The Manual Training and Industrial School: diplomas and sunrises

Following the abolition of slavery by federal lawmakers, African-Americans strived to construct a new order on the foundations of the old. Those born into bondage as well as those who were not, were now citizens of the land and given the meaningful tools to vote.

Furthermore, their established birthright enabled them to build the first schools of public education for their children. Although racial equality was considered a hollow message of hope, these segregated institutes of learning were valued threads of in the tapestry of our changing country. The curricula offered emboldened young minds with the opportunities that defined their potential and influenced their livelihoods.

One such institution was the Bordentown Manual Training and Industrial School. Founded in 1886 by a former slave turned minister of the African Methodist faith from South Carolina named the Rev. Walter A. Rice, the school began in two modest wood-clapboard homes on West Street with an enrollment of 10 students. With spiritual guidance, he strongly believed that the stability of family influenced a person’s character and that a good home environment molded its dynamics.

Known as the Bordentown Normal School, the facility struggled for the first eight years of its existence, as it was supported through private contributions. Despite financial hurdles, attendance grew to 42 pupils (20 boys and 22 girls). Limited by space, the dire need for its expansion looked no further than the former estate of Admiral Charles Stewart, the commander of the U.S.S. Constitution (nicknamed “Old Ironsides”) during the War of 1812. Situated on a hill between Bordentown and Fieldsboro, in 1894 the State of New Jersey leased the 400-acre farm and woodlands (initially 25 acres) and enacted a law that recognized the school with a new name: the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth.

By 1897, the school’s relocation was complete. Four years later, the state legislature appropriated $20,000 for the construction of school buildings. With funding in place, qualified planners and architects were hired to design and develop a first-rate campus with a central administration building, classroom and trade buildings, an auditorium, dormitories, and framed dwellings for faculty. Since agriculture was an integral component of the school, livestock consisting of 80 head of cattle, 60 hogs, and 17 horses were housed in barns and cared for in the fields. During warm weather, students with baskets in hand were able to pick delectable fruit from the orchards.

Eventually, 30 brick structures were spread across the landscape, creating the most unique junior and senior high school in New Jersey and perhaps the region. It was deemed an educational utopia. Every morning as the sun rose, many students were able to gaze out of their dormitory windows and witness the movement of shadows of trees as they stretched across the fertile terrain like misshapen scarecrows.

Not many schools captured such a dramatic view.

With the school’s relocation in place, the state-appointed board of trustees voted to replace Reverend Rice as principal in 1897. Considered a watershed moment, the new leader chosen was James Gregory, a professor from Howard University. Under his direction, the student body doubled as enrollment went from 55 pupils (32 boys and 23 girls) to 116 pupils (59 boys and 57 girls).

As a prestigious manual training school, many gifted African-American students from New Jersey and other states applied to attend. Gregory improved the curriculum that Reverend Rice had started by including both literary and manual elements. Morning classes were subject to reading, writing, grammar, geography, and arithmetic while afternoon and Saturday classes pertained to “hands on” sessions such as farming practices, metalworking, and woodworking for boys and dressmaking, sewing, and cooking lessons for girls.

From decade to decade, the daily schedule for a student didn’t change much. According to the school’s Board of Information, each student paid and entrance fee of $10 plus $15 for first month’s boarding. This included the cost of uniforms. Boys wore khaki apparel in the style of the military whereas girls wore white shirtwaists and blue skirts. Uniforms cost $45-50 for boys and $20-25 for girls.

Officers from the Bordentown Military Institute provided drill instruction to boys as a requirement of physical exercise and discipline. All students attended church services four days a week, and could not leave campus unless accompanied by an adult.

When the grand symbol of the school, the columned Administration Building, was completed in 1903, it became an inspiration that attracted many prominent state officials, including the governor of New Jersey. Among those at its dedication was the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Charles Baxter. Impressed by the surroundings and student body, he later decided to travel to Alabama on a fact-finding mission by visiting the famous Tuskegee Institute.

Meeting with its renowned founder, Booker T. Washington, he returned to Bordentown with promises of the school’s future. It is worthy to note that Washington returned the favor by seeing the campus in 1907 when the New Jersey State Board of Education met there and again in 1913 to pressure state education officials regarding the school’s primary emphasis on job-training. Closely in step with the merits of its “sister school,” the Tuskegee Institute, Bordentown became forever synonymous as the “Tuskegee of the North.”

However, Gregory strongly expressed his dismay that academic classes for students should be limited. Despite his objections with officials, he had no alternative but to offer his resignation.

In 1915, William Valentine, a Harvard University graduate and school superintendent from Indianapolis, Indiana, was chosen to become the school’s third and longest serving principal. At the time of his arrival, the school consisted of 90 pupils and 18 faculty members. Although the numbers were profound, Valentine worked hard in upgrading the status of the school for secondary education. In a brilliant manner, he articulated his arguments with state education officials in getting what he wanted.

A decade later, there were 320 pupils enrolled in the school (189 boys and 131 girls), By the early 1930s, 400 pupils were enrolled (230 boys and 170 girls). Faculty had grown to 30 members and another 30 were responsible for the buildings and grounds. In keeping with the same philosophy that Reverend Rice preached on the stability of a united family, some faculty members lived in residential homes on campus.

In 1931, a new Vocational Trades Building was constructed for $150,000. As a spacious training center for students learning to become automotive mechanics, its popularity rose quickly. During its first year of operation, 228 automobiles were worked on with 42 vehicles receiving major overhauls. The following year, more vehicles were in need of service as a new dormitory housing 100 boys, was completed on campus. There were also numerous extracurricular options that welcomed students. In addition to sports programs and clubs, the Ironsides Echo was a school newspaper printed by students.

Although the Great Depression imposed daily hardships on the average citizen, the Manual Training and Industrial School continued to flourish.

In a 1930 report to the New Jersey State Board of Education, Valentine wrote that “it is certain that the school stands higher than ever in the estimation of the colored people in the state.”

By and large, Valentine opened the campus to all community businesses and organizations in addition to students, fac ulty, and their families. Its fine reputation attracted many notable guests that either entertained or were presented as com mencement speakers or lecturers. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat “King” Cole, W. C. Handy, Joe Louis, Eleanor Roos evelt, Paul Robeson, and Albert Einstein were some of the personalities that either spent time on campus for a few hours or a day. Einstein was known to present scholarships to promising students.

Valentine retired at the end of 1950 after serving 35 years as principal. His last several years in office maintained marginal success as New Jersey passed legislative measures in 1947 that all public and state-supported schools become integrated. Despite the words “for Colored Youth” stricken from the name of the school, critics accused him of prolonging segregation by neither upgrading the school’s curriculum nor encouraging white students to attend.

In 1951, Valentine’s successor, James Segear, became principal. He tried multiple ways to revitalize and advocate to the public and the state that the school was an educational necessity. However, the school was met with a fatal blow in 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision on Brown v. Board of Education that ended the nation’s “separate but equal” policy in all public schools. As a result, the Bordentown Manual Training and Industrial School permanently shut its doors following its last graduation of students in June of 1955.

Although the school site now operates under the direction of the New Jersey Department of Corrections, its former glory is just a memory. As the sunrise symbolizes the promise of rebirth, the same is held true for the struggles and triumphs of African-Americans and many other nationalities that continue to inspire and awaken our nation with the passage of time.

After all, every new dawn can bring an offer of change.