History
History of Black Education in Pickens County
Historical records have indicated there were Blacks who were enslaved in Pickens County. For example, it has been documented that white northern businessmen interested in cotton production, brought enslaved African Americans to Pickens to work the cotton fields. Furthermore, data on the migration of former slaves from the 1860 Slave Schedules in the United States Census evidence African Americans in Pickens County were enslaved during this time. “According to U.S. Census data, the 1860 Pickens County population included 10,117 whites, 8 “free colored” and 12,191 slaves. The Census shows “83 slaveholders who held 32 or more slaves in Pickens County, accounting for 4,786 slaves, or 39% of the county total. The rest of the slaves in the County were held by a total of 988 slaveholders, …” What is more, the 1850 census records show thirty-two members of my own family, the Neal’s, were among the enslaved by Absalom L. Neal in Pickens County. Although very few, I have also found oral histories from slaves who lived in Pickens.
Beyond slavery, it has been documented that African Americans in Pickens County (like Alabama more broadly) endured racial oppression which included poverty, racial violence, and segregation. Census records (1920) have documented many Blacks were gripped by sharecropping, which was another form of enslavement levied by planters (whites) who would financially cheat Blacks, thereby tying Blacks to the land. Planters would often insist Blacks had not made their share of crops and consequently owed the planter thereby requiring Blacks to work off false debts
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Letter from Mr. Archie Brooks documenting efforts to build a school in Carrollton, Alabama in 1905. Circa 1982. It reads:
In 1905 The Lebanon Baptist Association led by dedicated ministers decided to have a school that would provide an opportunity for children of Pickens County could get more education than was possible in the two or three months in the communities. This was a tremendous task for men who had no understanding in such matters. However, these were men inspired by God and had faith to believe that with God all things are possible. In this association there were 3 [sic] organizations, the Sunday School Convention, The Women’s Convention and Association. They raised money to hire 4 [sic] teachers with what money they could get from the county. They did this [sic] How much money they got I do not know. They had no building. So, Pine Grove Baptist Church was used.[14] The building was insufficient, but enthusiasm and pride overruled any shortcomings. The first year was successful. They had for principal a man who had attended Selma University, T. B. Smith. After coming to the County and looking the situation over, he saw he needed some extra help. He called in his brother J.H.L. Smith, Rev. James Howard and a lady named Miss Betty Everson. I was about seven years old at that time so I could not be sure.
In addition, Blacks in Pickens faced the terrors of racial violence and lynching. For example, in 2017 the Equal Justice Initiative report found there were 15 documented lynchings in Pickens County between 1877-1950, which was the fifth highest in the state of Alabama. A publication in the Macon Beacon newspaper documented one such account of a lynching in Pickens County (i.e., Carrollton) in 1907.
Pickens sought to educate Black children. The area had several “schools” which were makeshift but none-the-less provided a basis for education that would not otherwise have occurred for many coloreds.” [10] Local historical records indicate Black schools began in Pickens in the 1890’s and that Blacks used local churches and “[t]he bottom floor of Old Masonic Hall’” to provide schooling.
In her book, “Keeping the Spirit Alive: Pickens County Training School, Carrollton, Alabama (1915-1969), Community Historian, Ora Coleman Alston, documents one such effort by Black community leaders to build a school in Carrollton, the county seat of Pickens and the future home of Pickens County Training School. Coleman cites evidence from the personal collection of Mr. Archie Brooks (her Uncle and once a leader in the Pickens Community), that efforts to build schools were underway before Rosenwald Schools landed in Pickens County.
In his letter, Mr. Brooks indicated “the next hurdle was to get a building large enough to have ample space for the growing student body.” Sustaining their momentum, Mr. Brooks recalls “by some miracle, “the community built a two-story building, secured a donated organ, and found a musician. The school attracted students from neighboring Greene and Lamar Counties. Traveling great distances to school, Mr. Brooks recalls these students needed lodging which the community provided. A community member, Mr. Brother Bibbs donated a “large frame house” that became a “boarding house” for the students traveling to school from faraway counties. While the Pickens County School Board Minutes indicates there were 65 independent schools (across 65 districts)[15] in Pickens County prior to the establishment of Rosenwald Schools in the community. Mr. Brooks’ account provides a deeper window into the everyday labor and spirit the Black community mounted to establish schools for their children in Pickens.
Historical accounts of Black schools often foreground the lack of resources and dilapidated structures of schools built by these rural communities throughout the South – but Mr. Brooks account foregrounds the “enthusiasm and pride [that] overruled any shortcomings” by documenting the community’s work to make a way from minimal resources and difficult conditions. The communities momentum to establish and run schools is evident in the aforementioned documentation in the School Board Education minutes as early as 1905 and builds until school Board minutes indicate the establishment of Rosenwald Schools in Pickens County began circa 1915, three years after the Rosenwald School fund was established, and under the leadership of Tuskegee Institute.