Tuskegee Summer Institute For Teachers

Tuskegee Summer Institute For Teachers certificate (framed) signed by Robert Russa Moton (R.R. Moton), Principal and E. C. Roberts, Summer Institute Director. The diploma was signed on July 5th, 1924.  S. Eloise Walton received the diploma for Primary Methods & Practice Teaching -- for the 1st Term (June 2 - July 5th, 1924). We are doing more research on Eloise. Any ideas?

BACKGROUND: Tuskegee Summer Institute for Teachers --  Its purpose is to afford teachers an opportunity to increase their proficiency in the classroom and usefulness in the community where they are working. The following courses were offered: English, Mathematics, Science, Alabama History, American History, General History, Geography, Primary Methods and Practice Teaching, Bookkeeping, Funeral Methods and Management, Upholstery and Basketry, Cooking and Home table Service, Home Making, Sewing and Instruction in Dressmaking, Manual Training and Carpentry, Agriculture and Nature Study, Printing, Instruction in Blacksmithing, Dairying, Animal Husbandry, & Canning and Poultry Raising.
COPY OF 1924 AD FOR SUMMER INSTITUTE: 1st Term: June 2—July 5.   2nd Term : July 7—August 9.
Recitation six days a week. Twelve weeks' work in ten weeks. Credits given toward a Diploma.
Strong Teacher Training Courses. Registration Fee: $5.00 for the entire session. $3.00 for one tern of five weeks. Board: $40.00 for the entire session. $20.00 for one term of five weeks.

-- Signed 1930 Edition copy of "What The Negro Thinks" by Robert Russa Moton, Garden City: Doubleday, Doran. Hardback Book: 267 pages, 11 chapters. The book is signed in 1933 by Robert Moton "To Mr. Grafton S. Wilcox, With warmest regards..." Grafton Stiles Wilcox was the Managing Editor of the New York Herald-Tribune at the time. The author, an African American writer and educator says: " 'Know the Negro!' When a white man boasts of it he simply discloses how little he does know about this race." And: "In spite of emancipation Negroes still feel it necessary to conceal their thoughts from white people." Moton (1867 - 1940) succeeded Booker T. Washington as the head of Tuskegee Institute. He was an important writer on racial affairs, national and international. Take a look at the intriguing background information below...

ROBERT RUSSA MOTON: (1867 – 1940) was an educator and the second president of Tuskegee Institute, perhaps lesser known in comparison to the school’s founder and first principal, Booker T. Washington, or the Institute’s third president, Frederick Douglass Patterson. However, Dr. Moton, as did his predecessor, dedicated his life to educating African Americans and shared Washington’s philosophy towards industrial education as a means of advancement for the recently emancipated population. Dr. Moton, the great-great-great-grandson of an “African slave merchant”, who after selling his fellow countrymen to slavers found himself on a ship chained to an African he recently sold to slave traders. The merchant was purchased and taken to Amelia County, Virginia, by a tobacco planter, where some hundred years later his descendant Robert Russa Moton was born on August 26, 1867.  Dr. Moton recounts this story and the events that shaped his life in his1920 autobiography, Finding A Way Out. A graduate of Hampton Institute, Moton also taught at the school and was the administrator for the Native American students attending the Institute.  He later served for twenty-five years as Commandant of Cadets, overseeing the discipline of all the students.  In 1915, Moton was appointed principal of Tuskegee Institute after the death of Booker T. Washington. To the trustees of Tuskegee, Moton’s ability to get along with both black and white southerners and his potential to solicit funding support from northern philanthropists made him the perfect candidate to further the work of Washington. Moton served as principal of Tuskegee for twenty years.  Under his administration, Tuskegee expanded its academic program, added more buildings for the Institute to carry out its training, and strengthen the school’s reputation.  Dr. Moton retired in 1935 and died in 1940.
BACKGROUND QUESTION: What was the primary catalyst behind the mass exodus of Blacks from the Republican Party...going to the Democratic Party?
RESPONSE: In 1922, former President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Howard Taft selected Robert Russa Moton to give the chief address at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. At the time, many considered Moton to be the most powerful African American in the country. In elite, white political and financial circles, his status was unparalleled. In race relations, Moton advocated accommodation, not confrontation. He firmly believed that the best way to advance the cause of African Americans was to convince white people of black people's worth through their exemplary behavior. Never one to rock the boat, he didn't fight segregation or challenge white authority. A protégé of Booker T. Washington, Moton had succeeded him as principal of Tuskegee Institute. From this position, Moton worked long and hard to win the trust of white politicians and philanthropists and secure donations for Tuskegee and other African American institutions and organizations. His power in the country stemmed from the money he could raise from whites who appreciated his conservative views and methods. In addition to his access to leaders in Washington, Moton sat on the boards of major philanthropic organizations with the likes of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller Jr., and his influence was considerable. When Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, provided the funding to build more than 6,000 "Rosenwald" schools for rural Southern African Americans, Moton's skills were clearly in play behind the scenes. Over the years, Moton's words and deeds impressed Herbert Hoover, who invited Moton to visit him anytime he was in Washington. However, during the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, it was Hoover who found himself calling on Moton for assistance.
   The flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September the Mississippi's tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On New Year's day of 1927 the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees at 56.2 feet. The Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles or about 16,570,627 acres. The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet. The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states. The flood affected Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Arkansas was hardest hit, with 14% of its territory covered by floodwaters. By May of 1927 the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee reached a width of 60 miles. As the flood approached New Orleans, Louisiana 30 tons of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana and sent 250,000 ft³/s of water pouring through. This prevented New Orleans from experiencing serious damage but flooded much of St. Bernard Parish. As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the demolitions, made it impossible for flood waters seriously to threaten the city. See more below about the final report led by Moton.

