Politics, Passions, and Partisanship

It is noted that all three white luminaries were from the Congregational Church and the A.M.A. Deacon Harris was black and Baptist. Less than a year later, the AMA claimed that the new building was "as good as any in the North." By then the [Freedman's] Bureau had installed blinds at the windows. The school was also free of debt, except for $500 owed to African American carpenters and other workmen who had built the structure.

Alexander Curtis, one of the original trustees, became an Alabama State legislator and was a powerful figure in Alabama educational circles - especially in Marion. He waged a constant running battle with the A.M.A.

Curtis was a North Carolinian, and had come to Marion, Alabama as a slave and body servant to R.T. Goree. He gained freedom as a result of buying it in 1859 for $2,000. He apparently had a clothing store in Marion, and was also a barber. He was the only Alabama legislator who bought his freedom.

So, by this time Lincoln School of Marion was a modern school-house by the standards of the times, with a lecture room for normal students - students preparing to teach school. Soon the Forest Home was bought as a home for teachers. Ironically, it had been the headquarters of the Ku klux Klan.

Between 1870 and 1873 there were greater rumblings primarily between Alexander Curtis and the AMA. At one point Principal T. C. Steward wrote to the AMA in New York City, and told Rev. Cravath (apparently head of the AMA) to be on the lookout for Curtis. He also said that many local people considered Curtis to be "a scoundrel."

Cravath in New York City wanted to size up the situation better, so a teacher at Lincoln, a Miss Leonard, wrote to Cravath and said that she had learned from Stephen Childs of a conversation between himself and Curtis.

The conversation indicated Curtis's misgivings about the AMA. He reportedly told Mr.Childs that he could send his older children to another school (apparently a public school in Marion) run by G.N. Card, and otherwise teach his younger ones at home, thereby avoiding the AMA altogether. Curtis also told Mr.Childs that "It would not be honorable for them ( the AMA) to get teachers from the North unless they were sure of paying all of their expenses," which was the basic reason for inviting the AMA to run the school in the first place.

As a State Legislator and knowing the scarcity of funds for black education, Curtis's concerns seemed practical in a sense. At the same time there was the undercurrent problem of religious training. It is stated that "The seat of the problem was that most of the African Americans of the Marion black community adhered to the Baptist persuasion...."

At one time Alexander Curtis threatened to fire the AMA board (on the authority I'm unsure, unless he was chairman of the board of trustees), but the African American community went against him and insisted that the school remain within the AMA fold. What they didn't know, however, was that through wheeling and dealing at the Statehouse, Curtis had already "engineered the [eventual] separation of Lincoln School from the American Missionary Association."

Because of threats by Curtis, the AMA itself discussed the possibility of "selling the church (the Congregational church) to the Baptists and emigrating to Montgomery." The control of Lincoln in Marion by the AMA was being eroded. It is implied that some financial support from the state did go to Lincoln School while it was still under the auspices of the AMA.

The separation did not come amicably. The state wrestled control of the school in a series of power plays plotted by Alexander Curtis. Let it be remembered that Lincoln School in Marion was not built as an AMA school. It grew out of the imagination of former slaves in Marion. Curtis was one of those former slave founders and wanted to determine the school's destiny. Even while the separation was in progress, many local people continued to seek full re-association with the AMA. The appropriation for operation of the school by the state was inadequate " to support the large student-age population of Marion."