Depression

The good Baptist and Methodist ladies didn't think very much of the poem and one or two were heard to say, "Hmph. That ain't nothin." And, "That's supposed to be poetry?" It was not exactly Wordsworth and Whittier.

These recollections always sent my mother into cackles of laughter. When Langston Hughes visited the school, she was working in the Lincoln School laundry in the original Phillips Hall.

Others important in the Black World frequently stopped by, perhaps after visits to Tuskegee Institute and Alabama State Teachers' College. Walter White, the NAACP Executive Secretary, Bayard Rustin, and others were guests in later years.

During the 1930s Lincoln Normal had active interscholastic teams in baseball, football, and basketball. One of my heroes as a nine-year old was Willis Lewis, Lincoln's baseball catcher up to the time he graduated in 1934. Baseball and football games were played in the space where Phillips Memorial Auditorium now stands. Home runs to right centerfield probably broke windows in Livingston Hall unless they were screened (they probably were screened). I can still remember parts of school cheers (around 1932 to 1935) about which I will not bore you.

Many of the teams - if not all in the 1930s - were coached by the legendary Arthur "Stretch" Gardner. Perhaps fifteen years later, the same Stretch Gardner became an early mentor of the late world class tennis champion Arthur Ashe on the playgrounds of Richmond, Virginia. Ashe, in some of his writings mentioned Stretch Gardner as a playground worker, who taught him many of the fundamentals of tennis.

Miss Nichols remained principal until 1935, at which time the helm was taken over by Miss Ruth Morton, an avid health awareness scholar. She developed a clinic and hired a nurse during her tenure from 1935 to 1937. In 1937 tuition was cut from $25.00 a year to $9.00 a year; a P.T.A. was also organized, "buildings were improved, and the campus took on a new life." Miss Morton left Lincoln and went to work for the New York City office of the AMA. In the meantime, fund-raising continued for a building that would be named after and dedicated to Elizabeth Phillips Thompson.

The successor to Miss Morton was W. Adelbert Redfield, a man most interested in co-operatives as well as education. He "organized community centers, and students became interested in the co-operative movement. Mr. Redfield was always eager to help solve problems at school or in the community."

Around this time, it appears that the State of Alabama began to make some financial contributions anew to Lincoln School (at one point, tuition tumbled to fifty cents a semester with state support). Mr. Wilfred Gamble arrived in 1938 to became principal. He was the last white principal of Lincoln School. During his tenure from 1938 to 1943 community groups were organized around hot-lunch programs, health and transportation (of students to and from the school). "The belfry was removed from Livingston Hall. Livingston was also painted inside, and renovated. An electric bell was installed. Students assumed more leadership in campus matters, and the curriculum was revised to better meet students' needs, according to the Fifth Biennial Lincolnite Reunion Program(Detroit, 1984. My parents paid $4.50 per semester for tuition in 1941.)