Presentation Title

Postbellum Black Educational Access: The Normal School Origins of Fisk University

Session Name

Concurrent Session 4. Social Forces and the Shaping of Late 19th Century Normal Schools

Start Date

26-3-2015 2:00 PM

End Date

26-3-2015 3:30 PM

Abstract

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, Fisk Free Colored School began its operations on the site of former army barracks located in Nashville, Tennessee. The School provided basic elementary instruction to an estimated 900 newly freed black students of all ages and was primarily staffed with white teachers from the north. It was soon recognized by the school’s founders that the quality of instructors being secured was lower than anticipated and that the geographic hiring practice exacerbated racial tension among southern whites. As a result, the Tennessee Freedman’s Bureau, under the guidance of General Clinton B. Fisk, established funds for the development of black schoolteachers. The financial commitment secured the establishment of the first black normal school in Nashville and in 1867, Fisk Free Colored School coincident with its establishment of a normal division was incorporated as "Fisk University." The normal school remained in operation as the “normal college” through the first two decades of the twentieth century. This paper using data and information obtained from the Fisk University archives provides a foundational economic history of the relationship between segregation, discrimination, and the establishment and contribution of the Fisk normal school to black educational access and attainment.

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Mar 26th, 2:00 PM Mar 26th, 3:30 PM

Postbellum Black Educational Access: The Normal School Origins of Fisk University

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, Fisk Free Colored School began its operations on the site of former army barracks located in Nashville, Tennessee. The School provided basic elementary instruction to an estimated 900 newly freed black students of all ages and was primarily staffed with white teachers from the north. It was soon recognized by the school’s founders that the quality of instructors being secured was lower than anticipated and that the geographic hiring practice exacerbated racial tension among southern whites. As a result, the Tennessee Freedman’s Bureau, under the guidance of General Clinton B. Fisk, established funds for the development of black schoolteachers. The financial commitment secured the establishment of the first black normal school in Nashville and in 1867, Fisk Free Colored School coincident with its establishment of a normal division was incorporated as "Fisk University." The normal school remained in operation as the “normal college” through the first two decades of the twentieth century. This paper using data and information obtained from the Fisk University archives provides a foundational economic history of the relationship between segregation, discrimination, and the establishment and contribution of the Fisk normal school to black educational access and attainment.