Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Walter Clinton Jackson, and Segregated Facilities at WC

February is Black History Month. To celebrate, our Spartan Stories this month focus on remembering important people and events related to the history of African Americans and UNCG.

Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown was a prominent African American educator who, in 1902, founded the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, NC (in eastern Guilford County). Due to its proximity to Greensboro, there was an established relationship between Brown, the Palmer Memorial Institute, and the educational leaders at the school now known as UNCG. In the Summer of 1924, Brown spoke on "inter-racial relations" at the annual YWCA Conference attended by many students from Greensboro. Some alumni recall the Sedalia Singers, the Palmer Memorial Institute's traveling choir, performing at the mandatory chapel sessions.

Brown in 1912

Lula Martin McIver, widow of founding president Charles Duncan McIver, served on the Palmer Memorial Institute Board of Trustees. In a heartfelt letter written on September 17, 1926, to Mrs. McIver, Brown discussed her pride at three of her students (including her adopted son) leaving the Institute to attend college. Brown wrote that McIver should "take a share of the credit to your own dear self for if you had not stood by me all these years, I could not have done for them what has been done."

Brown faced constant challenges to retain adequate funding for her school. While the school had a strong performing arts curriculum, students lacked an appropriate venue for local performances, and, because of the strict Jim Crow segregation laws in North Carolina, they were forced to travel to northern U.S. cities in order to attend the top-notch musical performances she wished them to experience. On July 22, 1928, she wrote to Wade Brown, head of the school of music of what was then the North Carolina College for Women (now UNCG) asking if her Institute might use the newly-constructed Aycock Auditorium as a venue for their annual concert. She wrote, "I always have tried to make friends of my neighbors, and it hurts me to feel that there is no place in Greensboro where we can give our program." Her request was denied, based on the state's strict rules regarding segregation in public buildings.

Aycock Auditorium interior at the 1930 Commencement

The issue of segregated seating in Aycock Auditorium was again raised by Brown in May 1935 when she wrote then president Walter Clinton Jackson to request that she be allowed to purchase 50 tickets for her students to attend performances by the Greensboro Civic Music Association in Aycock Auditorium. Jackson responded with his desire to allow her students to attend, but offered segregated seating -- "a block of 55 seats on the mezzanine floor of the auditorium" with "two stairways that give easy and comfortable access to these seats." He assured her that these seats "are regarded as being as good as any in the house."

Brown, however, declined the offer, noting that after talking with Jackson and other educators she felt "that perhaps after all it will be better for us and our students to forgo the pleasure and inspiration of the fine music for the time being." She felt uncomfortable with the segregated seating arrangement, feeling that her students may think that she asked specifically for this seating arrangement. After thought, however, she stated, "I asked for the opportunity of hearing the music. It would be impossible to hear it in North Carolina without accepting segregation."

Jackson in 1948

While Jackson was viewed as socially progressive on racial issues for the time, he was bound by the state's Jim Crow laws. He apologized to Brown for the situation and wrote, "I hope the time will speedily come when the difficulties which confront us may be more easily resolved."

Two years later, however, Brown was forced to write Jackson again, this time asking for a block of 50 seats, "segregated as offered." Her budget no longer allowed for the students to travel to New York City and Boston for any performances. While she was adamantly opposed to segregation, she wrote that "the souls of Negroes are starving for fine music." She saw musical performances as integral components of her students' education. And she optimistically wrote that, "when this segregation is wiped away, as it is going to be in public places of this kind within twenty-five years, leaders who have been developed at Palmer Memorial Institute shall have taught their children such appreciation of these fine things in life that they will be able to go to these musicals and listen with appreciation."

Walter Clinton Jackson, Race, and WC Resources

Throughout the first seven decades of its existence, the institution now known as UNCG grappled with a number of questions regarding facility use by students from neighboring colleges, particularly the nearby African-American institutions such as North Carolina A&T and Bennett College.

Interior of the College Library, circa 1923

As early as February 1929, administrators were discussing use of the Library by students from A&T. Then Vice President (and later Chancellor) Walter Clinton Jackson wrote College President Julius Foust on February 15, 1929, requesting that an A&T student be allowed to borrow books from the College Library. Jackson wrote, “it seems to me rather incongruous that we should refuse a little courtesy of this kind to a neighbor institution, even though a negro institution. It is a very small matter, in a way, but it has large consequences so far as the Negroes are concerned.”

Foust agreed to discuss the matter with the College Librarian and “do anything we can to aid these students.” He quickly added, however, that Jackson should be acutely award “that certain embarrassments may arise in our attempt to do what they request” and that he “doubt[ed] the wisdom of permitting negro students to take the books out of our library.” While he agreed to consider the idea, Foust added that he would ask the Librarian to consult with Dr. Anna Gove, the student health coordinator, to learn more “about the danger that may arise from disease if these students are permitted to take the books and use them when our students must use them when they are returned to the library.”

Jackson’s decision to support the use of the WC Library by African-American students ran counter to the Jim Crow laws that were prevalent across North Carolina at the time. Jackson, however, was well known as a champion of racial equality. He arrived at the institution then known as State Normal in 1909 to lead the history department. A native of Georgia, he studied at Mercer University and spoke frequently on the topic of race relations in American history. Although he was forced to work within the framework of the segregated South, he served as chairman of local, state, and southern regional Commissions on Interracial Cooperation. From 1938 to 1953, he served as chairman of the Board of Trustees at Bennett College.

Walter Clinton Jackson, 1948

Throughout his sixteen-year tenure as Woman’s College chancellor (1934-1950), Jackson opened many venues for progress and collaboration between WC and its neighboring educational institutions, including those that were African American. In a June 17, 1935, letter to Charlotte Hawkins Brown, he expressed dismay that WC would not be able to openly welcome students from Brown’s Palmer Institute, a school for African Americans in Sedalia, North Carolina, just outside of Greensboro. After Brown declined to bring her students to a music performance at the WC due to the segregated seating requirements, Jackson wrote, “I hope the time will speedily come when difficulties which confront us may be more easily resolved.”

State laws and regulations, however, did not support open sharing of resources between WC and its African-American neighbor institutions. “Separate but equal” policies resulted in the segregation of public schools, public spaces, transportation, restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains. Since 1901, North Carolina state law had explicitly required separate facilities for the consumption of library materials by white and black citizens. While a number of prominent North Carolinians, including Governor W. Kerr Scott (1949-1953), believed in extended some degree of civil liberties to African Americans, the general consensus across the state favored the continuation of segregationist policies.

Jackson’s willingness to push these boundaries and search for concessions whenever possible led to him being recognized as a “pioneer in the field of better race relations” when he received an honorary doctorate from Bennett in 1949. While Jackson was no longer Chancellor when the WC was officially desegregated in 1956, he stood as an early leader in creating a more open and accepting campus.