20 • January 6, 2022 - January 12, 2022
THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
IN
THE
CLASSROOM
Elise Johnson McDougald—educator, writer, and activist for women’s rights By HERB BOYD Special to the AmNews
lily, the skin of one is brilliant against the star-lit darkness of a racial sister,” she wrote. “From There is a beautiful portrait grace to strength, they vary in of Elise Johnson McDougald by infinite degree, with traces of Winold Reiss in the March 1925 the race’s history left in physedition of Survey Graphic magical and mental outline on azine that would later in part be each. With a discerning mind, reprinted and edited by Alain one catches the multiform Locke with concharm, beauty siderable more and charachistoric importer of Negro tance as The women, and New Negro. Ms. grasps the fact McDougald that their probis rendered in lem cannot be a thoughtful thought of in pose in keeping mass.” with her status A close readat that time and ing of the parait’s clear she graph may is a woman of suggest a hint mixed ancesof autobiogratry. Along with phy, and her the drawing, own mixed her article “The heritage. AlDouble Task: though she is The Struggle of listed as Elise Negro Women Johnson Mcfor Sex and Dougald in the Race Emanarticle, she was cipation,” is born Gertrude featured and Elise Ayer on later includOct. 13, 1884 ed in Margaret in New York Busby’s pheCity. Her father nomenalantholPeter Augusogy “Daughters tus Johnson of Africa.” was the third Busby’s inAfrican Amertroduction to ican to practhe essay captice medicine Gertrude Elise Johnson McDougald Ayer tures and in New York summarizes McDougald’s re- tunity and with Jessie Clark she City and a founder of the Mcmarkable career. “The daugh- co-authored “A New day for the Donough Memorial Hospital. ter of a founder of the National colored woman worker: a study He also was a partner and orgaUrban League, she graduat- of colored women in industry nizer of the Pennsylvania Railed from Columbia University in New York City” in 1919. road Station and a member of and taught in the New York elAt the start of this provocative the founding committee of the ementary school system (1905- treatise, McDougald posits two National Urban League. Cited 1911), resigning to marry and questions—what are the prob- above is a portion of her educaraise a family. She was head of lems that Black women face tional background that should the women’s department of the and how are they solving them. include her attendance to the U.S. Employment Bureau and a “To answer these questions, City College, Hunter College, social investigator and voca- one must have in mind not any New York University, and the tional guidance expert for the one Negro woman, but rather a New York City Training School New York City Board of Edu- colorful pageant of individuals, for Teachers. (It should be cation. She also worked each differently endowed like noted that she taught the red and yellow of the tiger- at P.S.
for a time with the Manhattan Trade School and the New York branch of the Department of Labor. She later became the first Black principal in the New York City public school system, until her retirement in 1954. Her writings were published in the journals Crisis and Oppor-
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24 and James Baldwin was one of her students. Later she would mentor Olivia Pearl Stokes, the first Black woman to receive a doctorate in religion.) Interestingly, she never received a college degree. In 1911, the same year she retired from teaching (though she would become a principal later at two schools in the city) she married Cornelius McDougald, an attorney and the initial counsel for Marcus Garvey during his trial for mail fraud in 1923. Some of her activities beyond the educational realm are mentioned above, but most of her time was devoted to writing and lecturing, particularly as a participant at various symposiums hosted by the National Urban League. And to list her numerous organizations in which she was a member would exhaust the remainder of the space allocated here. She closed her 1925 article with this statement: “We find the Negro woman, figuratively, struck in the face daily by contempt from the world about her. Within her soul, she knows little of peace and happiness. Through it all, she is courageously standing erect, developing within herself the moral strength to rise above and conquer false attitudes. She is maintaining her natural beauty, and charm and improving her mind and opportunity. She is measuring up to the needs and demands of her family, community and race, and radiating from Harlem a hope that is cherished by her sisters in less propitious circumstances throughout the land. The wind of the race’s destiny stirs more briskly because of her striving.” Much of that wind belonged to McDougald by whatever name. She died June 10, 1971.
ACTIVITIES FIND OUT MORE Several anthologies, including Ms. Busby’s, have accounts of her career and activism. DISCUSSION I am still seeking to find the origin of Ayer in her name. PLACE IN CONTEXT She was an ardent teacher and activist throughout her life, particularly during the early years of the century.
THIS WEEK IN BLACK HISTORY Jan. 2, 1915: Famed historian John Hope Franklin was born in Oklahoma. Jan. 3, 1624: William Tucker, the first Black child born in America, was baptized in Jamestown. Jan. 4, 1920: The National Negro Baseball League was organized with Rube Foster as president.
