Pages from Arkansas' Past; Ignorance Is Evil: The Charlotte Stephens Story

This program was made possible by special funding from Kappa state Delta Kappa Gamma Education Foundation. It's good morning. I really like sitting on the porch early on a spring morning enjoying God's magnificent nature don't you. I am Charlotte Andrew's statement and this is my story. It

began in 1854 the year I was born. It is a story of how I transcended slavery to become the first black teacher in the Little Rock public school system. While I talked longer than any other teacher black or what I had taught was 70 years in the same school district. Join me now as that tail you muster. On the other side of this fence is man Richard school. It's a boarding in day school for young girls. When I'm done with my chores our mama needs to go pick up some. And I come here to and Charlotte sounds to play. I play for a long while but mostly I like to look over

the spirits and watch the young ladies in their pretty dresses remain their books more than anything else I want to be a teacher. I want to write books too. But most of our I want to teach. You see I can read. It's a secret so don't you tell anybody. Lots of states have laws that make it illegal for black people to learn to read. Arkansas and Tennessee don't. But most of the white people don't want us to learn to read. They think it might make us not madam. In fact it makes them real nervous. My name is Charlotte. Everybody calls me lidy Pappas name is William Andrews and my mom's name is Caroline. You came here before Arkansaw was even a state. This momma was a slave and she belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Chester and they all came to Arkansas from St. Genevieve Missouri in the 12:42 Mr. Ashley was real busy being a law in bend up land in Little Rock. He lived nice things

and built a big pretty house where they were always in a tiny boat. He had tutors for his children. Business as he had been teaching papa to read write and do some figuring. When he guessed the tunas help him too. Papa was very religious. His dream was to be a preacher because he was a black man he can be or day learn how to row you rather to the meadows all roads lead to where they couldn't ordain him until after the Civil War ended in 18 but actually his donated land in 1854 for us to build our own church. Papa was the founder. I have intended there all my life. The story gets kind of complicated. Different families oh my parents most lies if they married a slave from another plantation didn't get to live together as a family.

We all got to live together. You say Mama were barren clothes for townsfolk and guest at the Anthony household tale. She paid her own or ten dollars a month. That was what they thought she would be worth a month on the plantation. We called it hiring now if Mama may more than $10. She was allowed to keep the extra when Mom was only a dad that was still his property so he wheeled me to his son when I was 7 years old a man came and took me away from our family. They were trying to me to be a housemate. The man's wife sure wasn't grouchy yo woman. I only had to stay with them two years. The SO war started in 1961. I had no idea but imaginings were about to start coming true. 1863 the Union soldiers took over Little Rock and we were emancipated you know set free. It was only now. But as soon as the soldiers and papa and one of his friends came to bring me back

home to my family we met each other on the road. The man who had owned me was taking me back home to mom and pop. Freedom was glorious. One Monday after the soldiers came the doors to papas church were pushed open and papa began his go it was the first black school in Arkansas maybe even in the south. It would be two years before that or after that rather before the war when papa asked for 25 cents a week and for each person to bring a book to school everybody wanted to learn to read. I remember a grandmother come in in her Bible with clutched tightly in her hands crying and she said

that she would be happy if all she ever learned were the sweet name of Jesus. I never thought I'd be able to go to school like the girls on the other side of. And Charlotte's been suddenly at the age and then my journeys were no longer dreams they were reality. Fruits was poured into Little Rock in 10 years the town grew from twenty seven hundred to more than 12000. We needed many teachers missionaries came in and took over the schools. My favorite teacher was Mrs Allen because of her I wanted to be a teacher more than I had ever wanted before. Not everyone could afford the 25 cents that papa was having to charge for school. His dream was to have free black schools as well as free was to accomplished is he went to Chicago to see

a group of black businessmen with papa's help. They had been able to escape from Murat several years earlier. I saw the grief in his face when he returned and shared his disappointment with this his friends had been know him. When the war ended papa became a real minister because of the abolition of slavery. The message is church ordained him for a trial period. Things didn't change in our house because of it. He was already a very religious man and made us walk a straight line. God always came first. His job as a Methodist preacher was to set up churches where they were needed from Van Buren to Pamela in the Arkansas River. Fan is saying Jennings Methodist Church in PA 7

Papa never saw the church they built but still there today. In July 1866 we received word that he had died there. Mom I rented. I went again and raced over there missing the funeral. Things at home work very hard without papa. So mom assumed from a 16 year old brother John he was the principal at the school. Papa started in their beard. John returned and immediately went to work at the brick factory.

Seven weeks later he died from a heatstroke and was very near our home and Mount Holly cemetery. Mom had to work even harder. After two years she married Omer heel a blacksmith. She stopped doing other people's ironing but still kept a boarder or two just so she would have her own pocket money. In 1869 three years after papa stive his dream came true. Blacks were less given free public schools. The only qualified teachers will lie but they were truly concerned about it. During the springtime of that year one of the teachers became very ill. Since I was the most advanced student in school they asked me to be the Serbs do. When I saw that she was too sick to return to hire me Lottie Andrews to teach the class for the

rest of the Year at the age of 15 hours a teacher my dream had come true. I was little rock stars teacher. Mr Hero my stepfather he wasn't very happy about all this. He tried to get mama to discourage me. He thought the teachers were the laziest most awful people he had ever seen. He changes Mal when he saw my first paycheck of $70. That is more than I could have ever made of being a house maid for six whole months. I help with family expenses and manage to save enough money to go to college for a year. In the fall of 1870 I will be leaving to a team in Oberlin College. With two friends I boarded and trying in hit toward Ohio. I was

disappointed I was allowed to sit with them because my skin was too dark. Life in Overland was wonderful but the weather wasn't during the winter I got a cough that wouldn't go away. Must've been clothes and shoes weren't warm enough for those harsh Ohio into the doctors told me that I should not come back for I my great consumption and consumption was what they called tuberculosis. I came home and rioted I had to return anyway. My goodness that we believe we're going to have a brain. Yeah Henri. I simply could not give up my dream of having a real education. So I went for summer and fall sessions and came home at Christmas before the weather worsened my job here in Little Rock was waiting for me. Upon my return to overland in the summer of 1873

