A collection of original oil paintings honoring 12 black educators was unveiled in Washington last week as part of Black History Month.
The exhibit--"Gallery of Greats: Black Educators ... Building the Foundation"--will tour the country for the next two years, after an initial showing at the U.S. Education Department. It was sponsored by the Miller Brewing Company and the National Alliance of Black School Educators.
Included among those honored are Carter Godwin Woodson, who devoted his life to teaching black Americans about their cultural heritage, founding the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and providing the impetus behind the designation of February as Black History Month; Ida Daniel Dark, a Philadelphia elementary-school teacher who has used music to help her pupils develop their potential despite social, economic, and mental handicaps; Erma Chansler Johnson, who has drawn minorities and women into the mainstream of society through her work as vice chancellor of human resources at Tarrant County Junior College in Fort Worth, Tex.; and John Hope Franklin, a preeminent historian who holds emeritus professorships at both the University of Chicago and Duke University.
In addition to several college educators, those honored include Mary Frances Berry, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and a former assistant secretary of education who is now on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania; George J. McKenna, a Los Angeles high-school principal; Alain Leroy Locke, a philosopher and social critic who was the first black Rhodes Scholar in 1907; W.E.B. DuBois, the activist founder of the naacp; and Wilson C. Riles, former state schools chief for California.
