The Snow Hill Institute, also known as the Colored Industrial and Literary Institute of Snow Hill, was a historic African American school in Alabama. It was founded in 1893 by Dr. William James Edwards, a graduate of Tuskegee University, and began in a one-room log cabin. The school grew over time to include a campus of 27 buildings, a staff of 35, and over 400 students. Snow Hill Institute was operated as a private school for African American children until Dr. Edward’s retirement in 1924, when it became a public school operated by the State of Alabama. The school closed in 1973, after the desegregation of the Wilcox County school system. Read more about the history of Snow Hill in my latest blog post.
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Snow Hill Institute was founded in 1893 by Dr. William J. Edwards, the son of former slaves, as a private boarding school for African American youth in Wilcox County, Alabama. The school was established at a time when Alabama allocated a small amount towards the education of its Black children. Edwards was born on September 12, 1868, on the Ransom O. Simpson plantation, and raised by his paternal grandmother and an aunt, who saw him through a debilitating childhood illness. Originally named Ulysses Grant Edwards, his grandmother changed his name to William, and he later added James in memory of his grandfather.
After years of laboring in the cotton fields and working as a sharecropper, he managed to pay off his medical bills. On New Years Day 1889, at the age of 20, William J. Edwards entered the historic Tuskegee Institute under the direction of its founder Dr. Booker T. Washington. When he arrived, Edwards was unfamiliar with the use of a toothbrush or a knife and fork, yet he qualified for second-year classes in all subjects except grammar. For the first time in his life, he had three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. He worked on the Institute’s farm and listened each Sunday evening to Washington encourage his students to go back and uplift their home communities. William J. Edwards graduated from Tuskegee Institute in 1893, second in a class of 20.
After graduating from Tuskegee, Edwards decided that his native region needed a school. The Alabama Black Belt counties were home to more than 200,000 blacks, of whom more than 40 percent were of school age, but only one local school accepted blacks, and that one was private. Rural black schools were held in church buildings, with school terms lasting only 2-3 months out of the year. Edwards believed this situation to be deplorable, so he began his efforts to provide educational opportunities to children and young adults in the Snow Hill community.
In 1893, Edwards returned to Snow Hill and found R. O. Simpson deeply interested in the welfare of his people. Simpson had known Edwards since infancy and would frequently visit his grandmother while riding through his plantation. After discussing the idea of starting an industrial school on Simpson’s plantation, Edwards was given seven acres. He began teaching in a dilapidated one-room log cabin on the Simpson plantation. He had a class of three students in his first year, and his operating capital was fifty cents. The next year, Edwards built a two-room training building, hired two teacher aides, who happen to be fellow graduates of Tuskegee Institute, and had a student body of 150.
On June 15, 1895, two years after Edwards began teaching, the Colored Industrial and Literary Institute was incorporated. Nine years later, in 1904, the Board of Trustees of the Colored Industrial and Literary Institute, represented by President R. O. Simpson, petitioned the court to change the school’s name to Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute. Snow Hill Institute not only served Wilcox County and surrounding areas but also reached across the United States attracting students from southern and northern states. The school offered black children a comprehensive grade 12 liberal arts education, while also preparing young men and women for careers in industrial and vocational trades without funding from any religious or political organization.
William J. Edwards held various duties and appointments, including Secretary to the Board of Trustees, Chairman of the Financial Committee, Director of the Industrial Department, professor of mental and moral philosophy, and geometry teacher. Within 25 years, what started in a rented dilapidated log cabin with one teacher, three students, and 50 cents in savings had become 24 buildings on 1,940 acres, with 400 students and a property value of $125,000, according to a 1918 book by Edwards, “Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt.”
William Edwards and his supporters increased the school’s property base beginning with an initial gift by Mr. R. O. Simpson of 100 acres. In 1905, 7 acres were purchased for $185 from S. E. Mathews. In February 1906, the school purchased 12 acres for $1,020 from Rebecca Crook. In November 1906, 122 acres were purchased for $1,449 from Mr. & Mrs. W. H. Holtsclaw. The couple were employed by the Snow Hill Institute. Mr. Holtsclaw served on the board as treasurer, as well as on the financial committee, and taught bookkeeping and physics. Mrs. Holtsclaw was the school copyist.
Local contributions and generous benefactors provided assistance for its operation. Philanthropist and businessman Julius Rosenwald donated to Snow Hill. Rosenwald established the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in matching funds to promote vocational and technical education. In April 1906, at the 25th anniversary of Tuskegee Institute, William Edwards delivered an address that interested Mr. Andrew Carnegie, and he gave the Snow Hill Institute $10,000.
In 1908, Mr. and Mrs. R. O. Simpson sold the Snow Hill Institute 3,200 acres of land for $30,000. The next year, in 1909, the Snow Hill Institute sold 1,817 acres back to R. O. Simpson for $10,000. Edwards wrote about the ordeal he endured buying the Simpson plantation in his book. To raise the necessary funds, he traveled North many times, using his great gift of speech to persuade rich whites to contribute. Though successful in many of these ventures and having made some lasting friends, Edwards also suffered great humiliation, rejection, and rebuke. Mr. Simpson recognized Edward’s efforts early in Snow Hill’s existence by supporting the school through donations of land and money. Throughout the history of Snow Hill Institute, a member of the Simpson family has had an appointment on the board to continue the family’s interest in the school.
Some of the land was used for farming, and to raise food for the boarding students, as well as pastureland for the cows. Much of the land was provided to the community who still lived in the old slave quarters on the Simpson plantation, as Edwards not only inspired to build a school, but also a community of Black property owners. Aside from the campus, the rest of the property was vast timberland designated for insurance of the school’s survival.
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