-- The final Report of the Colored Advisory Commission Appointed with The American National Red Cross and the President's Committee on Relief Work in the Mississippi Valley Flood disaster of 1927. Extremely scarce copy!!! The American National Red Cross, Washington DC, 1927. paper wraps with red cross and black lettering. Minor spoiling to cover. Illustrated 30 pages. Less than a month after the nation's biggest flood disaster, a 17-member commission of prominent African Americans, led by Tuskegee Institute's Robert Moton submitted their report on the disaster. They had been charged with learning whether African American victims of the flood were subject to discrimination "in matters of treatment, living conditions, work details, and relief given."
BACKGROUND: Secretary of Commerce during the Coolidge administration, Hoover had his eye on the presidency. When President Coolidge placed Hoover in command of all flood relief operations during the disaster, it seemed to be the perfect vehicle to raise his national profile and revive his reputation as the "Great Humanitarian." Drawing on lessons he had learned feeding the starving European victims of World War I, Hoover swept into action. He cut through bureaucratic red tape, got aid to victims devastated by the flood and was dubbed a hero by the national press. There was only one thing that could tarnish Hoover's glowing image -- the treatment of African Americans in the Washington County levee camps. Hoover had visited the area and had approved the local flood relief committee's decision, under the leadership of Will Percy, to keep the African American refugees on the levee. But as conditions deteriorated in the camps, word slowly filtered North, and the scandal threatened to derail Hoover's presidential ambitions. Hoover's friends urged him to get what they called "the big Negroes" in the Republican Party to quiet his critics, and Hoover turned to Robert Moton for the job. Hoover formed the Colored Advisory Commission, led by Moton and staffed by prominent African Americans, to investigate the allegations of abuses in the flood area. The commission conducted a thorough investigation and reported back to Moton on the deplorable conditions. Moton presented the findings to Hoover, and advocated immediate improvements to aid the flood's neediest victims.

But the information was never made public. Hoover had asked Moton to keep a tight lid on his investigation. In return, Hoover implied that if he were successful in his bid for the presidency, Moton and his people would play a role in his administration unprecedented in the nation's history. Hoover also hinted that as president he intended to divide the land of bankrupt planters into small African American-owned farms. Motivated by Hoover's promises, Moton saw to it that the Colored Advisory Commission never revealed the full extent of the abuses in the Delta, and Moton championed Hoover's candidacy to the African American population. However, once elected President in 1928, Hoover ignored Robert Moton and the promises he had made to his black constituency. In the following election of 1932, Moton withdrew his support for Hoover and switched to the Democratic Party. In an historic shift, African Americans began to abandon the Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, and turned to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" Democratic Party instead.

TIME OUT: I (Joel Freeman) am a registered Independent. Mad at both major political parties in America. It has taken 50-60 years to get into the fiscal & moral mess we are in today, with enough blame to go around -- pointing fingers at BOTH parties. I wanted to provide an alternative view: A gentleman wrote something on a blog that intrigued me. As an African American he stated something that both Republicans and Democrats need to hear:
 "It is time Blacks diversify in the political arena . We need to have Blacks on Dem side and GOP side so that whichever party is in power, WE will have reps at the table. Blacks tend to be fiscally liberal... but morally we are very conservative. If truth be told... we as a people VOTE Democrat, but how many pay yearly dues to the Democrat party, attend monthly meetings in our communities, go to the Democrat Conventions? So unless you are a card carrying member of the Democrat party... you REALLY are an INDEPENDENT who chooses to vote for the Democrat candidate. It takes courage to stand and say you are a Republican. Too many Black Republicans are afraid of being verbally beat up and don't want to deal with the Black "back-lash" from peers and family. So they keep their Republicanism under wraps. I applaud the bravery of any Black who admits he or she is a Republican! I just hope we as a people can learn that politics is a game... a sport! Just like basketball, baseball or football. Heck, if you like the LA Lakers, the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Dallas Cowboys... I still like you. If I like the Grizzlies, the Dodgers or the Lions... you ain't got to hate me and demonize me for my choice.  Its the same with Democrats vs Republicans!!!!!!!!!"

The aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities. Previously, the move from the rural South to the Northern cities had virtually stopped. As a result of displacement lasting up to six months, millions of Southern blacks moved to the big cities of the North, particularly Chicago. The flood propelled Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, in charge of flood relief operations, into the national spotlight and set the stage for his election to the Presidency. It also helped Huey Long be elected Louisiana Governor in 1928. The flood had the unlikely effect of contributing to both the election of Herbert Hoover as President, and his defeat four years later. He was much lauded for his masterful handling of the refugee camps, but later concerns over the treatment of blacks in those camps caused him to make promises to the African-American community which he later broke, losing the black vote in his re-election campaign. The flood resulted in a great cultural output as well, inspiring a great deal of folklore and folk music. Charlie Patton, Bessie Smith, and many other Delta blues musicians wrote numerous songs about the flood; Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" was also based on the events of the flood. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks" was reworked by Led Zeppelin, and became one of that group's most famous songs. William Faulkner's short story "Old Man" (in the book, Wild Palms) was about a prison break from Parchman Penitentiary during the flood.

-- Vintage LP by Memphis Millie with her classic blues song, "When the Levee Breaks", written and first recorded by husband and wife Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. The song was in reaction to the upheaval caused by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It was famously re-worked by Led Zeppelin as the last song on their fourth album. The lyrics in Led Zeppelin's song were based on the original recording.

-- "High Water" in the Mississippi River -- Rare etching/engraving (period) with an African American family stranded upon the top of a house. River has covered the house right up to the roof on many of the houses. Steamboat in background is named, "Stonewall Jackson."