By N. P. Franklin
From the Emancipation through Reconstruction, the Jim Crow years and civil segregation, inequality was the accepted social order in America’s cities and rural communities; in businesses and public facilities, transportation, in the churches where the God was worshiped and in the schools where the minds of the generation and the prosperity of the nation were cultivated, it was how you chose to receive, believe and react to it that determined the path and height of your destiny to fulfill.
Herbert and Herman Franklin began their formal education when they enrolled in the May’s Lick Negro School in the fall of 1941. America was at war, three older brothers would soon be across the seas fighting for the freedom of the world against an evil axis of world powers determined to subjugate the masses under their brand of the ‘superior race’, and they began their education in a segregated school system, separate and inherently unequal in a society that propagated a similar social order.
‘Racism was relaxed in this rural community, inbred through obedience, discipline, and being careful not to disrupt the social order, and respect for authority,’ said Herbert and Herman Franklin during a recent interview at the old school occasioned by the Franklin Family Reunion held at the new May’s Lick Community Center and Fire Station in July, 2010. ‘We were taught to function within the system, learn what was important to prepare one for the world in which one would live ’, they said.
‘It is peculiar that white kids and black kids could willingly play children frivolity during the summer and at evenings, but when time for school, they willingly went to their respective institutions; children could play at night together, and in the morning stand side by side waiting for their separate school buses, knowing that they would be going along the same route to different schools, one superior to the other,’ Herman Franklin reflected.
The old Negro School, officially closed in 1961, set vacant for a few years but was later acquired by a private investor who turned it into an auction house. During those years, the exterior was refaced and interior walls removed to accommodate its use for public auctions. In 2007 the old school house and surrounding land was deeded to the May’s Lick Community Development, a 501 c 3 corporation. A new fire house and community center were built on the site. Plans are to turn the old school building, remarkably preserved by the exterior additions made by the auction house owner, into a museum showcasing its history, school days stories of the era’s struggles and triumphs, oral histories by some of its former students and teachers, pictures and other memorabilia to preserve the heritage and the glory of the experience.
In the setting of the old school house, and in some of the old desk chairs for added ambiance, Herbert and Herman Franklin spent an hour away from the activities of the family reunion to reminisce of the school days at the old Negro school and recall some history from the era of segregated America. They entered the first grade in a segregated school system and graduated from college in a segregated school system. They graduated from Kentucky State University with Bachelors Degrees in Agriculture. The retired educators were not bound the inherent injustices of the school system nor defined by the implications of their circumstances. Both earned doctorate degrees is the field of education.
Life was not easy in America during the world war II years and doubly so for rural communities with its young men gone off the farms and onto the battle fields of Europe and the Pacific Island, but for African Americans you must add another multiplying factor because of the limited opportunities relegated by the color of their skin.
‘It was a rural economy,’ Dr. Herman Franklin said,’ tenant farming was how you made your living; young boys, usually beginning in the sixth grade, were expected to help harvest the fall crops.’ Consequently, it was not uncommon to take longer than eight years to complete eight grades. In some cases, the sons of tenant farmers may require ten years.
‘If you were big enough to help in the fields during the summer, you were expected to help out with the fall harvest,’ Dr. Herbert Franklin added. You were required to enroll the first day of school, and then leave school to work in the harvest of the fall crops. Most often the harvest was not complete until October. The school year began the day after Labor Day, by the time that the harvest was completed, you were 30 days behind in your school work. There were no take home assignments, no remedial classes; upon returning to school after the harvest, you were expected to be at the same place in the textbook as the class that had been in daily attendance and study since enrolling is September.
Most parents, victims of the era, had little formal education. They could help with some reading, but were not able to offer a lot of help with math or science. But an education was valued, with out it you were relegated to a life as a tenant farmer; with it, professional opportunities were often limited to agriculture- cooperative extension services, or teaching; these were the job opportunities open to Black people in the then socio-economic environment. Many families emphasized that their children attend school at least through the eighth grade. ‘As a result, a form of social passing could emerge’, Dr. Herman Franklin observed. ‘ For if it is emphasized that you must go through the eighth grade, some dropped out mentally, showing up everyday physically until completing the eighth grade.’
Their parents understood, themselves with less than an eighth grade education, what would happen to one going into a world with less than an eighth grade education, considering that the world was moving beyond the capability of one with that level of education to grasp the available opportunities that would afford a comfortable lifestyle.
‘It opens ones eyes,’ Dr. Herman Franklin said, concerning the contrast of life’s opportunities with an education and one without. ‘If they are insisting that I go to school, and I see other people who didn’t do what they are telling me to do, and I see what they are doing, and I don’t want to do that, our motivation, mine, I decided I didn’t want to be a farmer,’ he said.
But studying agriculture in college would seem that you are preparing yourself to do what you did not want to do. ‘ For us, agriculture was a steppingstone to other opportunities because it was a liberal education. It was close to farming, but agriculture provided a much broader opportunity than just tilling the soil,’ they concurred.
While they both earned Bachelor Degrees in Agriculture, Herman went to Tuskegee University to earn a Masters in Agriculture because he received a full graduate assistantship, but Herbert earned a Masters is Education from the University of Louisville. They earned the Ph.D. and the Ed.D. in the field of education respectively.
Dr. Herbert Franklin retired as the Superintendent of Jefferson Township Local Schools, Dayton, Ohio and now lives in Union, Ky. Dr. Herman Franklin retired as Senior Vice President, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland and now resides in Salisbury, Maryland.
Go to http://www.mayslick.com/the-mays-lick-negro-school to comment, review pictures of the era or to contact a committee member.
