About Colored Teachers Associations
Organizing Bodies
Notably, the Black Teacher Archive focuses on the longstanding professional organizations of African American educators, historically referred to as "Colored Teachers Associations" (CTAs). CTAs formed a robust professional public for Black educators as early as 1861, and these organizations are a particularly important chapter in African American history and U.S. education. While the first documented CTA formed in Ohio, state-wide associations began to proliferate in southern states during the late nineteenth century, and in some Northern and Midwestern states during Jim Crow. The National Colored Teachers Association/National Association of Colored Teachers was called in the winter of 1903 with the first meeting taking place in 1904 in Nashville, Tennessee. The organization later became known as the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools (1907) and then the American Teachers Association (ATA) (1937).
Alabama State Teachers Association Journal Vol. 7, No. 3
Black teachers founded CTAs to enhance educational opportunities for Black children, to develop themselves as professionals, political actors, and intellectuals, as well as to organize around broader socio-political concerns in the Black Freedom Movement. Given the absence of any other forum where Black teachers could gather and organize as professionals, CTAs became the primary space for the development and transferal of Black pedagogical insights across generations. They were also deeply interconnected with other key black institutions (i.e., churches, HBCUs, Black civic and social organizations, as well as Black fraternities and sororities). CTAs also worked closely with Colored Parent-Teacher Associations and the Office of Education.
Unlike their white counterpart organizations there were no racial restrictions to join these associations. Organized at the national, state, local and sometimes county and district level, CTAs held meetings, created publications, and did important advocacy work for the pursuit of educational justice from the nineteenth century through the Civil Rights era. The presidents were generally elected and often held one year terms, whereas the executive secretaries were often employed and doubled as the journal editor. These organizations began regularly publishing journals at the national and state levels in the 1920s, though some existed as early as 1906. Considered the "official organs" for the associations, the journals document organizational leadership, pedagogy, school competitions, and meeting reports. Members automatically received a subscription. The frequency varied based on the publication, but often the journals were published either monthly or bi-monthly during the school year.
https://bta.gse.harvard.edu/collection/gut50000c04104?canvas=7
The National Association of Colored Teachers Bulletin Vol. 9, No. 1
The national association since the 1920s had a longstanding relationship with the National Education Association starting with a joint standing committee. After the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education associations in states on the border between the North and the South bordering states, such as Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, merged with the white state affiliate teacher associations. The National Education Association passed Resolution 12 in 1964 which instructed state affiliate associations to remove racial restrictions for membership and develop plans for integration by July 1, 1966. By the early 1970s this wave of desegregation efforts successfully forced all southern CTAs to merge or as some CTA members have described be subsumed by the white state affiliate teacher associations. The journals document such conversations about merging as it relates to concerns, strategies for representation, formation of committees, preserving jobs, and logistics regarding assets.
State Association Summaries
As the Black Teacher Archive seeks to improve the public familiarity with Colored Teacher Associations, we have compiled fact sheet summaries about the presidents of the organization, executive secretaries, headquarter addresses, and, and publication titles. Although limited to the highest rank of leadership within these organizations, the compiled information demonstrate the relationship, spheres of influence, and network of prominent Black educators, many of whom are not often recognized as associated with these organizations. Presidents typically served in the role for a year as a volunteer, whereas executive secretaries were sometimes the only salaried member of the organization serving as a field agent and often doubling as the editor of publications. To review the national association and specific state associations, please use the facet to the left. This resource is intended to be a potential starting reference point to become more familiar with these organizations.