Susan Lantz: I'm so excited that you've come to join us tonight at our first Campus Read
event of the - well, it's not the first event - but one of our first Campus Read events
of the 2017 academic year for the book, "Hidden Figures."
On behalf of the Campus Read committee and the Office of the Provost,
I would like to welcome you to this evening's event.
When we started studying the book, "Hidden Figures," we were fascinated to discover that
although the book tells the history of these wonderful women who pretty much helped put
man on the moon and really made the space program in the United States what it is,
and even though it touched upon the fact that two of the women featured in the book and
featured in the movie were from West Virginia and had lived in Morgantown at some time,
it didn't tell the whole story.
And, because we're a university campus and because we have academics working here,
suddenly everybody got really interested in finding out more about these people.
Tonight, I give you our program which is about the women who are featured in the film and the book,
Dorothy Vaughn, Katherine Johnson, and the relationship between West Virginia
and West Virginia University and the hidden histories of people
who are African American in our state.
I think that you will find there is way more depth there than many of us realize and a
lot of interesting pieces of information.
Tonight, our moderator is the honorable Charlene Marshall.
Let me tell you a little bit about Charlene Marshall.
Charlene Jennings Marshall, the honorable Charlene Jennings Marshall, served fourteen
years as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates representing Monongalia County
and seven years as the mayor of Morgantown.
She was born in Osage, West Virginia, and in 1933 she - I'm sorry, she was born in Osage,
West Virginia in 1933 and she has lived her entire life in the Morgantown area.
She's a graduate of Monongalia High School and this is significant because Katherine
Johnson, the woman in "Hidden Figures," taught at Monongalia High School at one point and
we're going to talk more about that later.
But anyway, she's a graduate of Monongalia High School, the last all-black high school
in the county before West Virginia schools were desegregated,
and she attended Bluefield State College.
She worked in local industry for the state of West Virginia and for West Virginia University
until her retirement in 1998.
Just so you know, when I was a student, you would see the honorable Charlene Marshall
working downstairs here in the Mountainlair every day.
She was very, very kind to all the students who came through
and I should know because I was one of them.
In 1991, she was concerned about the conditions in her neighborhood and so she ran for and
won a seat on the Morgantown City Council.
On her first night as a city council member she was elected mayor,
making her the first black female mayor in West Virginia.
She and her fellow councilmembers launched an energetic campaign to renew and revitalize
the city and its neighborhoods.
This resulted in improvements in the Caperton Trail along the Mon River, as the Rail Trail
that we always talk about, which is used by thousands of citizens and students each year.
Her seven years - seven terms as mayor set a new record
in the two hundred plus year history of the city.
No one had served more than five terms prior to her election.
In 1994, she was selected as Mayor of the Year by the West Virginia Municipal League.
And, during her final year as mayor, she was elected as a Democrat
to the West Virginia House of Delegates.
During seven terms in this office, she was an effective advocate for human rights, education,
support for families and issues affecting the elderly and working people.
While her honors really are too numerous to list here tonight right now, I'd like to point
out that in 2015 West Virginia University presented Charlene Jennings Marshall with
an honorary degree of laws for attaining preeminence in government service and for providing distinguished
and sustained leadership in her community.
Tonight, the honorable Charlene Jennings Marshall will be our moderator.
I would like everyone to give a big round of applause for the honorable Charlene Marshall.
[Applause.]
There is a lot of hidden history.
I grew up in this area during segregation of the schools, all the schools in Monongalia County.
Also, restaurants, hotels, just everything here at that time.
So, when I look back and to know that I have lived a life of when someone mentions these
things to me and until we start discussing, and I think, "Oh my goodness, this happened to me."
So, I'm very much familiar with hidden histories.
But, at this time, I am going to introduce you to the members of the panel.
We have some very influential speakers this evening and some of the subjects they will
share with you are very interesting.
The first person that I will be introducing is Carroll Wilkerson, Wilkinson.
Carroll began her career at WVU Libraries in 1979 as a reference librarian
and the Appalachian bibliography, bibliographer.
After serving as chief circulation librarian, she became head of excess services for the
Charles C. Wise Library on the downtown campus, a position she has held since 2006.
At that time, she was appointed director of instructions and information literacy.
