Viewing page 7 of 27

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

- 7 -

from Congress. He never again ran for public office. Instead he devoted time to [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] ^[[his]] business as a merchant tailor, and development of his culture and interests. He died on February 5, 1900. He had accumulated a very large library of his own.

Mrs. George C. [[strikethrough]] Duy [[/strikethrough]] ^[[Day]], a non-Negro, started the first two kindergartens. George Foster Peaboby, who as born in Columbus in 1852, funded the Negro kindergarten in 1903. Two years later both of these kindergartens were incorporated into the public school system. I remember Mrs. Clark, who came from Kentucky, ^[[and]] had charge of [[strikethrough]] this [[/strikethrough]] ^[[the]] Negro Kindergarten. I went to that little kindergarten. It was housed  in a building across from the city jail. [[strikethrough]] The highest grade in the Black public school, from which my mother too finished, was the 9th. [[/strikethrough]] ^[[ [ ]]The Whites had their high schools. After the 9th grade, Blacks would go to Atlanta University ^[[founded 1867,]] Fisk University ^[[founded 1865, by the Congregational Church,]] Howard University ^[[founded 1867]] or [[strikethrough]] Folk [[/strikethrough]] ^[[Fort]] Valley [[strikethrough]] school [[/strikethrough]] ^[[college, founded 1895]]. These schools had academies which the students [[strikethrough]] would [[/strikethrough]] attend^[[ed]] prior to going to college.^[[ ] ]] ^[[This ¶ to follow the end of the first ¶ on page 6. after the word Youth]]

The Negroes in Columb[[strikethrough]]ia[[/strikethrough]] ^[[Columbus]] did not stop learning because their education was blocked at the 9th grade. They taught themselves. ^[[by organizing]] [[strikethrough]] They set up a [[/strikethrough]] reading circle^[[s]] under the guidance of the [[strikethrough]] Shertoka(spelling?) [[/strikethrough]] ^[[Chautauqua]] Literary Circle. [[strikethrough]] The [[/strikethrough]] ^[[Their were a]] series of books required for the literary circle^[[,]] [[strikethrough]] was [[/strikethrough]] ^[[which]] dated from 1897 to 1898. There were five books; [[strikethrough]] three [[/strikethrough]] ^[[four]] of which I have. They are all over 100 years old. One is the "Roman Life in [[underlined]] ^[[Pliny's]] [[/underlined]] Time", author