Every day this month, the Center for Black Educator Development, in partnership with Education Post and Philly’s 7th Ward, will highlight a Black Educator Hall of Famer.
But, don’t forget, e’ry month is Black History Month and February is just the Blackest. All year are ongoing opportunities to learn and teach and the colossal impact Black educators have had on society.
Today, our featured Black educator is Henry Alexander Hunt Jr.
Henry Alexander Hunt Jr. was born in Sparta, Georgia on October 10, 1866. He was born to farmers, the youngest of eight children. He was biracial; his father was white and his mother was African-American. Although his appearance made it so that he could pass as white, Hunt never denied his Blackness and dedicated his life and professional career to supporting and lifting African-American people.
As a young child, he worked with his family on his farm, “spending his earliest years, chopping, cotton, hoeing, potatoes, dropping corn and shell peanuts, and peas for planting, himself said that he ‘learned very early in life the hardships that beset darkies on small, rundown farms.’” His experiences working on his family farm would shape his outlook on life and his career.
He attended and graduated from Atlanta University with a bachelor’s degree in arts in 1890, beginning at age 16. He met his wife on the campus of Atlanta University, the former Florence Johnson, whom he married in 1893. Once he graduated from Atlanta, he had a job lined up on the continent of Africa yet he turned it down to remain in the south.
He left Atlanta to work as a principal at the Charlotte Common Grade School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Following his tenure there, he became business manager and director of trades at Biddle University in Charlotte. His work in North Carolina, heavily revolved around Black farmers; gaining their trust and respect because of his work.
That work caught the attention of white northern philanthropists, who persuaded him to leave Charlotte to return to Georgia to help start the Fort Valley High Industrial School, which would become Fort Valley State University. Hunt brought the same passion and dedication to Black farmers that he had with him in Charlotte.
Under Hunt’s leadership, much of the physical footprint of the campus took form and the curriculum was radically transformed to focus primarily on industrial and agricultural education. Hunt used the school’s growth to promote social and economic progress for African Americans and became a nationally recognized champion of their advancement in progress. Hunt and his teachers brought scientific farming to many Black farmers in Georgia through the curriculum of Fort Valley State.
Hunt caught the attention of state and federal policymakers. The governor of Georgia appointed Hunt to be the supervisor of Negro Economics in Georgia. During the Great Depression, Hunt was called by President Roosevelt to work with his administration to address the plight of Black farmers. Hunt was part of the infamous Black cabinet of Franklin Roosevelt— of whom W.E.B. DuBois took much of the credit for Hunter’s appointment. DuBois said he “knew of no one in the United States, who had such wide and intimate knowledge of the black rural self and such devoted, personal interest and its betterment.”
Additionally, Hunt was responsible for establishing the Flint River Farms cooperative for Black farmers, and getting Blacks to form credit unions. Henry Alexander Hunt was a champion of Black farmers and Black education.
Henry Alexander Hunt; a member of the Black Educator Hall of Fame.
For more information on Henry Alexander Hunt, visit the following site.