So, at this time, and Carroll has many more items to her career that I could tell you
but I don't want to take away from her time.
I know we only have an hour to be here.
So, at this time, it's my privilege to present to you Carroll Wilkerson, Wilkinson.
Hello everyone, I'm very happy to be here and I'm happy to see so many of you out there.
It's great.
The star of the show right now is Katherine Johnson and many of you know from
reading the book what an outstanding West Virginian she is.
My interest in Katherine Johnson began when I was sitting at a meeting with Susan Lantz.
She passed her cell phone around and showed us that a woman named Katherine Johnson,
this was 2015, had been just named West Virginian of the Year.
And, I thought, "I've never heard that name before. How could this be?"
So, I wanted to know more about her.
And then, basically, it was the beginning of a lot of learning on my part because then
I became head of the library symposium on the graduation of the - the 125th graduation
of ... what am I trying to say here?
The quasquicentennial is the fancy name for the fact that women had been graduating from
West Virginia University for 125 years.
We were celebrating that anniversary last year.
And, we found as we were putting an archival exhibit together
that Katherine Johnson had been a graduate student in 1940 here in Morgantown.
This shocked me again because I don't think any of us knew that before that time.
So, I had questions and maybe you all have had the same questions.
They were: "Did she actually integrate West Virginia University in 1940?"
"What were her experiences like when she was here?"
"Has the university ever recognized her achievements?"
And, perhaps I shouldn't have been curious about this but I was:
"What grades did she get when she came here?"
Well, I'll tell you what I found out.
This is an early photograph of Katherine Johnson.
She was Katherine Coleman when she came to WVU in 1940 and she came to WVU after she
had been teaching at Monongalia High School from 1939 to 1940.
So, the same high school that Charlene graduated from.
Perhaps she looked like this when she came to Morgantown.
We don't know for sure but we're guessing.
Now, let's take a look at a time line that I put together of her experiences.
Katherine Johnson was born in White Sulpher Springs, West Virginia, in 1918.
She graduated from high school in Institute at the age of thirteen.
She graduated with degrees in mathematics and French
from West Virginia State College at the age of eighteen.
And, let me just say that the reason she went to high school in Institute was that school
stopped for students at the age eighth grade if they were African American.
Her family was very devoted to the idea of advanced education for all of their children
and so the mother moved to Institute where there were a feeder high school to
West Virginia State and they all graduated there.
So, as I said, she came to Morgantown.
Here's another fact that those of you who read carefully in Shetterly's book will remember.
She was teaching after she graduated from college in Virginia, and she was making the
terrible salary of $50 a month as a teacher.
So, she did that for two years and then a job came open in Morgantown that was offering
$110 a month and she jumped at the chance to come here, back to West Virginia, for a higher salary.
She lived with the principal of the high school and the summer that she came to Morgantown,
she and her mother stayed in the house of the principal because they were away.
You're going to hear her talk about this a little bit but I wanted to set up that detail
so you could completely put it together when you hear her say it.
Fast forward, after her summer school experience in which she took three courses.
Now, perhaps some of you are taking these courses now, I don't know, but, in 1940 she
took History of Mathematics, Nuclear Physics, and The Radiation Spectrum.
I have a copy of her transcript and I know the grades that she got in those courses and
I just want to tell you that she did very well.
Finally, let's skip forward to the year . . .
[Off screen] I'm sorry.
Carroll Wilkinson: That's fine, it's back, the year 2015 because not only was she named
West Virginian of the Year, but President Barack Obama awarded Katherine Johnson the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
And, finally in 2016, last year, she received an honorary doctorate from WVU.
So, that's some of the facts that pertain to West Virginia.
Katherine Johnson tells her fascinating story of coming to Morgantown in the summer to take
three graduate courses in this oral history tape that is on file at the Library of Congress.
She doesn't tell you which ones she took but now you know because I just told you.
She also didn't tell you the history that was going on in the United States at the time.
She was, um, the backdrop for her trip to Morgantown was that in 1938, the Supreme Court
of the United States ruled that a state university must admit black students to graduate school
if the university offers courses that are not available at the state's black colleges.
Cases were pending in Missouri and West Virginia.
Black students wanted to go to graduate school in both Missouri and West Virginia.
I'm sure there were other states where this was also going on.