I realized I would be able to finish with my friends man which I had been avoiding when I could. It was becoming too hard not to have a tutor. The expense was become impossible. Why it costs $50 just for the train ride to Oberlin. You can use this shower for my garden after hours of talking to the Lord like papa would do when he was trouble. I knew it was time to devote myself to help in advance my rights. I could hear Papa saying ignorance is all. Yeah but you should we've talked to. Mark learn to read so that we will be able to know what happened then and there and help

you can the Lord battle them by using your mind. I used my mind by using my experiences to create new activities for my church. Wesley Chapel. I started are you on Monday night. We did just assigned gave testimony and read by one put on. And when we realize people would pay to attend our programs we charged admission to raise money for the church even though we were in church. I was still teaching Shakespeare and other famous Officeworks because I use Google readers to write our play. They said submissions became important to our community because there

was a dire need for recreational activities. I wasn't much of a musician but I became the church organist at Westlake Jabal. My goodness the people sang louder than I play. They were rejoicing in the lowered soul out me they couldn't hear madness stay pop about a piano when I was young and insisted I learn. So when I went to Oberlin I studied music in addition to my trade and history Evidences of Christianity biblical antiquities elocution and rhetoric and Latin and. On the morning after I had completed my first year of teaching told little girl stood on my front

porch and upped my slot. They say my mama doesn't want me to forget my learning. So she said for you to listen to my lessons. Well from that time on I hail summer school. Some folks pay me from a nickel to 15 cents a week. If they could I never turn anybody away because of his or her inability to pay. I was a teacher and they wanted what I could get. They wanted to learn. I had adults and children in those summer schools. I remember one summer I had so many pupils that we had to have school

in that backyard smoke gas. My race had been denied learning Salo that most of them didn't want to miss out on it four years after my permanent return to Little Rock. I married John Herbert Stevens a carpenter I continued teaching both my Sunday school class and public school classes. After we married I took an eight months leave when our first child was born with the other seven children. Though I didn't take that long. And all eyes fit 70 years in Little Rock's schools 30 of those were in grades 1 through 8. My favorites were the third and eighth grades in the third. The children are just old enough to have become interested in

books but they are not yet incest in the eighth grades they begin to realize the importance of getting an education. And some have been weeded out. I spent another 30 years teaching Latin and English in high school. I spent my last 10 years as a librarian at Dunbar high school and junior college. The only one of its kind in the country. Once black colleges were organized in the state at poll for a couple of summers at Philander Smith. That is where my father's first church is now located. All papa would have been. So please Professor Corbin of Branch Normal in Pine Bluff kept trying to get me to come there to teach but I felt that the public schools were more important to my pupils and my people than college was at the

time. Who had a lot of rain this afternoon but we certainly needed it. During my 40th year as an educator in the Little Rock school's black grammar school was named Stevens go in on October 8th 1950 a modern brick building was dedicated and given my name. I was present and took part in the ceremony. Oh I have had a glorious life. I was 85 years old when I retired in

1939. I was the fifth teacher to retire on the Arkansas teacher retirement system. Except for publishing a book that's the man that all of my life's goals were realized. Then again I did write a few magazine articles. So I suppose that makes me a publicist. I am dead before him.

If Charlotte Stephens could see what kind of school her name appears on today she would probably feel overwhelming pride in Little Rock Arkansas at 30 700 West 18th Street that 75000 square feet of tools for students to fight ignorance. Stevens Elementary is a neighborhood school that opened in January 2001. Built on land donated by Mrs. Stevens many years ago. The new school replaces a smaller building that was dedicated in 1950 to honor Miss Lottie while most students go to class nine months out of the year. Stephen students attend for an extended year with breaks for holidays and vacations. The school day begins with a student produced broadcast from the distance learning lab. The students start with the national anthem the Pledge of Allegiance. The student creed school related announcements and

the all important lunch menu then regular classes begin. Everyone learns the basics reading writing math and science. But there is an emphasis on technology. Computer Literacy is taught to all grades pre-K through fifth Stevens Elementary is a cyber city. The definition for such a place is the idea that students will design and operate their own city within the walls of the school using the latest hardware and software. They will investigate how culture history geography economy politics and leadership impact cities special classrooms are used for special programs. The cyber time and space travel lab where students watch educational programs in a theater setting has 28 laptop computers to use as additional tools. The comparative city studies lab is used for children to do activities from the programs that are shown in the theater. There is also a library media center

there. There are enrichment programs such as Great Expectations for helping with literatura lifespan to improve basic skills with technology and strengthen the home school connection and Voyager which uses hands on learning activities before and after the school day and during vacation breaks. In addition to the basic subjects and different technologies there is an art program called Share America which is a partnership with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Music classes are definitely a part of the school day. Physical education is taught in the Stevens community center gymnasium next door to the school. Charlotte Stevens was a teacher for 70 years and wanted everyone to learn. Stevens elementary carries on with Miss Lottie's work by providing

opportunities for learning the neighborhood has a direct line to a bright future. Students begin each day with the school creed and follow its message. This

program was made possible by special funding from Kappa state Delta Kappa Gamma Education Foundation.