MOTON, ROBERT RUSSA 1867-1940

Commandant of cadets at hamptoninstitute; principal of tuskegeeinstitute

Plantation Childhood

Robert Russa Moton was a leading black American educator in the 1910s who graduated from Virginia's Hampton Institute in 1890, then served as the school's commandant of cadets from 1891 to 1915. He succeeded Booker T. Washington as principal of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a vocational school for blacks, where he raised the curriculum to college level. Moton grew up on a plantation called Pleasant Shade in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where his father, a former slave, had hired himself out to a wealthy white family, the William Vaughans. Moton, with many responsibilities in the Vaughan house, wrote that it was in that home that he "caught my first glimpses of real culture and got my first inspiration as to what I would like to be." Moton was educated by Mrs. Vaughan and also in a free school, one of the first in the country to educate blacks. According to Moton, his childhood was happy and carefree until one of his closest childhood friends, a white neighbor, left to attend Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Moton confronted racial prejudice in a very personal, immediate manner when his friend, returning home at Christmas, refused to shake hands with Moton. Moton decided then that getting an advanced education was the best thing for his future.

Hampton Years

After several long years of hard labor in a lumber camp, Moton left at age eighteen for Hampton Institute, an industrial school for blacks, where he was humiliated by his failure to pass the entrance examinations. However, he resolved to get a job and study until he could meet the requirements, and he began to work in the school's sawmill, where his expertise in grading lumber was appreciated. He was soon admitted to Hampton, working during the day and attending classes at night. During his years at the Hampton Institute he overcame his earlier academic problems and became a successful student. Moton even earned a certificate to practice law after studying on the weekends with the superintendent of schools in Prince Edward County and with a prominent local lawyer who allowed him access to his law library. After graduation Moton was tapped to take over the administration of the school when General Armstrong, the commandant, died in 1893.

Move to Tuskegee

In his autobiography Moton reminisced about the sense of personal loss felt by so many people upon the 1915 death of Booker T. Washington. "The colored people throughout the whole country went about as if they had lost the dearest member of their immediate family, and this feeling was largely shared by the white people as well, especially the older ones." Moton, chosen to succeed Washington as the president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, left at once for a $2 million fund-raising drive in northern cities. During the next four years Moton oversaw an extensive effort to build rural schools for blacks in eleven southern states. The extension department of Tuskegee Institute supervised the construction of 720 schools at a cost of $1,133,083, of which $337,192 represented public appropriations; $88,445, private contributions from whites; $430,381, gifts from blacks; and $227,065, the personal gift of Julius Rosenwald, one of Tuskegee's trustees.

War Effort

One of Moton's most lasting contributions was his work for the American war effort in World War I. Tuskegee was selected to train black drafted men who, in contingents of 308 men each, began arriving at the school in May 1918. The last group was trained in October 1918, and all were absorbed into the Student Army Training Corps. In all, Tuskegee trained 1,229 men, most of whom were immediately sent overseas. On 2 December 1918, at the request of President Wilson and Secretary of War Newton Baker, Moton went to France to examine conditions affecting black soldiers. While in France, Moton visited and spoke to black soldiers at every site where they were stationed. Moton had heard rumors to the effect that "morally, the Negro soldier in France had failed" and that many had been guilty of "the unmentionable crime" of rape. Moton investigated these claims and found that only one battalion had displayed questionable behavior, and none of the four officers accused of cowardice in the field was found guilty in a court-martial. Moton reported that Gen. John Pershing said that he believed that "any officers, white or black, under the same adverse circumstances that these men faced, would have failed." Moton also ascertained after numerous investigations that the "unmentionable crime was not more prevalent among colored than among white, or any other soldiers." Moton, who had taken great care to track down every rumor, was proud of his effort to stop the rumors which, as he said, were "defaming a race, threatening to cut down the efficiency of Negro troops, and putting America in a bad light before the world." Throughout his career as Tuskegee principal, Moton continued his efforts on behalf of African Americans for better and more extensive education. Moreover, in 1930 he was appointed to the U.S. Commission on Education for Haiti and the National Advisory Commission on Education in Liberia.

Sources:

Ida Bellegarde, Black Heroes and Heroines: Robert Russa Moton (Pine Bluff, Ark.: Bell Enterprises, 1981);

Robert Russa Moton, Finding a Way Out (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, Page, 1920).

Robert Russa Moton , 1867–1940, black American educator, b. Amelia co., Va., grad. Hampton Institute, 1890. He was commandant (1890–1915) of Hampton Institute, then principal and president of Tuskegee Institute until 1935. A successor of Booker T. Washington, he raised Tuskegee to college level and was important in national and international racial affairs. He received the Harmon award (1930) and Spingarn medal (1932).

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1920).