But, you will hear about the agreement between two college presidents, the WVU president
and the West Virginia State president, that made it possible
for her to come with two other individuals.
I'm going to stop talking so you can hear Katherine Johnson tell her own story.
Interviewer: So, your father, he wanted you to go to graduate school?
Yeah, he wanted me to be something greater than an elementary teacher.
He just wasn't ready for his youngest child to get married.
Because I was, what was I then? Twenty, twenty-one.
Interviewer: So, how did you adjust to being married?
Well, I got pregnant right away, that's how you did that.
I finished my year in Morgantown.
In Morgantown, in school one day, and the president of the college and Mr. Evans drove
over to the school and they said, "West Virginia University has agreed to desegregate without
trouble if we send them three good students then you are going to West Virginia U this summer."
Interviewer: Just like that?
Just like that. They said, "We got somebody to pay your tuition."
In West Virginia, one of the football players wanted to go to
West Virginia University Law School and they wouldn't take him.
So, he sued the university.
So, the president of the university said to our president, "If you can get this young
man to withdraw their suit, I assure you he can go to law school in September."
He said, "What I want you to do. I'm going to get everything laid out.
You pick three good students and send them to us this summer."
Interviewer: How did you feel about it?
Oh, I was thrilled. It suited me just fine.
Interviewer: But, you had a new marriage . . .
I was married, yes.
Interviewer: You know, different responsibilities. . .
I hadn't - we had not had time to live together because school was just over.
Matter of fact, school wasn't over.
And, we weren't telling anybody we were married, you know.
You don't do these things this way. So, anyway...
Interviewer: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, why? Explain that.
Because again, I don't think this generation would understand why there'd be any hesitation
about telling people you were married.
Well, you do that and you might get a job.
There was still a distinction about married teachers although it was not prohibited.
Part of that was because my dad told me not to get married yet because we got married anyway.
Interviewer: Because he wasn't ready for his little girl to be married.
He wasn't ready so that summer I wrote him a letter.
See, I stayed in Morgantown to go to West Virginia University, and out of the blue my
principal and his wife, they were going to Arizona for the summer.
So, he said, "You can just stay here until we come back."
And, my mother came up to be with me that summer because
that was going to be quite an experience.
First time to go to a white university, going to be the only black woman there.
It was not going to be easy.
So, my mom stayed with me that summer and she and I had a merry time, had a wonderful time.
Interviewer: What was the experience like?
It was fine.
She stayed home all day while I went to school.
And, on weekends I had worked at an Elks Club and that's another story.
Carroll Wilkinson: Fast forward now to 2015 when President Obama presents Katherine Johnson
the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I'll read you part of what he said that day.
"Growing up in West Virginia, Katherine Johnson counted everything.
She counted steps.
She counted dishes.
She counted the distance to the church.
By ten years old, she was in high school.
By eighteen, she had graduated from college with degrees in math and French.
And, as an African American woman, job options were limited but she was eventually hired
as one of several female mathematicians for the agency that would become NASA.
Katherine calculated the flight path for America's first mission in space and the path that put
Neil Armstrong on the moon.
She was even asked to double-check the computer's math on John Glenn's orbit around the Earth.
So, if you think your job is difficult, pressure-packed, hers meant that forgetting to carry the one
might send somebody floating off into the solar system.
In her 33 years at NASA, Katherine was a pioneer who broke the barriers of race and gender,
showing generations of young people that everyone can excel in math and science,
and reach for the stars."
Even though she spent only a year and three months in Morgantown as a graduate student,
I think we can all be - well, she spent a year as a teacher and then three months as
a graduate student - I think we can all be very proud of this remarkable woman
and her remarkable achievements.
[Applause.]
Charlene Marshall: Thank you, Carroll.
After hearing this, I heard it before, the shot from Katherine Johnson and so many things
concerning her we've had to piece together so as I listen to her and she said
she stayed with her principal.
Some other documents that we've seen, I noticed that that principal at that time, his name
was Arthur Barnett, and he signed a document that Dorothy Vaughn when she left Morgantown
to go to Wilberforce, and I was surprised to find out that, I knew everyone thought
he had worked for so many years, but at that time, and I guess when you're much younger
you don't think about the number of years, but he signed that document in '23.
But, he was still the principal of the high school when I went there in the '50s.
