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Bring a little spring indoors: Forcing flowering branches

Posted on February 23, 2015

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Today, on the last day of #BlackHistoryMonth, the

Today, on the last day of #BlackHistoryMonth, the Black woman you should have learned about in school is Dr. Roger Arliner Young.

Dr. Young’s story is complicated and bittersweet. She had an amazing career in science, took a powerful stand for civil rights, and ultimately died a forgotten and troubled woman.

Young enrolled at Howard Univ. in 1916 as a music major and didn’t take her first science course until five years later. She happened to be noticed by the respected biology professor, Dr. Ernest Everett Just, who became her mentor. She graduated Howard with a BS and earned her Master’s from the Univ. of Chicago, all while teaching at Howard with Just.

In 1924, when she published an article in Science magazine, she was the first Black woman to conduct and publish research in her field. When she received her Ph.D. from the Univ. of Pennsylvania, she was the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in zoology.

While working at Howard, Young and Just’s relationship deteriorated and became openly hostile. After earning her Ph.D., she moved to NC in 1940 to better support her sick mother. First teaching at NC Central, Young then took the position of head of the Biology Department at Shaw Univ. in Raleigh.

At Shaw, Young participated with the active civil rights advocates on campus, including labor activists. Young traveled with the AFL during “Operation Dixie” to help the tobacco workers of eastern NC, mostly Black and female, unionize. On a Raleigh-to-Williamston bus in July 1946, she refused to give up her seat for a white rider. The bus was forced to stop in Nashville where she was questioned and possibly arrested.

After NC, she moved on to several short-term positions further west. Her mother died in 1953, escalating her mental health issues and leading her to seek treatment at the Mississippi State Mental Asylum. She died in 1964.

One of our mottoes at PPP is “know your roots.” After all, Black history IS American history, and it’s our present and future as well.

Photo credit: Marine Biological Laboratory Archives

Do you know Dazelle Foster Lowe? She was key in br

Do you know Dazelle Foster Lowe? She was key in bringing the skills and tools of home demonstration* to Black women and girls across NC, and she is a Black woman who you should have learned about in school. #BlackHistoryMonth

Dazelle Foster Lowe was first hired as one of the first 41 Black women home demonstration agents in NC in 1919 to assist white agents for canning season during WWI. She was hired full-time in 1923 as the agent for Wake County. In 1925, she became the district home agent, in charge of all Black home demonstration work in NC.

By 1929, Alamance, Columbus, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Robeson, Wake, and Wayne were the seven NC counties with established home demonstration organizations for Black women and girls. Lowe visited each county several times per year, organized county and statewide meetings, visited unorganized counties to encourage them to form their own clubs, and produced an annual report documenting the membership and activities across the state. In 1937, she also started a college loan fund for Black members.

By 1944, there were enough Black home demonstration clubs to divide NC into three districts, and Lowe ran the new Western district. She worked with home demonstration until she retired in 1955.

*Home demonstration work started as a grassroots movement to teach boys and girls how to grow, harvest, and manage a farm and its products more efficiently and scientifically. It quickly became apparent parents were just as interested as their children, and for women, learning how to can produce or raise chickens and sell the resulting goods meant they could earn their own money, for their families or for themselves. Funds were proposed for land grant colleges to administer home demonstration programs, and initially, the money was to be split between white and Black schools. However, racist elements in the US Congress blocked this and restricted even private funding for Black home demonstration offices.

Interested in learning more about home demonstration? Make sure to attend one of our food preservation classes when we open up our schedule again! We LOVE to talk about this history and its ties to today!

Photo credit: NCSU Libraries

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