Charlotte Hawkins Brown and Palmer Memorial Institute: What One Young African American Woman Could Do FROM THE PUBLISHER
In the fall of 1901, Charlotte Hawkins Brown (1883-1961) jumped off a Southern Railway train in the unfamiliar backwoods of Guilford County, North Carolina. She was black, single, and barely eighteen years old and had come alone from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to begin her first real job as a teacher at a small, struggling school for African Americans.
She stayed for over half a century. When the failing school was closed at the end of her first year, Brown remained to carry on. With visually no resources save her own energy and determination, she founded Palmer Memorial Institute, which she would lead for fifty years. As other black private schools across the state vanished, Brown built Palmer up to become one of the premier academies for African American children in the nation.
A remarkable example of achievement in the face of segregation and discrimination, the story of Charlotte Hawkins Brown and her school continues to provide a model of educational success born of dedication and hard work.
FROM THE CRITICS
Journal Of Southern History
[The authors] have captured the essence of Brown in this inspiring and beautifully written work. . . . Those interested in black education, women's history, and North Carolina history will find this monograph rich and invaluable.
Journal Of American History
In offering this well-researched study, [the authors are ] filling an enormous gap. They reveal in powerful detail the drive, skill, commitment, and religious faith that enabled Brown to create a school in North Carolina and to run it for almost fifty years; at the same time they provide insights into Brown's human frailties and inner tensions. . . . A thorough institutional history of Palmer that is unlikely to be bettered.
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