It has a large web of alumni who support the school wholeheartedly (some may say fanatically, but there’s nothing wrong with that) and I know a few of them. So I was delighted to come across a Howard University Bulletin – “Howard Today” – from around 1949 among a box lot of stuff from one of my recent auctions. I was able to date the bulletin by the patch on a varsity sweater worn by a male student on the cover: “1949 Champions.”

The bulletin had some water damage and a few of the pages were stuck together. But most of the black and white photos inside were still in good shape, and were just wonderful for the history they told.

The bulletin is chock full of photos of the students and their activities: ROTC, the drama club’s plays, the homecoming queen, a fencing competition, soccer and football, an engineer with his equipment, chemists in the lab, women in the dorms, sororities in a parade and guest speakers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, educator Mary McLeod Bethune and pianist Hazel Scott.

 
It’s not often that I come across old photos of black people, especially not ones that tell the story of one of our universities. The bulletin was especially sweet because some of the photos were taken by Robert S. Scurlock, a prominent photographer whose family’s Scurlock Studio captured Washington’s black middle class for more than a century. He shot the front cover inset and back cover, and some inside photos. Unfortunately, his photos are not individually credited in the bulletin. (In a post last week, I mentioned Robert Scurlock’s counterpart in Philadelphia, John W. Mosley.)

A couple months ago, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture completed an exhibit called “The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise” of more than 100 images. The studio is now closed, but 200,000 negatives, 30,000 prints and 230,000 images are archived at the Smithsonian.

Described as a “pictorial presentation” of activities at the college, the 82-page bulletin was a good chronicler of what the university was all about in 1949. Howard was founded in 1867 as a liberal arts and science college. It was named after Gen. Oliver O. Howard, a Civil War hero who was commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which provided much of its early funding. By the time of the bulletin 82 years later, the university invited students to visit the ”Hill” to see what it had to offer: degrees in medicine, pharmacy, dentisty, social work, engineering, architechture, grad school and more.  

At the time, according to the bulletin, it had 502 faculty members (“some of the finest scholars and teachers in the world”) and a $14 million educational plant, with an additional $17 million building program in progress (“one of the finest in the country”), and it educated more than 6,000 students from 40 states and 24 foreign countries (“the largest institution for higher education for Negros in the United States and is likewise the only comprehensive university system designed primarily for them”).

I’m not sure if these bulletins are produced anymore, since you can now learn all about Howard from the web. But it is a good reminder of how great this university has been – and still is.

Related posts:

1. You can’t have too many (Regency-style) chairs
2. Black soldiers and World War II

A few others were of the same black man, in handsome military officer dress, apparently at a special party or event. I wanted those photos. It’s not often that I come across photos of black people, and even rarer to find military photos.

Bidding on the photo of the officer started first. I jumped in. Then another woman bidded against me. We went back and forth for awhile, but she was determined. She got the photos, explaining to me afterward that she doesn’t often come across soldiers in dress uniform.

She was bidding on the photos to sell. I was bidding on our history.

I did get one set of photos: the 10 black men in khaki uniforms staring into the camera. Faces firm, stoic, no smiles. World War II.  A time when racism, segregation and discrimination made for a tough experience for black men in the military. Behind the faces, what horror stories do these soldiers have to tell?

There were four photos of the same group of men. On the back was stamped:

RELEASED BY ARMY AIR FORCES
If used for publication, please credit as below
OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES

I believe these photos belonged to a man named Lt. Oliver Salisbury, who had written O. Salisbury in ink on the backs of two photos. Also printed on the backs of two photos were ids on all the men (apparently written by Salisbury).

The other men were Lt. William E. Williamson, Lt. Edwin A. Campbell, Lt. Dickerson, Lt. Burns, Lt. Best, Lt. Hudson, Lt. Wiley, Lt. Montrose, Lt. Johnson.

Who were these soldiers? Where was the photo taken? Were they among the black aviators who were part of the Tuskegee Experiment? Did they train in Tuskegee, or elsewhere? Why did the U.S. Army Air Force distribute this photo? Was it propaganda?

There is no date on the photo, but the U.S. Army Air Force became the U.S. Air Force in 1947. Could the photo be from the 1940s? I have all kinds of questions about these men, and I’m still looking for the answers.

We’re all familiar with the Tuskegee Airmen and Tuskegee Institute’s historic role in training black pilots during World War II.  But the so-called Tuskegee Experiment also included training for navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff, instructors and others. The soldiers in my photo may not have been pilots but may have been involved in other areas of the program.  

Early on, the training was not done exclusively at Tuskegee. When the federal government first authorized flight training for African Americans in 1939, Howard University and Hampton Institute joined Tuskegee in providing some preliminary training. By 1941, Tuskegee was the one that offered advanced training and produced the pilots, becoming the main source during the war.

According to the Tuskegee Airmen website, up until 1946, when the flying school ended, 994 pilots graduated from the program. Black navigators, bombardiers and gunnery crews were trained at military bases elsewhere in the country. Mechanics were trained at Chanute Air Base in Illinois before Tuskegee took over the training in 1942, according to the site.

Despite their prowess in war and the eventual desegregation of the Air Force, the black pilots could not defeat racism at home. Do you recognize any of these men? Let’s not forget them today, of all days – Veteran’s Day.

A bit of history: Eugene Jacques Bullard was the first black military pilot in history and the only one in World War I. In 1917, he fought as an American volunteer in the French army. He was born in Columbus, GA, on October 9, 1894, spent much of his life as an expatriate in France after the first war, fought against the Germans in the French army in World War II and returned to the United States after the war. He was posthumously named a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force in 1994.

Related posts:

1. Who are these WWII black soldiers?
2. Soldiers and their keepsakes from war
3. Being black and a WAC in World War II