozen similar letters from other NSL University branches.
The case resulted in passionate public arguments on a range of issues. Many white Virginia newspapers criticized Jackson and the NAACP for damaging race relations and "unnecessarily rocking the boat." But these complaints were met with strong rebuttals from the NAACP Chief Counsel Charles Hamilton Houston, who wrote: "Amicable race relations are pleasant but must not be purchased at the price of fundamental rights."
Though the NAACP eventually decided not to press the Jackson case in court, the threat of such a case led to direct state action to provide African-American citizens with access to separate-but-equal higher education facilities. In December 1935, the Virginia State Board of Education established a graduate school for African Americans at Virginia State University at Petersburg. And in February 1936 the Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 470, the Dovell Act, which paid qualified black applicants the additional amount of tuition and travel expenses required to attend schools outside the state offering a similar course of study. This bill provided for the education of hundreds of African American students over the next twenty to thirty years.
Alice Jackson took her grant money from the new Scholarship bill (one of about 400 who did so 3) and attended Columbia University, graduating with an M.A. in English in 1937. Unable to obtain any teaching positions in the state of Virginia because of the notoriety associated with her application, she taught at a college in Florida for 45 years, and then at Howard University for some time. Yet, despite the repercussions of her challenge to U.Va.'s segregation policies, she remained committed to what she called "the fight for equal educational opportunities for Negroes in the South."
It was not until the 1980s that the University of Virginia and current African-American students honored her. In 1990 the Virginia General Assembly honored her with a resolution commending her courageous act in the 1930s. Alice Jackson Stuart passed away on June 13, 2001, aged 88. [Obituary, Richmond Times-Dispatch] She was a pioneer in her day and took the first step on a very long and painful path to the desegregation of the University of Virginia. 1
Stuart's gutsy effort to change university policy is little-known today. But it made headlines at the time, and led to legislation that paid for black residents of Virginia to attend out-of-state professional schools. Fifteen years later, black students were admitted to the University of Virginia. And now, Stuart's essays, letters, speeches and papers -- including her correspondence with the university -- have been donated to the school by her son, Julian T. Houston. "There is, then, a certain poetic justice for my mother, in donating her papers to the university which denied her admission so long ago," Houston said.
Houston, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge, said several universities, including Tulane and Emory, were interested in the 30 boxes of files after his mother died in 2001 at the age of 88. The papers represent "not just a history of the university, but history of the South and history of the U.S.," said Michael Plunkett, director of special collections at the university library. The school already had newspaper articles and university and NAACP documents about Stuart, said university historian Scot French, who helped obtain the papers. "What we didn't have was her perspective on all of this," he said. "We didn't have her words."
"I thought that certainly as a taxpayer I would be, should be, eligible for attending the university," Stuart said in a transcript of a 1987 interview.
Houston said his mother, despite her pioneering role, was relatively unknown in the civil rights movement because of her modesty. She would refer to her rejection by the University of Virginia, he said, but seldom gave details. "She didn't seek publicity or promote herself. She was very private," Houston said.
A researcher at the university found that Stuart was among 400 black students who received the [grant money to learn out-of-state]. Some became doctors, lawyers and university presidents.
Forty years later, Stuart spoke at an awards banquet for black students at the school. In her speech, which is in the collection, she said that the invitation left her with "a sense of great joy and long reminiscences. ... We share together."
"It's a tribute to people like her who tried and failed that I am here," said Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a history professor at the school. Retired university history professor Paul Gatson, who is writing a history of the school, met about 35 of Stuart's relatives at a recent luncheon to honor her. They include doctors, lawyers, corporate executives and Ivy League students. 2
Her son can be heard talking about his mother's papers on the Travis Smiley Show on NPR.
1 http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/projects/kenan/jackson/jackson.html
2 http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/11/05/poetic.justice.ap/
3 http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2003/10/10/
black_woman_whose_rejection_blazed_trails_
at_u_of_virginia_finally_takes_place_at_the_school/
In August 1935, at age 22, Alice Carlotta Jackson became the first African American to apply to the all-white University of Virginia. Small numbers of women had been admitted into the graduate and professional schools in earlier years, so the issue was her race rather than her gender. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, states could segregate by race so long as they provided "equal" facilities for blacks and whites. Since none of the black colleges and universities in Virginia offered a master's degree program in French, an African-American citizen of Virginia who wanted to pursue an advanced degree in that field would have to attend an out-of-state school.
Jackson, a Richmond native and daughter of a pharmacist, completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Virginia Union University in Richmond and had taken some additional courses at Smith College in Massachusetts. Her application to the U.Va. graduate school for an MA in French was denied by the Board of Visitors on the basis of state's Jim Crow educational policies and "other good and sufficient reasons."
