Classic English Literature
Introduction
Getting nominated for the “Hall of Fame” is a great recognition and honor for any American. The origin of its conception has great relevance in the context of equality, justice, freedom, and respect for human values. It is in the 1890s, that the Rev. Henry MacCracken, president of New York State University, took it upon himself to build a Hall of Fame. It was the brainchild of this visionary who had concerns for prostitution, democracy and the Roman Empire that culminated in a "Parnassus" - a centre of importance.
Background Information on the Hall of Fame
The Hall of Fame, Mac Cracken reasoned, was intended to attract prospective students and national respect. As a democratic institution, it would offer free admission and accept nominees for enshrinement from the public. Its chief aim, however, was to create a pantheon of heroes that could serve as a force for unity, integrity, solidarity, and discipline in a country still divided by the Civil War. In this background, the hall came to be made up of a six hundred and thirty foot-long open-air colonnade, with bronze busts of ninety eight dead Americans, from George to Booker T. Washington. Hence this heritage building derived its unique and unparalleled significance from patriotic values and ethos tinged with a nationalistic flavor.It stood for primacy of intellect and character.
This structure designed by Stanford White is made up of a semicircular arc of the Neo-Classical age with wings flanking its sides.There are sixteen Irish green marble columns, a ceiling adorned with Tiffany glass, and a mosaic floor. Along the pathway of the colonnade, there are ninety eight bronze busts that are original handiworks of illustrated and highly distinguished sculptors of America. Further, the inscription made at the bottom of each bust deals with invaluable contributions and important statements of the women and men who were richly honored.
A blue-ribbon committee of a hundred Americans took nominations and, by election, decided on members for the hall. True fame, it was decided, lives far longer than the flesh. Members could be elected only after they had been dead for twenty five years.
The people enshrined here were not celebrities in the contemporary sense. They were people of letters, wo/men of affairs.The Hall of Fame includes writers from Whitman to Thoreau, the Wright brothers and Thomas Edison, Generals Lee and Grant (side by side), the doctor who conquered yellow fever, and thirteen presidents. In a truly democratic spirit, any American could nominate someone for induction, as long as the candidate was a U.S. citizen. Nominees needed sixty votes to get in.
Background of African-American Female
As one reads about these stalwarts enshrined in the Hall of Fame, an inescapable fact emerges.Though the process of nomination was democratic enough , there were very few nominations of women. Did it have to do with the culture of the nineteenth century, when keeping house was considered as the one occupation which was fit for women ? Even as we step into the twentieth century, along the history of the Hall of Fame, a dearth of female representation is obvious.Then, as we read about the mentors,strategists, theoreticians, and formal leaders in the course of American history, the dominance of males listed in the history books is glaring. While it is debatable to discuss how sexism limited women’s possibilities in the early twentieth century, it is logical to infer that women remained the unsung heroines in history.
What hope then, does a relatively insignificant African- American woman who was born a slave, have to be placed amidst the greats in the Hall of Fame? But, this is exactly what this paper seeks to do. Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland, bears her name, but Fanny Jackson Coppin was more than just a statue on the university’s grounds.
Born a slave in 1837, Washington, D.C., Fanny Jackson was fortunate to have, Sarah Orr Clark, her aunt. She bought freedom for Fanny for $125.This was Fanny’s ticket to freedom, to the Rhode Island,to a new life , to a new future that even she couldn’t have foreseen. Enraged by the statement of the antebellum Senator, John C Calhoun who made alleged intellectual inferiority of Blacks the justification of slavery,a young Fanny decided to get an education and a voice for her people. The commitment that education be linked with service to the race was perhaps among her first resolutions that sought to uplift the coloreds from their unvoiced, unnamed miseries.
Cared for by Calverts as their own child, young Fanny blossomed.They sent her to Rhode Island Normal School, a school to train teachers. She even took private lessons in French and became the organist for the Colored Union Church of Newport. Her frequent childhood ailments cleared up in due course .Articulate and intelligent, Fanny showed signs of a genius-beyond her age, and apparently, beyond her sex and station in those times.
After Normal School, Jackson entered Oberlin College. She excelled and was commissioned to teach at Oberlin’s Preparatory Department, a program that included evening classes for freed slaves. This would begin her long career in education. After Oberlin, Jackson went back east to Philadelphia. She was made principal of the Ladies Department at the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth, becoming the first African-American woman principal in the country. As an active member of the African-American community, Jackson’s presence was expected at many events. It was at one of these events she would meet her husband, Bishop Levi J. Coppin.
