Those Who Taught Us: Honoring the Black Educators Who Built Classrooms, Communities and Generations
- The Chronicle News
- 1 day ago
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Those Who Taught Us: Black educators have used the classroom to educate, empower and expand opportunity across generations. Pictured are Lansing educators Vivian Riddle and Verna D. Holley, alongside pioneering educators Lucy Craft Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Carter G. Woodson and Septima Poinsette Clark. From building schools and preserving Black culture to advancing literacy, civil rights and the study of Black history, their legacies demonstrate the extraordinary power of a teacher.
Before there were Black studies departments, diversity initiatives, or federal protections guaranteeing equal access to education, there were Black teachers. These educators often worked in segregated and under-resourced schools, yet they built intellectual foundations that shaped entire communities. (Woodson, 1933). They were not only instructors but also cultural preservers, mentors, and advocates for educational justice. In many cases, they created learning spaces where none previously existed, ensuring that Black children had access to knowledge, dignity, and opportunity.
They taught in one-room schoolhouses and overcrowded classrooms; they taught music, history, language, and literature, often across multiple grade levels at once due to limited staffing and resources (Anderson, 1988). They created schools when existing institutions refused to educate Black children equally, and they often did so with little financial support. In doing so, they trained other teachers, organized communities, and challenged systems that told Black children where they could learn, what they could become, and how high they were permitted to dream.
Some became nationally recognized figures whose names appear in history books and academic scholarship; their contributions are documented in civil rights histories and educational reform literature, reflecting their long-term impact on American schooling (Fairclough, 2007). Others became the names written across neighborhood schools, their stories sometimes becoming less familiar with each passing generation. Yet their influence remains embedded in the institutions they helped build and the students they shaped.
But before the buildings, awards, and national recognition, they were educators. They stood in classrooms where the future was uncertain, but the expectation of excellence remained firm. Their work laid the foundation for educational equity movements that continue today. Their legacy is not only historical; it is instructional, reminding us that teaching has always been an act of resistance and hope.
Vivian Riddle: A Lansing Legacy
In Lansing, the name Vivian Riddle remains quite literally attached to education. Her legacy is preserved not only in memory but in the physical identity of a school that bears her name. Riddle represents a generation of Black educators who advanced academically and professionally during a time of significant racial barriers in higher education and public schooling (Michigan State University Archives, n.d.).
Vivian Riddle was a graduate of West Junior High School and valedictorian of J.W. Sexton High School before attending Michigan State University. She became the first African American student inducted into MSU’s Tower Guard Honorary Society, marking a significant milestone in the university’s history. Her academic achievements reflected both personal excellence and the broader struggle for Black access to elite academic spaces. Vivian went on to teach at Pattengill Junior High School and later taught English, Spanish, and Social Studies at Everett High School. Her classroom instruction reflected a commitment to both linguistic skill and cultural awareness. She was known for preparing students not only academically but also socially, helping them navigate a changing world.
Her influence extended beyond her own classroom. Riddle was one of four Michigan teachers selected to serve as a special consultant and instructor with Michigan State University’s College of Education, working with future teachers interested in the challenges facing urban schools. This role positioned her as both practitioner and mentor in teacher preparation programs. In addition, she was also active in the Michigan Education Association, National Education Association, Lansing NAACP, Trinity A.M.E. Church, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. These affiliations reflect her broader commitment to civic engagement and educational advocacy. Riddle died in 1973 after 16 years of service to the Lansing School District, leaving behind a legacy of academic excellence and community leadership. Two years later, the Lansing Board of Education approved naming a new school in her honor. Today, generations of Lansing children know the name Vivian Riddle Elementary School. Behind that name was a Black woman who taught children and helped prepare other people to teach them.
Verna D. Holley: Teaching a Community to Find Its Voice
Another Lansing educator created her legacy through music, demonstrating that education extends beyond traditional academic subjects. Verna D. Holley’s work reflects the role of arts education in shaping identity, discipline, and cultural memory (Abril, 2013). Her contributions highlight how music education can function as both instruction and preservation.
Verna D. Holley came to Lansing with a strong foundation in education, earning a bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Wayne State University and a master’s degree from Michigan State University. Her academic training prepared her for a career that blended performance, instruction, and cultural leadership. She entered education at a time when Black women in music education were significantly underrepresented in leadership roles.
At J.W. Sexton High School, Holley served as a fine arts director, helping generations of students develop not simply their musical abilities, but confidence, discipline, and an appreciation for the cultural power of music. Her work in the classroom emphasized both technical skill and emotional expression. Students under her instruction were exposed to music as a form of identity and historical understanding.
Her classroom was only one stage for that work. As pianist and musical director of the Earl Nelson Singers, Holley helped preserve and present African American spirituals, music born from faith, oppression, resistance, and survival. This work connected students and audiences to a broader cultural and historical narrative rooted in the Black experience in America (Southern, 1997). Her life reminds us that education does not always come from a textbook. Sometimes history is taught through a song. In Holley’s case, music became both curriculum and archive, preserving stories that might otherwise have been lost.
Lucy Craft Laney: Building Schools and Building Educators
Lucy Craft Laney understood that educating Black children meant more than opening a classroom door. It meant creating institutions capable of nurturing generations of students, teachers, and community leaders. Born in Georgia in 1854, Laney demonstrated an extraordinary aptitude for learning from an early age. She later attended Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University, graduating from its teacher-training program in 1873. After teaching for approximately a decade, Laney opened her own school in Augusta, Georgia, in 1883. The school began in the basement of Christ Presbyterian Church and later became the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute (New Georgia Encyclopedia, n.d.).
