Commentary: Female Black educators in Delaware paved the way
Editor’s note: Dr. Hollingsworth’s commentary is based on her presentation at “Women’s History Webinar Series: Female Educators and Activists of Color in Delaware History” in May, hosted by Preservation Delaware.
Education for Black children in the state of Delaware was not a priority during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Prior to 1866, when a group of Black and White people in Wilmington founded the Association for Moral Improvement and Education of the Colored People, there were only seven elementary schools — no high schools — for people of color in the entire state.
Until 1972, Delaware laws stated that “Negroes only needed enough education to read, write and count a bit.” If that is all the education that I needed, I did not need to attend school because my parents had taught my siblings and me to read, write and count a lot before we entered first grade. Sen. Margaret Rose Henry was responsible for changing that law when she served in the Senate.
Delaware’s history of educational neglect for its Black citizens was challenged by those Black educators, who were determined that education of Black children would not be neglected.
I have chosen six Black female educators from the long list to highlight.
Alice Dunbar Nelson
Alice Ruth Moore, born July 19, 1875, in New Orleans of African American, Native American and European American background, graduated at 17 from Straight College, now Dillard University, with a teaching degree and began teaching in the city’s public schools. She also studied at Cornell University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. In March 1898, while teaching in New York, she secretly married the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. She also was married two more times during her life, to Henry Arthur Callis, a founder of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, a teacher and a medical doctor; and Robert Nelson, a journalist. She kept the surnames of her first and third husbands.
From 1902-1920, Alice was the head of the English Department at Howard High School in Wilmington also serving as director of the summer sessions for Black teachers at Delaware State College. In 1920, Alice became the head of the Kruse Industrial School for Colored Girls, which was founded by Edwina B. Kruse, first African American principal of Howard School, which later became Howard High School. Edwina Kruse served as Howard’s principal from 1876-1920.
Alice Dunbar Nelson prepared her students to think critically and to speak in an articulate manner. She was active in the Wilmington community as a poet, lecturer, author, editor, publisher, organizer, politician and a cultural critic. On Sept. 18, 1935, at the age of 60, Alice Dunbar Nelson died of heart disease.
Ethel Letitia Cuff Black
On Oct. 17, 1890, Ethel Letitia Cuff was born in Wilmington, and she attended Howard School. After graduating from the eighth grade in 1903, Ethel enrolled in the Bordentown (New Jersey) Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth and graduated at the top of her class.
In 1910, she enrolled at Howard University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in teaching in 1915. While attending Howard University, Ethel became one of the 22 founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. in 1913 and served as vice president of the Alpha chapter.
After graduation from Howard, Ethel taught briefly in Sedalia, Missouri, and Oklahoma City before accepting a teaching position in 1924 at State College for Colored Students in Dover, where she taught my mother. I met Ethel Cuff Black in 1958, one year after I became a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
Ethel believed that teaching African history to Black students was a means of instilling racial pride and providing a solution to what was then called the Negro problem. She believed that African Americans had been so segregated, Jim-Crowed, lynched and intimidated that they were ashamed of their African blood, but if students learned history from the viewpoint of the Negro, not the viewpoint of some other race, they would realize that they have everything to be proud of because of their African blood. Carter Godwin Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Woodson when he visited my third grade teacher, Emma G. Woodson, at Milford School No. 3C. In 1930, Ethel moved to New York City, purchased a home in Queens and met and married David Horton Black. Ethel died on Sept. 18, 1977, at the age of 87.
Emma Belle Gibson Sykes
Emma Belle Gibson Sykes was born in Christiana in 1885 and later moved to Wilmington, married dentist George Sykes and became a teacher at Howard School. She was active in local politics as a campaign volunteer for the Republican Party and served as the register of wills. She also worked in the women’s suffrage movement and campaigned for many years to win women’s right to citizenship. Along with other women, Emma Belle Gibson Sykes marched in suffrage parades and worked to convince male legislators to grant women the right to vote and to have a voice in local government.
Alice Gertrude Baldwin
Edwina Kruse, who was born in the West Indies, came to Delaware in 1870 and became the first female principal of Howard School in 1876. She hired Alice Baldwin from Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the head of Howard’s teacher education program. In 1912, Edwina Kruse and Alice Baldwin were the founders of Delaware’s first branch of the NAACP, which filed civil suits against White, male employers for inequality. Alice served as the group’s secretary for 10 years.
Blanche Williams Stubbs
Blanche Stubbs, the wife of Wilmington doctor J. Bacon Stubbs, was also a teacher who worked for the women’s suffrage movement and served as the head of the Equal Suffrage Study Club, a group of African American women who favored women’s right to vote. In 1914, Stubbs marched in Delaware’s first suffrage parade in Wilmington. Stubbs served as president of the City Federation of Colored Women and director of the Thomas Garrett Settlement House for many years. The Garrett Settlement House offered classes and recreational activities to Black adults and children.
Kathryn Young Hazeur
In the 1950s, Kathryn Hazeur was one of the youngest African American principals in the Wilmington school system. Kathryn Young Hazeur, along with Cora Berry Saunders, were the first African American women to earn a graduate degree from the University of Delaware. On her first day at the University of Delaware, the provost, in his address to the student body, which was composed of 700 White students and 10 African American students, said, “Your grades will depend, not only on academic acumen, but on how well you get along with other people.” That was an awfully tense year, according to Ms. Hazeur. After graduating in 1951, Kathryn Hazeur was a teacher and a principal in various elementary schools in Delaware for more than 40 years. She also served as the director of the free preschool program, Head Start, for Wilmington Public Schools.
A graduate of Delaware State College (now University), Dr. Reba R. Hollingsworth, who experienced mandated segregated schools that forced her to leave her family to live on her own as young as 14 to attend DuPont Colored Schools in Dover, had a long and extensive career as an educator. In addition, Dr. Hollingsworth has served her community as a counselor and advocate for civil rights, and has been recognized and honored both in Delaware and abroad for extensive advocacy work. She remains active in state and local affairs and shows no signs of slowing down at the youthful age of 95.
