Dr. Ron Butchart, of the University of Georgia, has documented that of some 11,700 school teachers active in the South after the Civil War, 4000 were missionaries from the North and mostly white, 5000 were African Americans from the North, aka "carpet baggers," and then there were white Southerners whose main objective was to raise up compliant workers, by getting a hold of them early. It's with that background in mind that the interest in preserving the Harrington Graded School on St. Simons Island has to be understood.
First page of brochure explaining the history and purpose for preserving the Harrington School as a museum.
Page two of the Harrington School brochure.
For more information, go to:
www.ssiheritagecoalition.org
While the quote from Booker T. Washington to Julius Rosenwald is historically apt. The Harrington School doesn't look like one of the cookie cutter models produced by the founder of Sears Roabuck, whose mail-order enterprise was surely going to benefit from having a working class with limited transport know how to read and write and place orders from the catalogue.
The eleemosynary impulse is rarely pure. The ability to resist associating oneself with success is just rare.