Kicha's photos with the keyword: Educator

Emma Frances Grayson Merritt was born on January 11, 1860, in Dumfries, Virginia, one of seven children, the third of four daughters of John and Sophia (Cook) Merritt. When she was three years of age, her parents moved to Washington, D.C. Merritt was a teacher well before she received any higher education. She taught first grade in the public schools of the District of Columbia beginning in 1875, when she was 15. She continued to teach while completing the normal school program (1883-87) at Howard University. In 1897 she was appointed an elementary school principal. She continued intermittent study of the social sciences at Columbia (later named George Washington) University until the end of the century. Merritt established the very first kindergarten in the United States for black children in 1897. She became director of primary instruction in the District of Columbia in 1898 and a supervising principal in 1927, remaining in that role until her retirement in 1930. At historically black universities and colleges throughout the country, Merritt was a prized lecturer in the education of young children. She was an organizer and director of the Teachers' Benefit and Annuity Association in the District of Columbia and president of the capital branch of the NAACP, among many civic responsibilities. She died on June 8, 1933, in Washington DC. The location of the Emma F.G. Merritt Public School is on the site of the former Suburban Gardens Amusement Park in a building constructed in 1943. According to oral history given by former teachers, while the site has changed, the philosophy of self reliance has essentially remained the same. Now called Merritt Educational Center, the school is located at 5002 Hayes Street, NE., Washington D.C., Sources: Deanwood, A Model of Self-Sufficiency in Far Northeast Washington, DC, Deanwood History Project; Biographical Dictionary of Modern American Educators, by Frederik Ohles, Shirley M. Ohles, and John G. Ramsay; The Voice, vol. 1, 1904

Photo comes from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; Info: 'Cincinnati's Underground Railroad,' by Dr. Eric R. Jackson and Richard Cooper, William P. Newman, who escaped slavery in Virginia during the 1830s, became the pastor of the Union Baptist Church (now located on Seventh Street in downtown Cincinnati) and served in that position from 1848 to 1850. Before this, he studied for many years at Oberlin College and was a fiery orator. He traveled to Canada several times as an antislavery lecturer. Newman was also instrumental in the establishment of black schools in the Buckeye state and as an agent of the Ladies Education Society of Ohio. However, when the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted, Newman and his family moved to Ontario, Canada; he continued to fight for the freedom of African Americans, both enslaved and free persons of color, until he returned to Cincinnati in 1864. He died two years later.

In her 1890 book, "Poor Ben: A Story of Real Life," based on the life of Benjamin William Arnett, the seventeenth bishop of the AME Church. In the dedication section she wrote: "I dedicate this work with sincere love for my race. To the colored young men and women of America, with the hope that it may contribute something to that Christian knowledge, which is the very breath of all true nobility." ~ The Author Lucretia H. Newman Coleman lived in Appleton, Wisconsin for only a short time, from around 1867 to about 1876. Her family moved to Appleton, from Cincinnati after the death of the family’s patriarch, Baptist Minister and Abolitionist, Reverend William P. Newman in 1866. She entered Lawrence University as a freshman in September, 1872, enrolling in a scientific course and staying for about two years. She was one of the earliest African American students to enroll at Lawrence. Some biographies state she graduated from Lawrence, but the University Archives has no record of her being awarded a degree. Lucretia was born in Dresden, Ontario, Canada around 1854. Her family moved from Canada to the West Indies, then back to Cincinnati and finally to Appleton. She married Robert J. Coleman in Des Moines, Iowa in 1884 and soon moved to Minneapolis where her daughter Roberta was born. Eventually she and Roberta moved to Chicago where her entry in 1920 census listed her occupation as dressmaker. She had a distinguished career as an author in the 1880s and into the 1890s, writing articles published primarily in African American journals such as Our Women and Children and the A.M.E. Review, in addition to a biographical novel and poetry. In The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (1891), Irvine Penn states that her writings were “rich in minute comparisons, philosophic terms, and scientific principles.” Martin Dann writes in The Black Press 1827-1890: The Quest for National Identity (1971) that her poem “Lucille of Montana” (1883) was praised at the time as being “full of ardor, eloquence and noble thought.” A contemporary account in the journal The American Baptist said “As a writer, her fame is spreading, not only in one or two states, but throughout the United States. Should she continue with the same success in the past, she will be equal to Harriet Ward Beecher Stowe, if not her superior.” And in Noted Negro Women, Their Triumphs and Activities (1893), Monroe Alphus Majors writes she contributed to black journals with her “usual fascination for saying things in her own way.” Bio: Neighborhood News (The Newsletter of the Old Third Ward Neighborhood Association, Inc.,) Winter 2016 editors Antoinette Powell and Linda Muldoon.