Robert Russa Moton

Robert Russa Moton (August 26, 1867 - May 31, 1940) was an African American educator and author. He served as an administrator at Hampton Institute and was named principal of Tuskegee Institute in 1915 after the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, a position he held for 20 years until retirement in 1935.

Youth, education, family

Robert Russa Moton was born in Amelia County, Virginia. He was graduated from the Hampton Institute in 1890. He married Elizabeth Hunt Harris in 1905, but she died in 1906. He married his second wife, Jennie Dee Booth in 1908. He had three daughters, Charlotte Moton Hubbard, a State Department Aide; Catherine Moton Patterson; and Jennie Moton Taylor. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=C. M. Hubbard, 82, Ex-State Dept. Aide |url= |quote= Charlotte Moton Hubbard, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs from 1964 to 1970, making her the top-ranking black woman in the Johnson Administration at the time, died on Sunday at her home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She was 82. Ms. Hubbard, who retired in 1970 at the onset of Cushing's disease, an adrenal disorder, died of congestive heart failure, said Marc L. Alper of Rockview, Maryland, a family friend. In her State Department post, she worked at developing programs intended to eliminate discrimination against black soldiers during the Vietnam War. She also oversaw the department's public services and news offices. In her State Department post, she worked at developing programs intended to eliminate discrimination against black soldiers during the Vietnam War. She also oversaw the department's public services and news offices. During World War II, she worked for the Federal Security Agency, helping to organize arrangements for war workers and was a race and human relations consultant. She joined the State Department in 1963 as a coordinator of women's activities. The daughter of a pioneer in the civil rights movement, Dr. Robert Russa Moton, she grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute, where her father had succeeded its founder, Booker T. Washington, as president. She was educated at Boston University. Her husband, Maceo W. Hubbard, a Justice Department official, died in 1991. She is survived by two sisters, Catherine Patterson of Exeter, N.H., and Jennie Moton Taylor of Indianapolis. |publisher=New York Times |date= |accessdate=2007-07-21 ]

Career, family

In 1891, he was appointed commandant of the male student cadet corps at Hampton Institute. In 1915, after the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, he succeeded Washington as the principal of the Tuskegee Institute, a position he held until retirement in 1935. He also wrote a number of books.

Death

Robert R. Moton died in Capahosic in Gloucester County, Virginia in 1940 at age 73.

Legacy

Tuskegee

Moton Field, the initial training base for the Tuskegee Airmen was named after him.

Holly Knoll

Holly Knoll, the retirement home in which he lived in Gloucester County, was named a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1981, termed the Robert R. Moton House.citation|title=PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/81000640.pdf National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Holly Knoll-R. R. Moton House] |32 KB|date=May 23, 1981 |author=Cecil McKithan |publisher=National Park Service]

R.R. Moton High School, Museum in Farmville, Virginia

Near his birthplace in adjacent Amelia County, the all-black R. R. Moton High School, named for him, was located in the town of Farmville in Prince Edward County. This became a dubious distinction as the conditions there deteriorated due to inequities in funding for the segregated schools by the County School Board and the County Board of Supervisors.

The school did not have a gymnasium, cafeteria, or teachers' restrooms. Due to overcrowding, three plywood buildings had been erected and some students had to take classes in an immobile school bus parked outside. Teachers and students did not have desks or blackboards, The school's requests for additional funds were denied by the all-white school board. In 1951, students staged a walkout protesting the conditions. The NAACP took up their case, however, only when the students—by a one vote margin—agreed to seek an integrated school rather than improved conditions at their black school. Then, Howard University-trained attorneys Spotswood W. Robinson and Oliver Hill filed suit.

In "Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County", a state court rejected the suit, agreeing with defense attorney T. Justin Moore that Virginia was vigorously equalizing black and white schools. The verdict was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Subsequently, it was one of five incorporated into "Brown v. Board of Education", the landmark case which overturned school segregation in the United States. As a result of the "Brown" decision, in 1959 the Board of Supervisors for Prince Edward County refused to appropriate "any" funds for the County School Board at all, effectively closing all public schools rather than integrate them. Prince Edward County Public Schools remained closed for five years.

A new entity, the Prince Edward Foundation, created a series of private schools to educate the county's white children. These schools were supported by tuition grants from the state and tax credits from the county. Prince Edward Academy, the all-white private, was one of the first such schools in Virginia which came to be called segregation academies.

Black students had to go to school elsewhere or forgo their education altogether. Some got schooling with relatives in nearby communities or at makeshift schools in church basements. Others were educated out of state by groups such as the Society of Friends. In 1963–64, the NAACP-sponsored Prince Edward Free School picked up some of the slack. But some pupils missed part or all of their education for five years.

When the public schools finally reopened in 1964, they were fully integrated. Historians mark that event as the end of Massive Resistance in Virginia.

In modern times, Prince Edward County Public Schools now operates single Elementary, Middle, and High Schools for all students, regardless of race. They are:
*Prince Edward Elementary School
*Prince Edward Middle School
*Prince Edward High School

Many of the segregation academies eventually closed; others changed their mission, and eliminated discriminatory policies. Prince Edward Academy was one of these, and was renamed the Fuqua School.

The former R.R. Moton High School building is now a community landmark. In 1998, it was named a National Historic Site, and it now houses the Robert Russa Moton Museum, a center for the study of civil rights in education.

Public service

Moton became involved in various aspects of public service.
* 1918, Traveled to France at the request of President Woodrow Wilson to inspect black troops stationed there by the United States.
* 1923, Played a leading role in the establishment of the Veterans Administration Hospital for Negroes, Tuskegee, Alabama.
* 1927, Chairman of the American National Red Cross, Colored Advisory Commission on the Great Mississippi Flood.
* 1930, Chairman of the United States Commission on Education in Haiti.

There is an elementary school Named Robert R. Moton in Hampton, VA; also in Miami FL and New Orleans, LA.

Publications

* "Finding A Way Out" (autobiography). Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co, 1920. ISBN 0-8371-1897-2
* "What the Negro Thinks". Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929.
* "Some Elements Necessary To Race Development", 1913.
* "Negro of Today: Remarkable Growth Of Fifty Years", 1921.
* "Racial Good Will Addresses", 1916.
* "Negros Debt to Lincoln", 1922.
* "Frissell the Builder: Address at the Dedication of the Frissell Memorial Organ in Ogden Hall, Hampton Institute", 1923.

References

Further reading

* Spangler, Michael (1996). [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/uploaded_pdf/ead_pdf_batch_21_January_2005/1998/ms998025.pdf "The Moton Family: A Register of Its Papers in the Library of Congress"] . Washington: Library of Congress.

External links

* [http://docsouth.unc.edu/moton/menu.html Text of "Finding a Way Out"]
* [http://www.motonmuseum.com/events/19980831.html Robert Russa Moton Museum, Farmville, Virginia]
* cite book
title=The World's Work
author=Walter Hines Page, Arthur Wilson Page
year=1916
publisher=Doubleday, Page & Co.
isbn=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=09_Sr9emceQC&printsec=titlepage#PPA527,M1 by Ray Stannard Baker, a biographical article in the March 1916 issue of "The World's Work"