"The education of white and colored persons in the same schools is contrary to the long established and fixed policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Therefore, for this and other good and sufficient reasons not necessary to be herein enumerated, the rector and board of visitors of the University of Virginia direct the dean of the department of graduate studies to refuse respectfully the pending application of a colored student."Jackson was part of a bigger movement at the time, coordinated by the NAACP, that sought to force Southern states to provide equal access to public higher education for black students. 1 Her cause was taken up by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who would later become the first black U.S Supreme Court justice. 3 At the recommendation of the NAACP, she sent a letter asking the university to "enumerate" the other reasons for her rejection. The Board of Visitors refused to elaborate on its decision, perhaps because it did not want to cloud the legal issue of racial segregation with other merit-based considerations. 1
One voice from within the University community, The National Students League, protested the Board's action "because it implies the desirability of continuing educational inequality." A small (not over 20 members) but vocal Communist student organization, the NSL wrote a highly publicized letter to the BOV and President John Newcomb condemning their actions and also held a public forum for the students to discuss this controversial issue. Coverage of the protest in national newspapers, such as The New York Times, brought more attention to the case and pressure on the Board. President Newcomb also received half a dozen similar letters from other NSL University branches.
The case resulted in passionate public arguments on a range of issues. Many white Virginia newspapers criticized Jackson and the NAACP for damaging race relations and "unnecessarily rocking the boat." But these complaints were met with strong rebuttals from the NAACP Chief Counsel Charles Hamilton Houston, who wrote: "Amicable race relations are pleasant but must not be purchased at the price of fundamental rights."
Though the NAACP eventually decided not to press the Jackson case in court, the threat of such a case led to direct state action to provide African-American citizens with access to separate-but-equal higher education facilities. In December 1935, the Virginia State Board of Education established a graduate school for African Americans at Virginia State University at Petersburg. And in February 1936 the Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 470, the Dovell Act, which paid qualified black applicants the additional amount of tuition and travel expenses required to attend schools outside the state offering a similar course of study. This bill provided for the education of hundreds of African American students over the next twenty to thirty years.
Alice Jackson took her grant money from the new Scholarship bill (one of about 400 who did so 3) and attended Columbia University, graduating with an M.A. in English in 1937. Unable to obtain any teaching positions in the state of Virginia because of the notoriety associated with her application, she taught at a college in Florida for 45 years, and then at Howard University for some time. Yet, despite the repercussions of her challenge to U.Va.'s segregation policies, she remained committed to what she called "the fight for equal educational opportunities for Negroes in the South."
It was not until the 1980s that the University of Virginia and current African-American students honored her. In 1990 the Virginia General Assembly honored her with a resolution commending her courageous act in the 1930s. Alice Jackson Stuart passed away on June 13, 2001, aged 88. [Obituary, Richmond Times-Dispatch] She was a pioneer in her day and took the first step on a very long and painful path to the desegregation of the University of Virginia. 1
Stuart's gutsy effort to change university policy is little-known today. But it made headlines at the time, and led to legislation that paid for black residents of Virginia to attend out-of-state professional schools. Fifteen years later, black students were admitted to the University of Virginia. And now, Stuart's essays, letters, speeches and papers -- including her correspondence with the university -- have been donated to the school by her son, Julian T. Houston. "There is, then, a certain poetic justice for my mother, in donating her papers to the university which denied her admission so long ago," Houston said.
Houston, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge, said several universities, including Tulane and Emory, were interested in the 30 boxes of files after his mother died in 2001 at the age of 88. The papers represent "not just a history of the university, but history of the South and history of the U.S.," said Michael Plunkett, director of special collections at the university library. The school already had newspaper articles and university and NAACP documents about Stuart, said university historian Scot French, who helped obtain the papers. "What we didn't have was her perspective on all of this," he said. "We didn't have her words."
"I thought that certainly as a taxpayer I would be, should be, eligible for attending the university," Stuart said in a transcript of a 1987 interview.
Houston said his mother, despite her pioneering role, was relatively unknown in the civil rights movement because of her modesty. She would refer to her rejection by the University of Virginia, he said, but seldom gave details. "She didn't seek publicity or promote herself. She was very private," Houston said.
A researcher at the university found that Stuart was among 400 black students who received the [grant money to learn out-of-state]. Some became doctors, lawyers and university presidents.
Forty years later, Stuart spoke at an awards banquet for black students at the school. In her speech, which is in the collection, she said that the invitation left her with "a sense of great joy and long reminiscences. ... We share together."
"It's a tribute to people like her who tried and failed that I am here," said Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a history professor at the school. Retired university history professor Paul Gatson, who is writing a history of the school, met about 35 of Stuart's relatives at a recent luncheon to honor her. They include doctors, lawyers, corporate executives and Ivy League students. 2
Her son can be heard talking about his mother's papers on the Travis Smiley Show on NPR.
1 http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/projects/kenan/jackson/jackson.html
2 http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/11/05/poetic.justice.ap/
3 http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2003/10/10/
black_woman_whose_rejection_blazed_trails_
at_u_of_virginia_finally_takes_place_at_the_school/
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Date: 2004-03-21 08:51 pm (UTC)