Spotlight on Black History More Beautiful When Personal

From Left to Right Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, Booker T. Washington.
Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman and Frederick Doughlas

The spotlight on Black History is more beautiful when it is personal. It was May 1957.  It was springtime in Kentucky and the family headed north.  There were two ceremonies to attend with two of the family honored. The first stop would be the Lincoln Institute, named for President Abraham Lincoln. The second stop would be the Kentucky State College.

Lincoln Institute was a boarding school for (colored) high school students.  The disintegration of integration had not yet arrived.  Lincoln had come into existence early in the century because of the Day Law, named for sponsoring legislator, Carl Day.

Carl Day had discovered black and white children attending school together in Berea, Kentucky in the early 1900’s.  He was outraged.  As a member of the Kentucky House, he sponsored legislation making it illegal for blacks and whites to be in public school, together.

The Day Law, was "an Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School," was signed into law in the Commonwealth of Kentucky by Governor J.C.W. Beckham in March 1904. The Day Law, named after Breathitt Countian Carl Day who introduced the bill in the Kentucky House of Representatives, prohibited students of color from attending the same school as white students. Also, they could not attend schools less than twenty-five miles from a whites-only school.

Because of this legislation, it was necessary for my father Clyde Crawford Jr. and his siblings to attend the Lincoln Institute.  The only (colored) schools available only went to eighth grade.  My grandfather Clyde Crawford, Sr. was the principal of one county (colored) school and my grandmother Maude Estil Crawford was a teacher in the bordering county (colored) school. 

Emma Jean Crawford

My father, Clyde Crawford, Jr. and his brother, Oscar Crawford graduated from Lincoln in 1948, number one and number three in their class.  Sister Emma Jean Crawford would be the family honoree in May of 1957.

Dr. Samuel Morris gave the baccalaureate address at Lincoln on that May morning.  At the conclusion of his speech, Dr. Morris said, “You have heard nothing until you hear the speaker at Kentucky State’s graduation this afternoon.”

That afternoon my grandmother Maude Estil Crawford received her Bachelors in Teacher Education from Kentucky State College.  The speaker did not give the usual commencement address.  This one was different.

Maude Estil Crawford

He stood up with the deep sound of a southern Black Baptist Preacher in his voice.  He preached the audience happy to shouting standing on their feet.  They were prompting this pulpit soldier to go on and say it, Reverend! 

Two of our family’s great ones received honors that day.  There would be a Crawford at Lincoln Institute and Kentucky State from 1944 until 1961.  My brother Ronnie Crawford and I picked up the mantle again in 1973.  Our family believes is deeply invested in education as the pathway up to personal and professional development.

The most memorable day seems to have been that day back in 1957, in a public school gymnasium packed to capacity because the king was in town.  The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the speaker that day and the family still speaks of it after all these years. The spotlight on Black History is more beautiful when it is personal.