Chapter 4: Our School in Our Community: The Collective Economic Struggle for African American Education in Franklin Tennessee, 1890-1967

In this anecdote of the early days of Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington claimed that an elderly African American farmer traveled 12 hard miles to donate a hog to support the establishment of Tuskegee Institute in the mid-1880s. Although quite poor, this farmer felt the education of black children in his community was important enough for him to donate a substantial portion of his personal wealth. His act underscored the appreciation that many 19th-century African Americans had for education. The African American farmer’s donation of the hog and his subsequent challenge to his fellow citizens to do the same captures African Americans’ desire for education, their zeal for socioeconomic mobility, their race pride, and their belief in self-determination. This story provides a glimpse of African American agency and the use of cultural capital for schooling in the South in the 19th century.