And, she said her principal.
I've come to the conclusion that when she stayed at his house, he lived on Richwood Avenue,
and he and his wife often went away in the summer and they went to Arizona.
So, I've come to the conclusion that she lived on Richwood Avenue at the Barnett home.
We have to sort of piece a lot of those things together.
We thank you, Carroll, for the information.
At this time, I would also like to introduce you to Marjorie Fuller.
Marjorie, here, is the director of the West Virginia University Center
for Black Culture and Research.
She came to WVU in 2008 from Kent State University in Ohio.
And, she has been very active while on campus and I was interested to read some of the remarks
concerning her that as she's done so many things here and she has traveled with the
students and taken them on - all over the country to study subjects as diverse as the
Civil Rights Movement in Memphis to the black cowboy in Colorado.
She designed and implemented and leads WVU's Stars Program.
This gives the African American students, the incoming African American students, a solid academic
foundation through a five-week immersive experience that includes workshops, academic work, social
and cultural activities, and camping.
Marjorie has much information to share with us concerning Dorothy Vaughn.
At this time, I'll present to you Marjorie Fuller.
Marjorie Fuller: Thank you.
[Applause.]
My portion of the presentation deals with Dorothy Vaughn.
Mrs. Vaughn was a Morgantown resident for most of her life.
Well, not most of her life but the beginning of her life.
She lived here and actually went to school here but I notice that the picture here that
was on the PowerPoint before I flipped to the picture of Mrs. Vaughn is the picture
of us, a contingent from West Virginia University, that consists of the honorable Charlene Marshall
at the end, Dr. Lantz, Dr. Fryson, his wife Joy, Dr. Hensil, Dr. Lopez, and myself at
the Greenbrier Hotel celebrating Mrs. Johnson's 99th birthday.
It was really an honor to be there and she is an amazing woman who is still as sharp as a tack.
I mean, this woman is 99 years old and still traveling the country and talking to people
and enjoying her life.
So, it was really an honor to be there and a privilege to be in her presence.
Dorothy Vaughn.
Mrs. Vaughn is quite a character and she, in the movie,
was played by the actress Octavia Spencer.
And, I do have a little clip of the movie.
It's not "Hidden Figures" but she's talking about "Hidden Figures"
and her perception of Mrs. Vaughn.
You know that when someone plays a character in a movie, usually they've done some research
on the person, their life, and their beliefs, and their feelings.
I think you'll enjoy this short clip.
[Video: Music.]
Margot Lee Shetterly: Dorothy Vaughn started in 1943.
This was the first year of the West Computing Pool, the segregated pool for black women.
I am Octavia Spencer and I play Dorothy Vaughn in "Hidden Figures."
We use calculators now to do the simplest math equations.
These women actually did it long-hand.
They computed.
She was a very good mathematician but she was also an exceptional mentor
to the women who worked for her.
The 1950s, you know, they started setting up these IBM computers and they realized that,
you know, this computer thing is not going away.
When she passed that room and saw them assembling this giant machine,
she knew that their days as computers were numbered.
So, she had the foresight to figure out not only how to use it,
but that they were going to need people to program them.
So, she taught herself how to program.
She allowed the other women to reinvent themselves by teaching them how to program the IBM.
Dorothy Vaughn was this person who really was responsible in so many ways for the success
of other people and she would never have gotten the accolades or the credit that she deserved.
Technology was advanced by what those women contributed that we're just now learning her
name and we have been in space what, forty, fifty years.
"Hidden Figures" is about STEM and underrepresented minorities in STEM.
There's been this huge decline in the number of women involved
in science, technology, engineering, and math.
I truly hope that this story will inspire and encourage and empower
the next generation of women in STEM.
Marjorie Fuller: So, you can see that there is a lot to say about Mrs. Vaughn even though
she and so many other women that were part of the NASA, which began as NACA, group that
really contributed to the space program and to science and technology in general.
Mrs. Vaughn was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1910.
Her mother died when she was two years old but her stepmother took her as a daughter
and encouraged her intellectually and musically.
In the movie, we see little, subtle hints of that as they have
Dorothy playing the piano in the film.
But, you know stepmothers often get a bad rap, but Dorothy's stepmother was incredible
and wonderful and was in large part responsible for her achievements.
