A Decade of Negro Extension Work, 1914-1924

Part 1

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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

MISCELLANEOUS CIRCULAR NO. 72

Washington, D. C. October, 1926

A DECADE OF NEGRO EXTENSION WORK 1914-1924

Land ownership and home improvement are vital in developing negro farm life in the South.

CONTENTS

Page

Agricultural status of the negro 1

Development of negro extension work 3

Early history 3

Order of development 6

Value of cooperative association 8

Evolution of plan 10

Growth of personnel and finances 12

Cooperation with other agencies 13

Club work by negro boys and girls 14

The movable school 15

Stories of achievement 16

Demonstration results 21

Farm demonstration work 21

Home demonstration work 24

Agents’ activities 26

Outlook 27

Statistics 28

A DECADE OF NEGRO EXTENSION WORK, 1914-1924

By O. B. MARTIN, in Charge, Southern States, Office of Cooperative Extension Work

AGRICULTURAL STATUS OF THE NEGRO

Part 2

Home ownership is the largest factor in the solution of the so-called negro problem. Cooperative extension work, especially since the comprehensive organization of negro extension agents, has been one of the greatest influences in encouraging and helping negroes to become landowners and to succeed with land investments. Energetic negroes soon learn thrift and have the ability to become good demonstrators.

FIG. 1.—Negro home remodeled and beautified according to plans and suggestions furnished by the negro extension agent. Home ownership and improved living conditions are important factors in obtaining a permanent upbuilding of the negro farm community in the South. That negro agents are building well is indicated by their success in influencing the construction of 569 new houses, the remodeling of 1,002 old houses, and the beautification of 1,336 home grounds during 1924. ]

In most parts of the Cotton Belt it has been possible during the last few years for farmers to make a good living and to make a profit besides. The migration to the North has perceptibly slackened, and thousands of negroes who have been getting good wages as carpenters, bricklayers, mechanics, and other artisans in near-by and distant cities are saving money to buy land. Many of them left their families at home and are sending them money for their support and for building savings accounts to be used in buying a farm home. (Fig. 1.) Of course, a large percentage will remain in the industrial centers of the North, but the negro’s love for his folks and for the soil will influence many to begin payments on farms at a time when wages are high and when such crops as cotton, tobacco, and peanuts are bringing good prices. Negroes, as a rule, know how to grow the cash crops, and it has been found in many sections that negroes succeed with poultry, truck, dairying, and other diversified interests when they own their own small farms.

Because of the inevitable economic changes resulting from the World War, many large plantations have been cut up and sold at low prices. In some sections of the South, chambers of commerce and other business organizations have been promoting campaigns to encourage negroes to become landowners. In 1920 about 217,500 negroes in the Southern States owned their farms and about 703,500 were tenants. In some States negroes have been buying farms faster than white people, and the rapid increase of ownership during the last five years is most noticeable. It is not surprising that it has taken a backward race a long time to acquire property and develop farms. It takes white agricultural college graduates quite a while to do that. The next 25 years unquestionably will witness a marked contrast to the first quarter of the century in this regard. It is well that the development is taking place along the lines of the negro’s training and disposition. All of this confirms the judgment of Booker T. Washington, the negro educator, who said:

The negro is, in my opinion, naturally a farmer, and he is at his very best when he is in close contact with the soil. (Fig. 2.) There is something in the atmosphere of the farm that develops and strengthens the negro’s natural common sense. As a rule, the negro farmer has a rare gift of getting at the sense of things and of stating in picturesque language what he has learned. The explanation of it is, it seems to me, that the negro farmer studies nature. In his own way he studies the soil, the development of plants and animals, the streams, the birds and the changes of the seasons. He has a chance of getting at first-hand the kind of knowledge that is valuable to him.

During the last few years many persons from different parts of Africa have visited this country to study our methods of industrial and agricultural education. Some of them have been Government officials, some teachers in schools and colleges, and some missionaries. They represented many different nationalities, all of which are interested in the welfare of dark-skinned people. Such visitors are always interested in Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes and usually have a scholastic point of view when they arrive. On their return, however, they are always enthusiastic about the men and women extension agents whose primary responsibility is to reach the farm and home. They see greater significance in demonstrations which proceed from the farm and home to the school than they do in those which go from the school to the farm. They seem to realize that the home is the fundamental unit of civilization and that the agents are the apostles of a better farm and home life, and therefore return to their work with an optimistic determination to encourage demonstration work in their countries.

DEVELOPMENT OF NEGRO EXTENSION WORK

EARLY HISTORY

Farmers’ cooperative demonstration work was begun in 1903. At first, all demonstration agents were white men and women. They enrolled negro demonstrators who followed instructions so faithfully and carefully that they were often more successful than white farmers and home makers. Many instances were reported of negro farmers who got started along the pathway of success because of the stimulation of such demonstrations. County agricultural agents often reported that 25 per cent of their demonstrators were negroes and that many negroes attended the field meetings and public demonstrations.

Booker T. Washington had a prominent part in beginning negro extension work in the South. Tuskegee Institute, which he founded in Alabama, already had carried instruction to negro farmers through its faculty, through farm conferences at Tuskegee and in local communities, and through printed bulletins. Doctor Washington also used a “Jesup wagon,” provided with agricultural equipment to go out among farmers and demonstrate better farming methods. Washington, H. B. Frissell, of Hampton Institute, Va., and Seaman A. Knapp of the United States Department of Agriculture, worked out the relation of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes with the department and made arrangements for the appointment in 1906 of T. M. Campbell, of Tuskegee Institute, the first negro demonstration agent, and of J. B. Pierce, of Hampton Institute, a few days later.

In speaking of extension work a few years afterwards, Washington said:

It would be impossible to describe here all the ramifications or all the various forms which this extension work has taken in recent years. The thing that I wish to emphasize, however, is that we are seeking in this work less to teach (according to the old-fashioned notion of teaching) than to improve conditions.

His was a spirit of service. In the same connection he expressed in the following excerpt an unusual and unique opinion of the pedagogy of extension work. His experience and his observations constitute a great inspiration for negro extension agents and educators generally.

I have sometimes regarded it as a fortunate circumstance that I never studied pedagogy. If I had done so, every time I attempted to do anything in a new way I should have felt compelled to reckon with all the past, and in my case that would have taken so much time that I should never have got anywhere. As it was, I was perfectly free to go ahead and do whatever seemed necessary at the time, without reference to whether that same thing had ever been done by anyone else at any previous time or not.

General Armstrong, who founded Hampton Institute in Virginia for Negroes and Indians in the reconstruction days immediately following the Civil War, expressed somewhat the same idea when he said:

Many teachers seem to me to have disproportionate ideas of the forces that make up man. * * * There is plenty of study of methods and not enough study of men or of the problems of life.

Negro home demonstration work was also developed through the interest and aid of white agents. White supervisory agents still take sympathetic interest in negro extension activities. In view of the fact that negro women and girls had always done much of the domestic labor in southern homes and because negro schools and colleges had given courses in home economics, home demonstration work for negroes was started in the best possible environment and atmosphere. Many white home demonstration agents and demonstrators took pleasure in giving instruction in gardening, canning, and preserving to negro women and girls whom they knew. But, as the work developed, it soon became apparent that negro women agents could get access to negro homes better than anybody else, so negro home demonstration agents began to be appointed. Annie Peters, of Boley, Okla., was appointed on January 23, 1912, as the first negro home demonstration agent, and Mattie Holmes, of Hampton Institute, Va., on May 24, 1912, as the second. Other appointments followed rapidly.

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