Oakwood University - Acorn Yearbook (Huntsville, AL)

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Mas. JENNIE B. ALLISON Elder John Allison, pastor of the Ephesus S. D. A. church, Santa Monica, California, shown above Cleftj and his wife, both of whom are former Oakwoodites, look on smilingly as his mother fcenterj, Mrs. Jennie B. Allison, is congratulated by public school officials of Los Angeles. Mrs. Allison, who was born a slave, was given high honors upon her graduation from the eighth grade at Jefferson Evening High School in her eightyffirst year C1936J. She received wide publicity for her remarkable attainments. Commenting, she said, Had this chance been given to me some eighty years ago, I would not be at the bottom looking upg but I would be at the top and stooping down to help others attain that which has been given mef, Mrs. Allison was a charter member of the first organized Seventh' day-Adventist church among Negroes in North America. This church was located at Edgefield Junction, Tennessee. Brother Lowe, a converted Baptist minister, pastored the Edgefield Junction church. The building cost 5300, and the first Sabbath School offering totaled twentyfiive cents. Mother Allison is now in her nineties. Among her children are Professor Herbert Allison, a high school principal at Clarksville, Tennesseeg Mrs. Florence Brawley, a music teacher in the Los Angeles Public School System, and the late Elder T. H. Allison of Chicago, Illinois. 20 The Days of Small Beginnings 'LWho hath despised the days of small things? A prophet who laid strong foundations for God's work asked this pointed question. The question is pertinent to the beginnings of the Advent Movement among Negroes and, especially, to the founding and the remarkable developf ment of Oakwood College. We have come a long way since the founding of the Oakwood Industrial School in 1896. With the coming of the Morning Star. the missionary, educational. and health phases of the Third Angel's message were launched simultaneously. Long before the Southern Union was organized and before the idea of Colored Conf ferences was ever conceived, the Southern Missionary Society pioneered in the field of evangelism and Christian education throughout the South. In their own words, The founders of the Southern Missionary Society started out with the idea that the best way to reach a people that needed uplifting was to go where they lived and elevate them in their homes. With this oh-ject in view a small band of workers went from Michigan to Mississippi and began work in an humble way Vi Niall I 1 1 DAYS OF in 1895. For four years this company did a preparatory work without special organization. But as time passed the advancing interest of the work made it necessary to purf chase land, erect school buildings, and organize upon a permanent basis. Consequently, the Southern Missionary Society was organized May, 1898, and legally incorporated in Mississippi, March 15, 1899 Gil The Southern Missionary Society established training centers over a widely scattered area. The society at one time conducted about fiftyffive mission schools with an enrollment of eighteen hundred students. A notable example of these schools was the Hillcrest Manual Training School, which was founded by Professors Staines and Bralliar in 1907. Many of our early workers and lay members will recall this school. Professor E. R. Rogers, a faithful pioneer. served as Supervisor of Missions. Considerable progress was made under his leadership. In spite of fierce opposition and the defeatism of the fainthearted, sound advances and steady growth characterized the work in all lines of mis' sionary endeavor. Out of the Southern Missionary Society developed the organization which was known as the Southern Union Mission. The next point of divergence came when the work of Negro 'Seventhfday Adventists became fully inf tegrated into the General Conference as the North American Negro Department in 1909. The Oakwood Training School gradually assumed a leading role in our educational work. At a regular bi' annual session of the General Conference of Seventhfday Adventists held in Battle Creek, Michigan. in the autumn of 1895, it was unanimously decided that an industrial school should be established in the South for the training of Negro Seventhfday Adventist youth. The committee to select suitable property was G. A. Irwin, O. A. Olsen, and H. Lindsay. They were authorized to purchase property not exceeding 38,000 They found a site at Huntsville, Alabama, and paid 56,700 cash for 380 acres. Professor Solon M. Jacobs of Fonatelle, Iowa, was invited to serve as Principal of the Oakwood Industrial School. The first teachers were Elder H. S. Shaw, Professor Jacobs, Arthur B. Hughes of Battle Creek College, and Miss Hattie Andre. The first twenty students came in from April 3 to November 16, 1896. They came without a single necessity. ,The original sixteen were Frank Brice, George Graham, Ella Grimes, Robert Hancock, Etta Littlejohn fthe mother of Charles Bradfordea college junior of 19465, Mary X Ima. X ,sa fm ' - f - . ff -.- it if I se e P il. uf M' A ,, J. A .fi fi iN 'Li I 1 5- 15 1 i I sfffgf' .ag . it I il J .J -1 ' gel, . w- ' . M- M . -.i i- - - ' .' Xiaiqsis t W 'HI WI ig i'i I1 '..L l ' ' 'Tl 1: I 'I il e' E ' 2 3 F 4' - i. ' ' if Y -2 1 -22353- fi it .T , ll' 15 - I. a w.ef,:' . .- ii ' I 'i T if 'AN f Um I 1 451 I I 'A' 1 is I , f r-595 4 N V i , i SSB . .Nj .-25 Pg ,M i f.f g'f., Messing bizgynina . i ,Xi :li-, '4f' Eli. f, + I W.. J ga' sfRG,Miss Y' f ' 'Tt '-H-T , aux J vi, i'h,- L, v1Nx.VuN'w:.Ns :T lm., QU, Ia, iikuvul wx- W . ,M .I i,,, . . . 0.1, ' . ws in