Her father was a waiter and when Dorothy was eight,
he relocated his family to Morgantown, West Virginia.
She was intellectually talented and Dorothy vaulted two years ahead in school.
Even though she lived right next door to West Virginia University, she couldn't attend there.
So, she ended up going to Wilberforce University, which is the oldest private black college
in America and is located in Xenia, Ohio.
There she majored in math and she graduated in 1929.
She received a full tuition scholarship from the AME Sunday School Convention of West Virginia.
They published an eight page pamphlet on the fifteen year old's accomplishments.
Needless to say, they saw her as a light for their future.
If anybody's interested, I printed a few copies of that pamphlet that they published back
then for you to take if you would like to and I want to thank Dr. Wilkerson, Wilkinson
for finding that at Wilberforce University for me.
And, we knew, we did a presentation and I had mentioned the pamphlet and I told her,
"I know it exists. I'm going to find it."
Within forty eight hours, it was in my computer so this is an amazing resource
that we have here at WVU.
She went on to get her master's degree from Howard University, which is also one of this
country's oldest and most prestigious HBCUs and in 1949, Dorothy Johnson Vaughn became
the first black supervisor at NACA when she was promoted to
manager of the West Area Computers.
This work group was comprised entirely of African American female mathematicians.
One thing that was really extraordinary about Dorothy Vaughn that was alluded to by Octavia
Spencer in the film was that she had tremendous vision and a lot of foresight.
She could see forward to the day when human computers would give way to the computers
that we now hold in our hands that have more power
than that entire roomful of machinery had back then.
And, she prepared herself and the other black women that worked for her.
She trained herself in the computer language FORTRAN, and then brought
the other women along with her.
And when NASA brought that computer online, she was ready and so were they.
Now, what is the Morgantown connection for Dorothy?
Now, the connection with Morgantown is quite strong for both Katherine Johnson and Dorothy
Vaughn but the difference between them is Dorothy grew up here as a young girl.
And, she went, it is believed, to this school which was the elementary school for African
American children during that time period, which is called the Beechhurst School.
Now, it was located right next door to Stansbury Hall.
And, up the hill just a little bit, most of you that have been in Morgantown know, there's
a little white church on the corner of Beechhurst between.
The school was located between that church and Stansbury Hall.
That is the AME Church also that we believe got her the scholarship to Wilberforce University
and is also where this eight page pamphlet was published.
It's a very old building.
It's been redone but it's historic and we are looking into trying to find some other
treasures about the African American community from there.
So, after she attended the Beechhurst School, which according to this map,
you can see the Monongalia River running there.
There's a little red star down by the river.
That's where the Beechhurst School was located.
Now, I was told by the honorable Charlene Marshall here, that it was torn down in the 1950s.
That is very unfortunate.
What an historic place that would have been for us to be able to visit had it been preserved.
But, during that time, there was no effort to preserve African American markers and
they were not considered historic.
It was probably just considered to be a dilapidated building that was an eyesore and so it was torn down.
But, I believe that after that, there is another school and these are some pictures of the
juniors and seniors at Beechhurst School.
We tried to see if maybe Dorothy Vaughn was in this picture, but that would've been
too much to hope for.
But, these are approximately the numbers of students that were here in Morgantown at that time.
That's the graduating, one of the graduating classes, of Beechhurst High School.
This home, which is located on 520 White Avenue and is owned by a Morgantown resident and
is currently being renovated, was the location of the black high school during the period
when Dorothy Vaughn would've been living here as well.
There's also a little red brick schoolhouse located across the street, owned by the owner
of this house, that eventually became the elementary school for African American children here.
We know that Dorothy's father, Leonard Johnson, moved his family to Morgantown to work for
a very successful black entrepreneur who owned several businesses here in Morgantown.
And, we believe based on the information, although we do not have a name documented
for who Mr. Vaughn worked for, we believe that it was this man, John W. Hunt.
Mr. Hunt owned many businesses and this is a picture of one of them,
Hunt's Oyster and Ice Cream Parlor.
This is Indian Rocks, which was a retreat for African American people in Preston County
called Indian Springs.
Now, I have a picture that I was not able to get put into this particular PowerPoint
of Mr. Hunt at Indian Springs.
And, it is reported that he was one of the owners of that retreat and it is still standing.
