Page 72 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

Teachers Were Heart of Schools for Blacks

July 20,1993

More than thirty black-only schools were scattered throughout Columbia County in the early-

to-middle-1900s. Most had only 1-4 teachers and were “one-room schoolhouses.”
These schools had beautiful names. Some were of religious origin, like Jerusalem,

Bethlehem, Saint James, New Hope, True Vine, King’s Welcome, Bethel, Enon and Zion Hill.
Others had fascinating names like Sand Pond, County Line, Slocum, Scrubtown, Kiota and

Cat City. Still others were named for communities still familiar to us today, like Fort White,
Columbia City, Lulu and Falling Creek.

Like any school, the heart and soul of these schools were the teachers, loving, caring
individuals who did their best to give their students a happy school day and to prepare them for the

future. Outside the home, these teachers were the most profound influence in the live of these young
black children.

These teachers taught their students reading, writing, and arithmetic-but they went far beyond
that. They trained them in moral and spiritual values-in mind and in character, in order and in
obedience. Oh, did they ever train them in obedience!

Ethel Combs, one of the best of the early teachers, recalls: “Back then the children knew to
mind. They knew what they would get if they didn’t mind-and they knew they would get another

one when they got home.”
Somewhere there ought to be a teacher’s “Hall of Fame” to commemorate these early

teachers, people like Mildred Bennett, Alice Niblack, Hattie Lovett, Ludie Spears, Joella Johnson,
Mamie Rountree, Ethel Combs, A. L. Green, Clarence Tucker, Ruth Green, Annie Mae Reed,

Josephine Franklin, Bertha Vames, Vera Brown, John Burgess, and far too many others to name
them all in a short column like this.
These were do-everything teachers. Beside teaching, they would fire up the wood-burning

heater on cold mornings, sweep the floor, help maintain the building, nurse the sick and hurt, teach
the games at recess, lead the daily singing and devotional, share their lunch with the needy, and

spend some of their own money to buy school supplies for their kids.

-67-

www.LakeCityHistory.com LCH-UUID: CD05D759-5273-4705-A6D7-381FCF749098