Palmetto Education Association
The Palmetto Education Association was a professional association and teachers' union representing teachers in colored schools in South Carolina during racial segregation in the United States.
History
One of the mandates of Reconstruction placed on the former Confederate states was that each had to write a new constitution acceptable to Congress before rejoining the Union. South Carolina convened a Constitutional Convention in 1868. Since twenty-one of South Carolina's thirty-one counties were majority African-American, black delegates outnumbered white delegates seventy-six to forty-eight. As a result, the new Constitution did not reflect the traditional desires of the white power structure. The Constitution not only outlawed slavery, it "abolished imprisonment for debt, authorized universal male suffrage, gave the state its first divorce law" and, most significantly, established a "public school system for poor and rich, black and white."[1] Even after Reconstruction ended, free public schools for African-Americans was not to be denied, although drastic cuts to funding and the abolishment of a law granting extra funds to poorer districts would come in 1878.[2] State Superintendent of Education Hugh S. Thompson wrote that one of the greatest hazards to the state’s recovery was the "ignorance of a large number of our people."[3], and he proposed creating teacher-training schools. What would start as week-long or seasonal "Institutes for Colored Teachers" between 1880 and 1882 would become full normal training schools within a few years.
Professional associations for teachers also grew out of the temporary institutes. First, the white-only South Carolina State Teachers Association in 1881, and in 1900, the The Palmetto Education Association.[4] The first president was J. Edward Wallace, who like all of the early presidents of the Association worked as a school administrator rather than as a teacher. Perhaps the most influential early leader was J.L. Cain, president from 1914 to 1922. Under his leadership, "it grew rapidly in membership and influence."[5]
- ^ Bennett, Jr, Lerone (1961). Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America. Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 198–.
- ^ http://www.teachercadets.com/media/documents/2010/8/History_of_South_Carolina_Schools.pdf. Retrieved May 7, 2013.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ http://www.teachercadets.com/media/documents/2010/8/History_of_South_Carolina_Schools.pdf. Retrieved May 7, 2013.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Potts, Sr, John (1978). A History of the Palmetto Education Association. Washington: National Education Association.
- ^ Potts, Sr, John (1978). A History of the Palmetto Education Association. Washington, DC: National Education Association. p. 39.