Resource: Charlotte Hawkins Brown

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Charlotte Hawkins Brown was born in Henderson, North Carolina, but grew up in Massachusetts after her family moved from the South. She was educated in Boston and had planned to finish her college education when two events changed her life.

First, she met Alice Freeman Palmer, a prominent New England woman, who was so impressed by Hawkins' determination to get an education that she became Brown's benefactor. Then, in 1901, Brown returned to the South to teach in a country school that was supported by a Northern missionary society in the town of Sedalia, North Carolina.

She arrived during the worst years of the Jim Crow era. Blacks had been disfranchised as well as segregated and there was little money available for black schools. When the school's funding ended after two years, Brown decided to remain in Sedalia to start her own school. She went north to raise money and returned with $100, which she used to open the Palmer Memorial Institute, an academic and industrial school for African Americans, in 1902.

Brown's life was a balancing act. She passionately hated segregation and continually sought ways around it. When she went to town to visit her doctor or lawyer, she would arrange to enter into their office immediately upon her arrival. Thus, she avoided sitting in the Jim Crow section of the waiting room. When her students went to the movies or other cultural events, she would rent the theater for the day so that they did not have to sit in the "colored" section.

To raise funds for the school, she wrote letters to potential supporters. Often, she had to pretend to have a vocational school in the mold of those championed by Booker T. Washington. However, her students learned French, Latin, and other academic subjects. Brown prepared her students to be leaders of their race.

In addition to building her school, Charlotte Hawkins Brown was active in the women's club and suffragist movements. She later became president of the North Carolina Association of Colored Women's Clubs, and she helped organize voter registration drives for black women and tried to get white club women to back suffrage for black women.

She saw herself as part of the freedom struggle that was taking place in the black community. The Palmer Institute became an educational success and remained open until a decade after her death, in 1961.

--adapted from the website The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Print Questions for Discussion

• Describe the living conditions for African Americans at the turn of the century under Jim Crow.
• What do you think life might have been like for an African American young person of this period? What was the expectation of them in American society? What did Charlotte Hawkins Brown want for them? What do you think they expected of themselves?
• Given the times, was there anything remarkable about Charlotte Hawkins Brown founding the Palmer Memorial Institute?  What fundamental strategies did she employ to appease whites or gain their support? Why was this important?
• How do you think Charlotte Hawkins Brown viewed herself and her work?