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MASTER 1939 1940 1941 1943 1944 BUILDE S School begins operating free of debt. The Mechanical Building is completed. A fivefacre peach orchard and an acre and a hall grape vineyard. Sheep introduced. Administration Building is completed and equipped. Station wagon is purchased. Oakwood Board of Trustees and General Conf ference raise the school to the status of a Senior College. Sidewalks are extended. President's home is built. The student infirmary is remodeled and reopened. The Home Economics laboratory and demonstration rooms are remodeled. The Chemistry and Physics laboratories are built. The College obtained 3100.000 appropriation for a girl's dormitory. In the process of these years the faculty and staff have been enlarged from 11 in 1932 to 31 in 1944'45. There has been an expenditure during this time on buildings, equipment, and improvements amounting to approximately S5300,000. Mrs. E. G White Pro essor j. L. Morgan Elder F. R. Rogers and Family wx if

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I I I ISMALL BEGINNINGS I l I l l l 1 I V I I I 1 I I if I I if ii -l lx I if I I I il I I I It I I ll 'I I I IM McBee, Nannie McNeal, Charles Morford, Mary Morford, Thomas Murphy, Lela Peck, Daisy Pollard, Grant Royston, Samuel J. Thomas, Frances Worthington, Harry Pollard. In 1896, there were four buildings on the campus, among which was Old Mansion. The property valuation was S10,157.57. Courses of study were grammar school and special courses . . . School continued in this way under Principals Jacobs 1896f97, Shaw 189899, and Nicola 1899f1904. In the year 1904, the Oakwood Industrial School became the Oakwood Manual Training School, and continued as such until 1917 when it became Oakwood Junior College. Under Principal Nicola and his assistants the school had now been well organized. He says, During my first year emphasis was given to the Colporteur work and during the summer of 1900 nine engaged in it with good success. Summer institutes were held at Oakwood beginning in 1904, and for the next five years were under the direct supervision of the Southern Missionary Society which was still conducting Mission Schools. The superintendent of these schools and Oakwood faculty rendered commendable service in unifying the educational work. Elder A. G. Daniells, President of the General Conf ference, wrote in 1904, after visiting Oakwood that it must be put on a higher plane with better facilities, or disconf tinued. CSee Review and Herald, February 18, 1904.1 This was stimulus enough, and beginning that year new faculty homes were erected. This was the beginning of notable improvement. Oaklawn, first home for the principal, was erected in 1906, as well as the Printshop, the home of the Gospel Herald, a monthly, and of other school literature. Oakwood did not develop without misfortune, for on October 11, 1906, fire destroyed Chapel Hall. Another building was destroyed the same year, but these heavy losses were replaced within two years. The cornerstone for the ,first cement block building was laid in 1902. This building wI'TiEh bears the name Study Hall was for the next thirtyfthree years the Administration Building. Classes were held in some of its rooms, and in its auditorium all chapel exercises and religious services were held. By 1908, Chapel Hall had been replaced by a three' story frame building, Butler Hall, which was used excluf sively as a boys' home for nineteen years. In 1905, the physical plant was worth 815,437-more than double the original price. The oflicials resolved to maintain a sound health prof gram, and when they presented plans to the General Conf ference, an appropriation was granted for a small twof story sanitarium building, which was completed in 1909. In the basement a complete physiotherapy system and a heating and sewer plant were installed. Full equipment for giving hot and cold sprays, salt glow shampoos, full bath fomentations, electric lights, high frequency treatments, diathermy, and radiant heat treatments were given. Doctors N. M. and Stella Martinson were called to superintend this work. They had been trained by the original teachers at Battle Creek, had worked in the treat' ment rooms and laboratories and practiced the art of healing for more than twenty years in the South. The foresight of Principal Boyd was seen in his ex' tensive building program, for during his year 119115 as principal he erected a dining hall. The ever present lesson in the incident of the Good Samaritan is that man is ever surrounded by the neglected, and these also come from the hands of the Creator. Negro Elder G. E. Peters, Secretary Colored Department of the General Coriference fCentery 5 lx? i L !. i l I -l i 'I -1-.4