Her Struggle and Challeneges in Life
Faced with the challenges of the past history of her race and the burden of her gender, Fanny went on to earn a collegiate degree, the first ever by any Black woman in the history of America. And it was for her race that she earned it. In her reminiscences, Fanny recalls an instance when she was called upon to recite , she felt as if she had the “honor of the whole African race upon her shoulders (Jackson 18).” If she had failed, she adds “it would have been ascribed to the fact that I was coloured (Jackson 15).” A noteworthy fact is that she was never troubled by her gender, the traditionally greater oppressed one of the two. Her attendance was reported in a popular daily.A Black Woman student attending classes was a matter of surprise. A worthy accolade to her merit, Fanny went on to be chosen as the first Black student teacher in the Preparatory Department of Oberlin College. The amount of surprise and comment her sojourn at Oberlin generated sculpted Jackson’s philosophy about education. She established that circumstances and not intellectual inferiority prohibited intellectual learning in most Blacks. The year 1865 saw Jackson move to the Institute for Colored Youth and just four years later, its Principal. This was the first time that in American history that a colored woman was heading an institute of higher learning. But this was just the beginning of a series of challenges that will mark her life as an educationist and champion of the coloreds. Concerned with the lack of training opportunities and skills amongst the colored community plunged her into community activities.She found her voice through the Christian Recorder, a newspaper that reached the heart of South and raised funds for various Black Community activities. Employment opportunities for Black Women also consumed Jackson’s energies and thought but her one focus was emancipation of the coloreds through sacrifice of personal gains , as is evident in her own words –
You can do much to alleviate the condition of our people. Do not be discouraged .The very places where you are needed most are those where you will get the least pay (“The Philadelphia Press”).
So, her philanthropic interests propelled her into extreme hard work, abolition of tuition to help marginalized negroes, and paying rent as well as housing students in her own house. This also included working for the aged and infirm as well as missionary work spread over a span of forty years . “Heed life’s demands(Jackson 7) “ was Fanny’s motto for life and educational philosophy ,dedicated to the upliftment of her race.She stressed on the importance of basic necessities for a fruitful life for all, especially the coloreds. These needs meant education , to begin with and went on to encompass learning skills for employability and living with dignity.Thus, her strengths channelized into active pursuits of building character, and innovating in the face of opposition.
Justification of Her Contribution Through Some References
Writing to Fredrick Douglass in 1877 on the purpose of education as she viewed it -
this is my desire to see my race lifted out of the mire of ignorance, weakness and degradation:no longer to be the fog end of the American rabble; to sit in obscure corners in public places and devour the scraps of public knowledge which his superiors fling him . I want to see him erect himself about the untoward circumstances of his life. I want to see him crowned with strength and dignity; adorned with the enduring grace of intellectual attainments and a love of manly deeds and downright honesty.( Jackson)
As Fanny Jackson Coppin addressed The World Congress of Representative Women in 1893, she spoke candidly about the marginalization of Black Women within the women suffrage and temperance movements. She voiced the need of Black Women to ‘know’ and ‘be’ more than was deemed ‘realistic’ or ‘useful’ for them. It is important to note that she was one of the only six colored women chosen to speak at this historic occasion.
The impact of her contributions, however, was not limited to just the coloreds. A University bearing her name testifies to her greatness as a human being, as an upholder of ideals, and as an example for an entire race. In her memory, a teacher training school in Baltimore was named the “Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School.” That school is now Coppin State University.
Building hope in the face of obstacles and rejuvenating an entire race in four decades is a contribution that remains largely unparalled in the history of American Education, and even more so in the history that documents triumphs of Colored women.
In this context, a question rises as to what it takes to enter the books of history? Does it require special qualities , other than possessed by whites who sit in chapters of books? Or is the color of skin - the meter and the touchstone for greatness? This fact has found a voice in the following words:
The use of biographical material bearing on the negro has been neglected for two reasons-In the first place, little thought has been given to the study of the Negro in most of our schools. The Negro is still a negligible factor in the thought of most citizens--of this and other nations. Here and there are reported places that have become aware of the necessity of teaching the Negro out of his [sic]own background, but the attitude is not yet general, not among the Negroes themselves (Roy &Turner 77).
Conclusion
Based on the aforesaid description, interpretation, exploration, and explanation of Fanny Jackson Coppin, a noteworthy African- American Female, it can be justifiably concluded that all these inputs provide enough reasons to believe that she deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. But, some devastating and discriminatory questions that perplex our insights and conscience are: a) Is gender still detrimental in deciding about nominees to the Hall of Fame ?
b) If not what is the reason for limited female representation in this elitist community?
c) Shall the works of Fanny Jackson Coppin go unnoticed because she comes from a society that has been traditionally marginalized?
d) Is her color a drawback – an opposing force propelling her into the obscurity of history?
e) Should she be cast into oblivion?
Based on the questions raised, it emerges that the answers to all these questions will end up as negatives in the context of 21st century. Today, democracy means equality and has a human face. It is the hallmark of a gloabalized environment.We have come to see women occupying positions of responsibility and doing justice to them. So, any discrimination in the name of color is a crime against humanity, a crime against merit and against hope. It becomes all the more significant in a country that boasts of a president of Black origin. All these factors provide ample arguments in favour of the exhortation that she rightfully deserves a place in the Hall of Fame.
Works Cited
- Carby,H. Reconstructing Womanhood : The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. Oxford. Oxford University Press.1987.
- essortment: Your Source For Knowledge. Fanny Jackson Coppin. Demand Media. 4 Nov. 2011. Web. 1 May 2013.
- Jackson, C. Fanny. Reminiscences of School Life and Hints on Teaching. Philadelphia: AME Book Concern,1913.
- Loewenberg, J. Bert & Bogin, Ruth. Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life: Their Words, Their Thoughts, Their Feelings. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1976
- Roy, J.H. & Turner, G.C. Pioneers of Long Ago. Washington D.C.: The Associated Publishers.1951.
