Martha Schofield, pioneer Negro educator / Historical and philosophical review of reconstruction period of South Carolina

by Matilda A. Evans

In the light of this fact, with all of us, white and black alike, becoming more and more inclined to accept it as a fact, it is scarcely possible that any attempt sufficiently strong to retard the educational advancement of the Negro to any great extent, will ever be made again.

Martha Schofield’s pupils and graduates are now scattered all over this broad land, the majority of them engaged in farming, and are making a success; but a vast number are architects, house-builders, while not a few are successfully employed in the manufacture of useful articles of all kinds. Among the best teachers of the colored race are numbered some of her students, while the law and medical professions each have a few to their credit.

But the influence of her teaching in the preparation of colored men and women for the practice of humanitarian and religious principles, the forces behind all endeavor that can be depended upon to make the world a better place in which to live, is the greater legacy of her life to the South, the white as well as the colored people.

If the white men of 1876 had had the regard for the doctrine of the brotherhood of man with which Miss Schofield’s instruction abounded, the brutalities and barbarities of those horrible times would have been impossible. Intellectual and moral advancement of both the colored and white race is necessary, absolutely, to a higher conception and a greater appreciation of this doctrine which carries with it the conviction that all the world is one country and no religion is worthy which does not compel us to do good wherever and whenever good may be done.

Miss Schofield never seemed to question whether a solicitor of alms was worthy or not but devoted her time and energy to the immediate relief of the need. That the applicant was in need and whether it was within her reach to assist him or her, black or white, was all that appeared to concern her.

It was out of the spirit of such sainted souls that the reaction in the North against the continuance of the profligate conditions in the South arose, and out of the wisdom of men and women of the North and South of her calibre and justness, that remedies for the healing of the wounds were found. But not without leaving scars, however, as a huge reminder that like conditions in the future will produce like disaster.

The estimated killed among the colored in the Hamburg and Ellenton riots is between 150 and 200. The number of whites killed is less than twenty.

But for the change in the attitude of the United States troops towards the whites, whom they informed that rioting must terminate, after the Ellenton riot had then been in progress for more than a week, the number of killed and wounded might have run into thousands instead of only hundreds.

So the stationing of soldiers in South Carolina was at last justified even though they stained, if not disgraced, for all time the uniform they wore. Their failure to prevent rioting, accompanied as it was by a large number of infinite outrages, may be forgiven but never forgotten by memory.

Although two thousand or more white men participated in these riots only about eight hundred were ever arrested. A charge of murder or conspiracy to commit murder was made against each one, but only a few were tried and none punished.