The year 1901 was not a promising time for Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a young black woman, to return to her native North Carolina and teach in a mission school.
White supremacists had overthrown North Carolina’s Fusionist government in 1900. The new governor was proud of the amendment to the state constitution that had “the deliberate purpose of depriving the negro of the right to vote, and of allowing every white man to retain that right.” [1] Schools were separate and unequal in spite of the 1896 Supreme Court decision that said they could be separate if they were equal.
Yet, given that environment, Brown’s experience is not as grim as one would think. Her life is not only inspiring, but it also sheds light on the many people—black and white, from north and south—who tried to help southern blacks. They were unable or unwilling to challenge the power structure, but they went around it.
Brown’s life also illustrates the cross-currents in black education represented by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, both of whom Brown knew.
