LCV Winter 2012 - (Page 83)

defect—the state lacks facilities for training teachers. Nothing can be done to increase the training of teachers when the facilities are lacking. A lack of adequate equipment in state agencies for training teachers constitutes a fourth defect, and a low standard for work in training schools, a fifth. ... Although the state requires too little of its Negro teachers in the way of preparation, it would be impossible for these teachers to qualify under much higher requirements, since there is a lack of high schools and of normal schools for Negroes. in examining possible solutions for the problems of money will have to be expended to bring him to the level demanded of the citizens of Louisiana, because he will require more training. McAllister finished her dissertation, “The Training of negro Teachers in Louisiana” in 1928, and was formally awarded her diploma from Columbia University’s Teachers College in June 1929. dr. Mabel Carney, a professor of rural education at Teachers College, wrote in 1943 in the Advanced School Digest that McAllister was “not only the first colored candidate ever to receive the doctor’s degree from this institution [Teachers College], but also the first colored candidate in Education throughout the world.” indeed, McAllister was the first black woman to receive a Ph.d. from Columbia as a whole, and the second person of color. She was the seventh black woman in the United States and the 48th overall to earn a Ph.d. The August 1928 issue of The Crisis, the magazine for the nAACP, ran McAllister’s picture African-American education in Louisiana, McAllister researched how north Carolina had successfully dealt with similar shortcomings in their teacher training programs. Her recommendations for improving conditions in Louisiana included expanding the number of teachertraining programs, increasing state spending, and raising the standards for both teachers and students. McAllister’s progressive ideas challenged narrow-minded assumptions that many whites in Louisiana held about AfricanAmerican education. in their view, not only was the segregated system fair and adequate, but any serious attempts to improve the condition of these schools would be seen as a direct threat to white supremacy. At a time when Louisiana ranked 42nd among American states in its ability to support education, McAllister suggested in her dissertation that the legislature should spend its money more equitably. She wrote: They should not allow so great a discrepancy between the amount spent on Negro education and on white education. Although the fact may be deplored, the citizenry of the state includes the Negro; therefore, for the citizenry to be improved, the Negro must be better educated. If he has mental abilities inferior to that of the white child, it is conceivable that more SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES left: Southern University was established in 1880 as a college for African Americans and originally operated in New Orleans. In 1914 the campus moved to Scotlandville, Louisiana, where Jane Ellen McAllister arrived in 1919 to begin her first job as an instructor. below: Ethel Belcher Nickens, right, and Dr. Paul Phillips Cooke, second from right, both graduates of Miner Teachers College in the 1930s, reminisce with classmates and former students of Dr. McAllister in her former classroom at the college (now part of the University of the District of Columbia). — though incorrectly announcing she would be receiving a Ph.d. in rural sociology. She noted somewhat cynically in the margin of her copy of the issue: Trust a Negro paper to make a mistake. I am sorry I sent my picture to The Crisis. Who wants a Ph.D. in Rural Sociology? After finishing her course work at Columbia, McAllister joined the faculty at historically black fisk University in nashville, Tennessee, in the fall of 1928. She resigned her position two years later after a dispute with fisk’s white president, Thomas Elsa Jones, over her position and title. She moved to washington, d.C., in the fall of 1930 and became chair of the education department at Miner Teachers College, one of the premiere teachers colleges for Winter 2012-13 • LoUiSiAnA CULTURAL ViSTAS 83 PHOTO BY DAVID RAE MORRIS 

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