A Black Teacher in an All-white School, Trailblazing Long before MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech
Before the 1954 Supreme Court Brown decision, racial segregation was common in American schools, as was this policy in Topeka, Kansas, epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, public school boards forced African-American children to attend disparate schools encumbered by substandard facilities and located long distances from their homes, although white-only schools were nearby.
The five-decades-long injustice led to a major Supreme Court case: Oliver L. Brown et. al. v. The Board of Education of Topeka. Titanic court battles became precursors to sweeping cultural and political changes concerning race relations that followed throughout the 1960s.
Brown et al. v. Board of Education was a case that contested the Kansas statute of 1879 permitting the segregation of public elementary schools under the flawed principle of “separate but equal.” The plaintiffs argued that separate elementary schools impeded black children’s education.
The national media focus given to the Brown case and its unexpected outcome in the Supreme Court — a 9–0 verdict against school segregation — made it a legal landmark that reverberates today. The plaintiffs successfully argued that school segregation violated the “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment, which asserts that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
I had no awareness of this Supreme Court decision during my early years in elementary school, and Southwest School (now Whitson Elementary School) remained all-white, even after the watershed 1954 court decision. There is not a single individual of color in any of my annual class photos from that time. This was “school as usual” for my peers and me.
However, as we started the 6th grade, six years after the Brown decision, my class anticipated a special teacher, someone who had developed a celebrity status in our school — Mr. J. B. Holland.
A kind and erudite African-American teacher, Mr. Holland stopped by our class three times weekly to teach science. With his booming voice and jocular attitude, he commanded attention in the classroom, and his wit and clarity opened minds. We treated him with deference and respect.
Up to that point, I had been an average student, demonstrating minimal enthusiasm for classroom learning. But Mr. Holland excited a dormant zeal for science; he set fire to my passion for chemistry and biology. I remember memorizing obtuse anatomical terms to impress this extraordinary educator and win his encouragement.
I was not alone in my reactions to Mr. Holland, as documented through historical information about the all-black Monroe Elementary School, the focal point of the Brown decision:
J. B. Holland might have been one of the “supreme” black teachers of Topeka. Frank Wilson served as principal in the newly-integrated Whitson Elementary School over Holland, who had once been principal of Monroe Elementary School. Wilson praised Holland as “one of the most outstanding teachers I had ever come across.” He also said that parents were eager to get their children into a class with Mr. Holland because of his reputation as an entertaining and motivating instructor.
Growing up in a hotbed of racial divisiveness, I nevertheless owe my lifelong passion for learning to a man who lived daily with veiled and obvious Jim Crow realities everywhere in Topeka but inside his magical classroom.
Now I am sadly aware that when Mr. Holland departed school every day to return home, he drove to his segregated neighborhood far away, probably enduring other typical Jim Crow animosities and indignities. That was the Topeka of my youth.
Nevertheless, many of my peers received stimulating and inspiring lessons in life from Mr. Holland and owe his memory a debt of gratitude. From subsequent adult conversations with classmates, I know that Mr. Holland was an influential early mentor to most of us in our educational journey. He is a forgotten teacher superhero who personified Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality.
Others growing up elsewhere had positive formative experiences because of African-American mentors: coaches, ministers, college educators, physicians, civic leaders, professional athletes, Hollywood actors, and, of course, Martin Luther King.
I encourage anyone who grew up during the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to reflect upon their own discoveries and awakenings that were nurtured by African-American heroes, personal and public. Please share your memories.
My story about this trailblazing teacher has been permanently encapsulated as an oral history in the Library of Congress, my witness to one of the significant bellwether events of the American Civil Rights Movement.
