The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 06, June, 1896

by Various

ORANGE PARK NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL IN FLORIDA CLOSED BY THE SHERIFF.

It will be remembered that on Friday, the 10th of April, seven teachers and two patrons of the Orange Park School, at Orange Park, Fla., were arrested for violation of an enactment legalized a year ago by the State Legislature under the instigation of William H. Sheats, the State superintendent of education.

The enactment, which we protest is in no just sense a law, forbids not only white and colored persons to be instructed within the same building at the same time, but it also forbids a white principal or matron or guardians of the school rooming or living within the same building where their pupils are.

This enactment against the personal rights of education in a private Christian school not supported or aided by the State, if sustained, would destroy nearly all of the institutions carried on by Northern benevolence in all of our Southern States. It would take the guardianship of manners and morals out of the hands of those who have planted and sustained the institutions until now, and who, in view of the millions yet uneducated and untrained, are now needed as much as ever. It is not surprising, therefore, that the National Council of Congregational Churches at Syracuse in October requested the Association to take this question to the highest courts, nor that the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Cleveland has just passed a resolution denouncing this iniquitous enactment, or that we are receiving constantly from our State and local associations assurances of sympathy and support in our contest against this reversion to barbarism. We quote a few of the opinions which have come under our observation.

From the Congregationalist:

"The ethics of Christ, Pilgrim traditions, and the U. S. Constitution seemed paramount to the opinions of Florida legislators, and the highest officials of the[pg 180] American Missionary Association decided to defy and test the law. That the denomination stands back of them may be reasonably inferred from the resolution passed by the last Triennial National Council. Let the American Missionary Association have the sinews of war with which to employ the ablest counsel."

From the Outlook:

"The State of Florida not long ago took action which is a disgrace to itself and a blot on the fair fame of our republic. Let our people squarely face this issue. While we are protesting against the treatment of missionaries in Turkey and calling upon the Government to use all its power in their protection, Christian teachers widely known and honored in one of the great States of this republic are arrested simply because they presumed to instruct a few white children under the same roof with colored children. It is hard to speak of such conduct in mild words. The question as to whether this is in reality a free republic is once more at issue. The action of the State of Florida is as barbaric as the persecutions of the Middle Ages."

From the Independent:

"Let the reader observe that this is not a law applying merely to the public schools of the State. Such a law we condemn, but we could not be surprised at it. This law is directed at this particular institution, which is not a public school but a private academy supported by the American Missionary Association. We have been amazed that in this nineteenth century Christians could be massacred by the thousands for not accepting the Moslem faith and no hand raised to defend them. But that was in Turkey. Here in the United States more than thirty years after the Proclamation of Emancipation in one of the sovereign States of the Union, half a dozen men and women are arrested for the crime of treating black children and white children alike, for not drawing a caste line in their own private grounds in a school they conduct at no expense to the State. It is a curious humiliating occurrence for this Jubilee year of the American Missionary Association."

From the Advance:

"Florida's disgraceful Sheats law, specially designed for the teachers and supporters of Orange Park Academy, has at last been put in force. The teachers of the Academy, the pastor of the church, and the parents of the white pupils have been arrested for violation of this law, which forbids any one to maintain or patronize a school in which white persons and Negroes shall be taught or boarded within the same building.

And this is the State of Senator Call, who is declaiming so eloquently in behalf of the Cuban insurgents, more than half of whom are of Negro blood."

From the Boston Standard:

"A year ago the unconstitutional and vile Sheats law was passed by the legislature of Florida. It was understood that this law was particularly aimed at the Orange Park School, of the American Missionary Association, whose fiftieth anniversary is to be celebrated in this city next fall. This villainous statute was enforced in the case of the Orange Park School on the entire body of teachers, white men and women of spotless character and self-sacrificing devotion to the mission, because of educating teachers for the elevation of American citizenship. The normal school is one of the best and most useful of the educational agencies at work in the South, but had dared to ignore the outrageous statute which makes it a crime for any school, public or private, to teach black and white scholars in the same building or have any white teachers to eat and sleep in the same house[pg 181] with their Negro pupils. If these discretionary rights are not guaranteed by our national Constitution to American citizens, then the professed abolition of slavery and of the color line in citizenship is a wretched farce. Nobody can question the intent of the proclamation of emancipation of the constitutional amendment that places the Negro on the same legal plane with the white citizen of this country. We do not doubt the supreme and binding authority of this legislature. We mistake the temper of the American people if a blaze of indignation is not kindled by this outrage from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

From Frank Leslie's Weekly:

"Under these provisions no citizen of Florida, it will be noted, can under certain conditions educate his child. He is excluded absolutely from the best educational institutions in the State if these admit pupils of both white and colored parentage. The defiance of the law was in obedience to a definite determination on the part of the American Missionary Association to make a distinct test of the statute."

From the Boston Daily Advertiser:

"The Sheats law in Florida was passed through the influence of malice, prejudice, and partisan venom. Efforts have been made in other Southern States to perpetrate similar outrages, but for the most part without avail. The better public sentiment all over the South is strongly against such meanness. This better sentiment has asserted itself successfully elsewhere, and we do not doubt that it will do so very soon in Florida."

From the Boston Journal:

"The American Missionary Association will be sustained by an enlightened public sentiment in fighting to the last resort the outrageous Florida law which makes it a crime to teach colored and white pupils in the same school."

These comments are but samples of the sentiment which comes to the Association respecting this attempt to challenge the constitutional amendment which came with the emancipation of the colored people from slavery. But now there is

A SECOND CHAPTER.

After the teachers were arrested it was supposed that this would be the end of the persecution until the statute should be tested by the courts. Accordingly they returned to the work in the school as before. On the 4th of May the Sheriff was instructed by the State Attorney to inquire into this continued violation of the law, and if he found the school to be going on as before, to arrest and rearrest, as long as the school should be continued. In consequence the school was forced to close its sessions, as the teachers were informed that they would be arrested over and over again, and that new bail would be required for every successive day; this not only for the teachers but for the patrons, which would be impossible in the case of those who are colored. This is in accordance with the published pronouncement of Supt. Sheats that he will prosecute and persecute this Orange Park School out of existence.