Under Laney’s leadership, Haines grew into an important educational and cultural institution for Augusta’s Black community. By 1912, the school enrolled approximately 900 students and employed 34 teachers. Laney also established Augusta’s first kindergarten and helped create one of the city’s first nursing training programs for Black women (New Georgia Encyclopedia, n.d.). But perhaps one of the most remarkable parts of Laney’s legacy can be seen in the educators she influenced. Among them was a young Mary McLeod Bethune, who taught at Haines early in her career. Laney’s dedication to education and community service influenced Bethune, whose own vision would eventually lead her to establish the school that became Bethune-Cookman University (National Park Service, n.d.).
Laney’s influence therefore traveled far beyond the students who sat in her classrooms. She educated children, developed teachers, and demonstrated what Black educational institution-building could accomplish in the decades following emancipation. Her legacy reminds us that a great teacher’s influence is rarely confined to one generation. Sometimes a teacher teaches another teacher, who goes on to teach the world.
Mary McLeod Bethune: From Teacher to HBCU Founder
More than a thousand miles from Lansing, another Black teacher demonstrated just how far one educator’s vision could travel. Mary McLeod Bethune’s life reflects the transformative power of education as institution-building and social change (McCluskey & Smith, 2001). Her work illustrates how teaching can evolve into national leadership.
Born in South Carolina in 1875 to parents who had been enslaved, Mary McLeod Bethune became an educator at a time when educational opportunities for Black Americans were severely restricted. Despite these barriers, she pursued education with determination and a belief in its transformative power. Her early teaching experiences shaped her lifelong commitment to educational access. After teaching in several schools, Bethune arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida, determined to build something of her own. In 1904, she opened a school for Black girls with only a handful of students and very little money. Her vision was rooted in the belief that education could expand both opportunity and dignity for Black women and girls.
That small school grew. It later merged with Cookman Institute and eventually became Bethune-Cookman University, one of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This transformation reflects the long-term institutional impact of her educational leadership. Bethune’s influence ultimately stretched far beyond the classroom. She became a civil rights leader, founded the National Council of Negro Women, and advised U.S. presidents. But education remained at the center of her life’s work. A teacher had built a school. The school built generations. And generations helped change a nation.
Carter G. Woodson: The Teacher Who Made Black History a Movement
There is a certain poetry in remembering Carter G. Woodson in a story about teachers. His work demonstrates how education can shape national historical consciousness (Goggin, 1993). Woodson’s legacy is deeply embedded in how Black history is taught in American schools today. Long before he became known as the “Father of Black History,” Woodson was an educator. The son of formerly enslaved parents, Woodson had limited access to formal education as a child. He eventually attended high school as a young adult, became a teacher, and continued his own education until earning a doctorate in history from Harvard University.
Woodson recognized something deeply troubling: Black Americans had helped build the nation, yet their experiences and accomplishments were routinely omitted or distorted in American classrooms. This absence of representation motivated his scholarly and educational mission.
So the educator went to work. He helped establish the organization now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, published scholarship about Black life, and in 1926 launched Negro History Week. This initiative was designed to ensure that Black contributions were recognized and taught in schools. That observance eventually became what America now celebrates as Black History Month. In other words, the Black history lessons taught in classrooms today are part of the legacy of a Black teacher who believed those stories deserved to be taught.
Septima Clark: Teaching Literacy as Liberation
For Septima Poinsette Clark, education and civil rights became inseparable. Her work demonstrates how literacy education can function as a tool for political empowerment (Horton & Freire, 1990). Clark’s teaching extended far beyond traditional classroom instruction. Clark began teaching at 18 in a one-room schoolhouse in South Carolina. Because she was Black, she initially could not teach in Charleston’s public school system. Despite this exclusion, she persisted in her educational mission and continued advocating for access and equity.
She fought to change that. Later, Clark helped develop citizenship education programs that taught Black adults literacy and civic skills, including skills necessary to overcome discriminatory barriers designed to keep African Americans from voting. Her work became a foundational component of grassroots civil rights education. Her educational work became an important part of the Civil Rights Movement. Clark understood something powerful: teaching someone to read could help that person read a ballot. Teaching someone about citizenship could help that person demand the rights citizenship was supposed to guarantee. The classroom could become a place of liberation.
More Than Teachers
These educators lived in different places and generations, yet their work reflects a shared educational philosophy rooted in empowerment and access. Their contributions demonstrate that teaching is both intellectual labor and social responsibility (Anderson, 1988). Each educator shaped institutions, communities, and national narratives in distinct but interconnected ways. Vivian Riddle taught languages and social studies in Lansing. Verna Holley taught music and helped preserve the sound of African American history. Lucy Craft Laney built an institution dedicated to educating Black students and helped shape other educators, including a young Mary McLeod Bethune. Bethune went on to turn a small school for Black girls into the institution that became an HBCU. Carter G. Woodson challenged America to teach Black history. Septima Clark used education as a weapon against disenfranchisement.
Their subjects were different. Their methods were different. Their mission was remarkably similar: teach, prepare, empower, and open the door wider for whoever comes next. And their story continues. It continues in today’s Black teachers standing before classrooms in Lansing and across America. It lives in educators who recognize potential in children who may not yet recognize it in themselves. It lives in teachers who buy classroom supplies from their own pockets, stay after school, answer one more question, and refuse to lower expectations because of a child’s ZIP code, race, or circumstances. As another school year begins, students will enter classrooms carrying backpacks filled with notebooks, pencils, and possibilities. Waiting for many of them will be a teacher. History reminds us never to underestimate who that teacher may become, or what generations may become because that teacher was there.
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