I don't know if it can be visited but I am in the process of finding out.
Now, there's so much information on these women and their work and the times that they
lived in that it would be impossible to cover it all here.
But, if there's anything that I really do need to say, it is that theirs is a story
of great success.
But, great success amid incomprehensible odds.
Vision in the midst of a dark time in this country for black people and pride in themselves
and where they were from and from whom they came.
It is a wonderful story of accomplishment but it is also a story about something else.
It is a story about race in America.
It is a story as old as time and one that needed to be told.
Not only because it is a part of our history, but also because it deals with an issue that
has and still presses on our national consciousness today.
We've had a black president, evidence that we have made significant progress in
this area, no doubt.
But, we are still living with many of the residuals of our past and we have not reached
nirvana in race relations in America yet.
But, it is all of these elements that make this story special.
Our freedom to study, to face, and embrace is what makes our country great.
And, our freedom is never going to be challenged again and this story is testament of that.
Thank you.
[Applause.]
Susan Lantz: Charlene, can I just jump in here with one thing?
When she talked for a minute there about the fact that Dorothy Vaughn wasn't able to go
to college here at West Virginia University, didn't you tell me earlier that when you were
ready to go to college, West Virginia University would not accept students who were African American?
Charlene Marshall: That's true, Dr. Lantz.
When I graduated and my high school, the building is still standing over in Westover,
Monongalia High School.
That building was built in the late '30s and Mrs. Roosevelt came for the dedication of
that building, but we were not allowed to - well, African American students could not
attend most schools in West Virginia but we did have West Virginia State College and Bluefield.
But, I lived so close that I could not come to school here.
And another point I want to bring out, I had a friend who lived right downtown and she
lived closer to the university of course than I did.
Her grandfather was the guy, the man that Marjorie mentioned, Mr. Hunt, and he had passed away.
I never knew him because he had passed away in the early '30s.
But, her name was Annette Chandler and she was of course, wasn't permitted to go to school here.
So, she went to West Virginia State College for two years.
And in May of '54, Brown vs. the Board of Education, then she applied to West Virginia University.
And, she is down in history as the first African American female to graduate WVU after integration.
So, Annette was an excellent, excellent student.
Susan Lantz: That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
Well, I'm glad we were able to give you a degree after all those years.
Okay, so, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Charlene Marshall: Okay, thank you.
Our next presenter is Mr. Chad Proudfoot.
Chad is the historian and archivist for the West Virginia University Cooperative Extension Service
and he also serves as the program coordinator for the WVU Jackson's Mill State 4-H Camp.
And, he holds a BA in political science master of public administration, an MA in history,
and a graduate certificate in cultural research management, all from West Virginia University.
So, at this time, Chad is doing some work on the history of the Camp Washington Carver
and he will explain to you about how this camp came about.
And, although I never attended the camp as a youngster but I had many friends who went to camp.
Most of the time, I was always looking for a job and I usually had a job and I did not
want to give up my job for camp or anything else.
Also, one thing before I introduce Chad too, I remember as a sophomore - no, a junior,
senior in high school.
At that time, someone on the board of education decided that African American students could
go to Morgantown High at the end of the day when white students were not there and take typing.
So, that was probably the biggest problems about the schools because they were separate
but they were not equal.
And I thought, all this time I had the opportunity to have a typing lesson and I'm not going
to give up my job for one semester or so of typing so I refused to go.
But, at this time, Chad has much information to share with you.
Chad Proudfoot: Thank you all for coming out this evening to get your extra credit.
As Charlene mentioned, I am the historian for the WVU Extension Service.
So, I'm here tonight to talk to you a little bit about how there are still many hidden
histories out there in terms of what we've been able to find out with histories of African
Americans in West Virginia, as well as a lot of other hidden histories that are out there as well.
So, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about something that I, and a group of us nationally,
have really sort of just started to work on.
And, that's the history of African Americans and the 4-H program, both nationally and here
in West Virginia.
I have this slide to show the different land-grant universities in the country.
For most of you, I hope that you know that West Virginia University is a land-grant university.
What that means is Congress had passed a law in 1862 called the Morrill Act, which said
that any state that wanted to, Congress would give federal lands that that state could then
sell and take the proceeds to form a university to teach agriculture and mechanical arts amongst
other things.
