[NFBV-Announce] Black History Month Days 10 and 11

[jackibruce6 at gmail.com]

Hey NFB Family and Friends,

 

We continue our journey through Black History Month with two new stories.
My apologies to the Black Empowerment Committee as I  didn't see the entry
for day 10 and so it wasn't sent.

 

Day 10

 

Today, we will explore 2 pioneering African-American educators in the
Blindness Hall of Fame.

 

 

Dr. Laurence C. Jones (1884 - 1975) and Martha Louise Morrow Foxx (1902 -
1975)

 

 

Dr. Jones founded the Piney Woods School as a place to provide vocational
and academic schooling for poor black children and grandchildren of slaves
in the rural Piney Woods area just south of Jackson, Mississippi in 1909.
The school started with one 16-year old student and the next day there were
2 more students. As wore spread, the school grew. Some students arrived by
mule drawn wagons and tuition was sometimes paid with crops and homemade
goods.

 

In the 1920s Dr. Jones became aware that there was no school to educate
black children who were blind. He observed a young blind girl begging on the
streets in Vicksburg and had a young blind boy left at the school after his
sharecropper parents killed in a fire. Never one to turn away a child in
need he added education of blind children to the school's purpose.

 

 Dr. Jones authored several books and toured the country inviting national
and international dignitaries to visit the campus. He attracted black and
white teachers to visit the Piney Woods school to learn the methods use at
the school for the blind. He advocated for education that touched the mind,
the heart and the hands.  In 1945 after visiting the campus and learning of
the work of Dr. Jones and Mrs. Foxx, Helen Keller helped convince the
Mississippi legislature to fund the establishment of a new campus in
Jackson. This became the Mississippi School for Blind Negroes in 1951.

 

Tomorrow on Day 11 we will continue learning of the Legacy of Dr. Jones and
Mrs. Foxx.

 

 

To be continued! 

 

 

Submitted by Earl

 

Day 11

We are continuing  our history lesson from yesterday about Dr. Laurence C.
Jones (1884 - 1975) and Martha Louise Morrow Foxx (1902 - 1975)

 

 

Dr. Jones should be noted and recognized for his work in the field of
blindness. He dared to educate the excluded. He dared to included a
department to educate the blind which was far above the expectations of that
time.

 

 

Martha Louise Morrow Foxx was the primary teacher of the blind at the Piney
Woods School from 1929 until 1942. She then became Principal until 1951.
When the school moved to the new campus in Jackson and became the
Mississippi School for Blind Negroes she served as Director until her
retirement in 1969. Mrs. Foxx began her journey at the Piney Woods School as
an 18 year old graduate of the Overbrook School for the Blind. During summer
breaks she attended several colleges and obtained her Bachelor's and
Master's degrees.

 

 

 

Mrs. Foxx became widely known for her innovative teaching philosophy. She
insisted that students be allowed to have outings in the woods around the
school to hone their sense of touch, sound and smell. She taught the
students to read Braille and Large Print and insisted the learn to be
self-reliant and to develop careers to ensure that they could make their own
way after graduation. Challenging minds, expanding possibilities, securing
opportunities and changing what it means to be blind for African Americans
who happened to be blind. That is what Mrs. Foxx did with her life..

 

 

Dr. Jones and Mrs. Foxx have both been inducted into the American Printing
House for the Blind Hall of Fame.

 

 

Submitted by Earl

 


Peace,

Jacki Bruce

Corresponding Secretary, National Federation of the Blind of Virginia
 <mailto:jackibruce6 at gmail.com> mailto:jackibruce6 at gmail.com
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Live the life you want.

The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation's blind. Every day we work
together to help blind people live the lives they want

 

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