Memorializing Mammy: Samuel F. Harris's Complicated Vision for Industrial Education in Clarke County, Georgia

• In Event: Life Histories of Principal and Teacher Activists: Developing Black High Schools in the United States

Abstract

Samuel F. Harris was born, raised, and schooled in Athens, Georgia. He would become renowned as an educational pioneer in his own right, credited as the founding principal of Athens High and Industrial School, the first accredited Black high school in the State of Georgia in 1922. Indeed, Harris laid the groundwork for the public school system in Clarke County, Georgia, and was one of the first in the state to incorporate vocational and industrial training into the traditional public school curriculum. However, Samuel F. Harris reveals a vision for Black education that would preserve the old regime of the slaveholding South, namely through his support and vision for the Black Mammy Memorial Institute. This paper explores his educational legacy.

Author

• Amber Neal-Stanley, Purdue University
  Presenting Author