And, every state has taken them up on that offer.
That was how West Virginia University was founded in 1867.
There've been several amendments to that, and one of those was in 1890 when Congress
mandated in the Second Morrill Act that all of the states had to integrate their educational
programming at the college level for their land-grant universities.
Or, there was a comprise that was placed into the bill which said if states did not want
to integrate, they could then form a second land-grant college to use for African Americans.
Every state in the South did this.
Many of the ones in the North either were already integrated or did so.
So, if you look at the map, it shows the 1862 institutions and then the ones marked with
a star are what we now call the 1890s.
And, virtually all of those are in the South.
They go up as far north as Delaware.
Delaware did also have a segregated educational system.
So, this did create the separate institutions but as Charlene mentioned a little bit ago,
there was never equality with that.
There was not a mandate that the federal funds that were involved in this had to be split
equally and in most cases, there was a great inequity in that.
But, in any regard, the institutions there were formed and those have formed the basis
now for what we think of as the historically black colleges and universities.
West Virginia was a state that was considered to be part of the South.
We also had a segregated system and so we're marked on here by what was West Virginia State
College and now West Virginia State University was our 1890 land-grant.
A few years after that, after the colleges were formed, one of the systems that Congress
came up with was actually used from a Michigan model.
Michigan State was both the first land-grant university and then also the first to form
what we now call Cooperative Extension, which is a system of non-formal education that we
use and its purpose was to take the university to the people.
So, to go out amongst people and to take the knowledge that was being used at the university
and help folks in, especially rural areas, with things like agriculture, home economics,
home development, things of that nature.
4-H was started in 1902 and that became a part of the Cooperative Extension system in
1914 with the passage of the Smith-Leaver Act, which is now, 4-H is now the USDA and
the US government's official youth development organization.
Is anybody here a member of 4-H or knows about 4-H?
Okay, we've got a handful of folks, that's pretty good.
[Comment off screen.]
Very good, thank you, Susan.
Yeah, West Virginia is a big 4-H state.
One in four youth in West Virginia ages nine to twenty one are involved in some way, shape,
or form in the 4-H program.
Nationally, it's huge as well.
So, when 4-H became a part of Cooperative Extension and became a part of these universities,
in the South, that meant that they separated that out as well because most 1890 institutions
also did extension programming that was focused mostly at African Americans.
So, throughout the South, there were these separate programs.
West Virginia had that as well.
So, it was much smaller than West Virginia University's program, but we did have African
American extension workers and we had a very well developed African American 4-H program as well.
West Virginia's claim to fame in 4-H is that we are the home of 4-H camping from around the world.
So, the very first 4-H camp ever held was in Randolph County, West Virginia in 1915.
And so, what ended up becoming a world-wide program for camping was actually started right
here in West Virginia.
The state 4-H leader at the time was a man named William Kendrick and he really took
the idea of camping that had started in Randolph County, learned as much as he could, tried
to really develop that into a true educational program, and spread it throughout the state
and throughout the country.
At the same time that was going on, the African American population in 4-H was also saying,
"We want to be a part of this as well."
So, the folks that were working with this at WVU and West Virginia State got in on that
and so also the nation's first African American county 4-H camp was held
in Pocahontas County in 1918.
And then in 1921, the first state camp for state 4-H camp was formed at Jackson's Mill,
which is outside of Weston, West Virginia.
So, shortly thereafter, African Americans also began saying, "We would like a state camp as well."
And, their program was growing and was doing wonderful things but to show again some of
the inequity in this, while Jackson's Mill was formed in 1921,
the state 4-H camp for African Americans was not founded until 1942.
And, so we have a picture of this here.
It's called Camp Washington Carver.
It's named after Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.
So, the camp is still there and it's located in the community of Clifftop
in Fayette County, West Virginia.
This served as the state 4-H camp from 1942 until the early 1960s.
Most of the buildings are still there and in fact, the photo that we have here of a
flag-raising ceremony is in front of the Great Chestnut Lodge.
The lodge was built entirely of chestnut and it's actually the largest log structure in West Virginia.
This was also significant, although when we think of things now being significant,
we have to put it into perspective.
It was a very huge development at this camp that it had a swimming pool.
And we think that that might be something trivial today, but the swimming pool at this
camp meant this was only the second swimming pool in West Virginia that African Americans
were allowed to go to in terms of public pools.
