Nash reflects on the implementation of Mississippi’s statewide public education system

• Whether by luck or simple coincidence or divine inspiration, Governor Alcorn signed the education legislation into law on July 4, 1870.

Editor’s Note: What follows is an excerpt from the new book Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862-1877, by Jere Nash, that was published this month by the University Press of Mississippi as part of their Heritage of Mississippi Series.

Lieutenant Governor Ridgley Powers greeted the members of the Senate on Tuesday, March 8, 1870, when the Legislature reassembled to conduct business and attend the inauguration of Mississippi’s first Republican governor, James L. Alcorn.  Powers shared some optimism with his colleagues: “Our political status, which has been so long a source of anxiety and doubt, is at last fixed by the readmission of the State into the fold of the Union and the restoration of civil law.  For the next five months, the Legislature began the painstaking task of writing laws, developing budgets, and approving programs to address the needs of a state still recovering from the devastating war.

As for the one new program the Legislature would enact, the newly adopted Constitution resolved whether or not Mississippi would have a statewide system of public education for all white and Black students. The question was what would it look like.

Even by today’s standards, the task was daunting: create nearly from scratch a comprehensive and statewide system of public education. In the winter of 1870, though, the state was still recovering from the War’s destruction. The few school buildings that survived were a far cry from what was needed to educate all of the eligible children. Teachers had to be recruited and trained. Grading, curriculum, salary schedules, and reporting systems had to be prescribed. A funding mechanism had to be developed and implemented. Land had to be obtained and buildings erected, and governance issues had to be resolved. In addition, the state government would be educating Black students, a first in the history of the state.

The framework for the new system was developed by Henry R. Pease, the State Superintendent of Public Education. Originally from Connecticut, and as a former teacher and administrator, Pease had come to Mississippi to work in the Freedmen Schools. He submitted his report and recommendations on March 26, 1870, which were incorporated into legislation designated as House Bill 352 and referred to the Education Committee.

In his recommendations, Pease outlined a system that is fundamentally the same one Mississippi uses today: a state superintendent, based in Jackson, would coordinate the work at every local district; each county would form a district, though a municipality could establish a separate district; a local board would govern the county or municipal district, including the hiring of teachers, acquiring and furnishing the facilities, and setting the curricula and standards; each district would be headed by a superintendent; and county supervisors would be required to levy a local property tax to pay for the district’s operations, with supplemental funding from the state.  

Of the hundreds of details that had to be worked out, ultimately, two would consume the most debate: go fast or go slow, and segregate or integrate.  In early May, Governor Alcorn weighed in on both issues, with a special message to the Legislature, making the case against implementing a comprehensive system all in the first year, while making the case for an explicit provision to require the separation of the races. A prosperous Coahoma County farmer before the War, Alcorn knew ramping up a full-scale system of public schools would be expensive and he doubted it was something the state could afford, especially given the other demands on the treasury. As for his argument that Black children and white children should attend separate schools, he knew what the average white Mississippian would tolerate, and sending his or her children to an integrated classroom was not one of them. Consequently, he was unwilling to jeopardize the entire education program on that one point. A conservative at heart, his instincts were to go slow, taking changes to public policy one step at a time, though that was certainly not the prevailing spirit among Republicans at the Legislature.

Nothing threatened the status of white Mississippians more than the education of Black Mississippians. Both white and Black knew education was essential in casting an informed vote, negotiating labor contracts, becoming landowners, accessing the legal system, and managing the everyday affairs of one’s family.  For white Democrats, resigned to the establishment of a statewide public school system, the key to creating a legal inequality between the races was to separate the races. That formed the heart of white supremacy in the years following the War, a way of life that became known as Jim Crow. The first, and easily the most important, battle in that long war in Mississippi was whether the new school legislation would allow Black and white children to attend the same classrooms.

The struggle began on Tuesday, June 7, when HB 352 was approved by the Education Committee and set for special order of the day on the floor of the House of Representatives. By Friday afternoon, legislators had worked their way through forty-eight sections of the bill, only to come to Section 49, the one that prohibited segregated schools. A Democrat offered an amendment to require each school board to “lay down such rules and regulations for the distribution of scholars of the district as shall avoid any mixing of white and colored children.” A Republican countered with a substitute that merely allowed the boards “of each district shall be authorized to establish schools to meet the wants or the different conditions of the children.” After both amendments lost, the House adjourned for the weekend.  When the House resumed business on Tuesday, June 14, Section 49 was still before the members. Another Democrat tried a different approach, letting each school board set its own policy. That amendment was defeated. Finally, the Democrats convinced enough white Republicans to join them in approving an amendment to just delete the entire section. Hence, the legislation would be silent on the thorny subject. Worn out and on edge, the House approved the final bill by a vote of 48-22 and adjourned at 6:15 that evening.

A week later, on Tuesday, June 21, the full Senate began consideration of the historic legislation. Seven days later, the senators remained at an impasse on the two issues Alcorn had raised several months earlier. And that’s when Lieutenant Governor Ridgley Powers used his position as presiding officer of the Senate to address his colleagues. Unlike the governor, Powers, a native of Ohio, had arrived in Mississippi only after the War, in which he served in the Union Army. He acquired a plantation in east Mississippi and joined the Republican Party to campaign for the adoption of the new Constitution, which earned him a position on the 1869 Republican ticket as lieutenant governor. On both points, Powers offered a stark alternative to Alcorn’s viewpoint: “It is true, it will require a large amount of money to establish and maintain a system of public schools throughout the state, but it will cost more not to do so. Schoolhouses and colleges are not so expensive buildings as jails and prisons. But there is another obstacle that stands in the way of carrying the provisions of the bill before us into effect: I can see some reason for refusing to ride in the same steamboat, or for declining to sit in the same assembly with drunkards, gamblers, robbers, and murderers; but to refuse to come into such proximity with men because they happened to bear a different complexion from my own would be to acknowledge a mean prejudice, unworthy of an age of intelligence. The time has passed for estimating a man by the color of his skin rather than by the qualities of his heart, or the strength of his intellect.”

After hearing the Powers’ speech, the Senate approved the legislation, implementing a statewide system of schools all in the first year. As for the troublesome Section 49, the senators found a way to make almost everyone happy. They opened the section with a ringing endorsement of a color-blind classroom, and then later in the paragraph, they provided a way around the color-blind classroom by authorizing a local school board to establish a separate school in the district if the parents of at least twenty-five children of legal school age petition the board with that request. That political compromise generated only five “no” votes on the final passage of the bill. The House quickly concurred with the Senate amendments and sent the bill to the governor.

Whether by luck or simple coincidence or divine inspiration, Governor Alcorn signed the education legislation into law on July 4, 1870.