So, it was very, very significant in the development of this that African Americans wanted a pool
and were able to get it.
The only other one in the state was located in Clarksburg, West Virginia, which was a
public pool that African Americans could go to.
So, this was a wonderful - this was a wonderful camp.
There was a wonderful 4-H program for African Americans.
And then in the 1950s, there was the decision in Brown vs. Board of Education
that mandated desegregation.
Also in 1957, West Virginia State College lost its land-grant status.
There's a lot of contention about this because folks at the college said that they were never
consulted in this, there was no discussion about it, and the West Virginia Board of Education,
which governed it at the time, just surrendered the land-grant status on their own.
Folks from the Board of Education said that the college wanted to do that and they were
headed that direction, but in any regard, that status went away and with it went their
extension programming and their funds and then their 4-H program as well.
So, for a long time, for about fifty, sixty years, West Virginia and our extension history
has always been described as, "Well, when that happened, we were then the first state
to desegregate our programs because they rolled everything into WVU and it all became one."
It's a bit of a falsehood with that in that what we've actually found out is while the
programs themselves did desegregate, so there was integration on paper, there was never
any effort to bring folks together.
So, what really happened is all of the folks and volunteers
with the African American program just left.
They didn't come over.
They didn't really become a part of that because no effort was made to make them feel welcome.
So, we can say, yes, we did integrate, but we really, really didn't bring everyone together
the way that we wanted.
And as some of us have been looking into the history of African American 4-H programs,
we found that not only were there lots of places that this didn't happen, most states
in the South didn't start integration until, at the earliest, the late 1950s, and in fact,
some of them didn't start until after they were federally mandated in 1964, after the
passage of the Civil Rights Act.
But, that there was a lot of this where these folks just left the programs.
And, they weren't made a part of that.
And then, what's even worse is over the years, there's been a lot of looking back at this
and people thinking, "Oh, that this was so bad because we had these segregated programs and
we shouldn't have done these things and it's very embarrassing that this happened."
We've been finding that is seems like there's a real concerted effort to have tried to make
this history go away.
Nobody has tried to preserve a whole lot about it. Nobody has talked a lot about it.
And, so, I'm a part of the national 4-H history preservation team and nationally, we're finding
that it is very, very difficult to learn about some of these histories because a lot of it
is just gone because nobody saw the importance of keeping that.
Even to this extent of a colleague of mine, Paul Garten, he and I went to the National Archives
and were doing some research on this and they had one box on what was then called
the Negro 4-H Prorgam.
The National Archives has lost the box.
They looked for it for hours and told us, "We're so sorry. We can't find it."
So, it is extremely difficult to find some of these records and these stories.
But, we know how important this is and when we say that there are hidden histories still
out there, this is something that's important and we believe there's a lot of very important
history out there.
We just need to uncover it.
It's not right on the surface like so much of the rest of it is.
And, West Virginia 4-H is very, very proud of it's history, and we talk about our history a lot.
There's many wonderful leaders and stories and for the largest part of the program,
we've been able to get to that.
But, there's this other piece that's just as important and it's a really significant
piece of our early history and so we're trying to uncover that because
we don't want that to be hidden any longer.
So, one of the things I'll say to all of you, if any of you know folks in your community
that were involved in the 4-H program when it was segregated or know anything about that,
we're trying to get as much information as we can.
We've really just sort of started down this road as we've been able to put some of the
pieces together to learn that, wait a minute, there's something here that's missing.
It's something missing that's important.
Every now and then we stumble on something significant.
Just last year, I found a document that showed where even in the early 1960s, the awards program
for the state was still segregated and for example, if you won a state 4-H sewing contest
in the early 1960s and you were a white 4-Her, you were awarded a trip to National 4-H Congress
in Chicago which happened every year.
It was a huge event with big banquets and all kinds of wonderful things.
If you were the African American 4-H sewing winner, you got a savings bond.
You got no trip. There was no Congress for you.
It was a huge inequity in these things.
There are still very, very significant histories that are out there
and we're trying to learn as much as we can.
We hope that all of you are inspired by the Campus Read to try and find those connections
and find those histories that are out there in your communities, and your state, and your lives.
Thank you.
[Applause.]
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