Bossier Parish’s first Jeanes Supervisor, Carrie Martin

Early 20th-century schools for African American children in the South, especially in rural areas, were in a catch-22 caused by a segregated education system that offered less months in the school term, and less years of schooling: You couldn’t have schools for African American students without African American teachers, and you couldn’t have African American teachers without African American schools, especially high schools. Enter a Quaker woman and philanthropist from Philadelphia named Anna T. Jeanes. In 1907 she created a one-million-dollar endowment named the Negro Rural School Fund, more commonly referred to as “the Jeanes fund,” to develop a cadre of educated and professionally trained African American teachers to staff more and better schools for African American children in the rural South, including secondary schools.

Carrie Washington Martin was a school teacher who became the first Jeanes Teacher (often referred to as Jeanes Supervisor) in Bossier Parish, and only the third in the state of Louisiana, in 1913. She was appointed by the Bossier Parish School Board after teaching for a number of years in the Plain Dealing area of northern Bossier Parish.

Carrie Martin was born in December of 1883 in Spring Ridge, Louisiana, a rural part of southwestern Caddo Parish. Her parents were Anthony and Georgia Jackson Washington. Her father farmed and served as a Methodist preacher; census records note that he was literate. Carrie was 16 years old when she married her first husband, Franklin Roan. The young couple lived a few houses away from her parents in Jackson Parish in 1900. Franklin’s fate is unknown, but in May of 1909 Carrie married James C. Martin in Bossier Parish. Her father owned land in the Hughes Spur community, which is near Plain Dealing. Carrie became a school teacher and her husband farmed. Carrie did not have a college degree, but she received teacher training during summer institutes for black teachers. This was typical of the early Jeanes Teachers.

As Bossier Parish’s first Jeanes Teacher, Carrie Martin was charged with providing or improving education for 4,733 African American “educables” ages six to eighteen, and supervising their teachers in 59 schools spread throughout the parish’s approximately 838 square miles. She would likely have been driving in her own vehicle, without travel compensation, on dirt roads that were, for much of the year, mud pits.

In addition to supervising and training teachers in the African American schools, and improving the literacy rate of less than 50% among the parish’s African American population according to the 1910 census, Carrie Martin was also expected to be a leader in school and community health and nutrition, home life, and beautification. As a Jeanes Teacher, she supervised home demonstration (home economics) work for African-American women, such as teaching food preservation, home management skills, and public health by making home visits and organizing homemaker clubs. She also organized community members to raise money to build more or better schools, including by raising livestock or growing cash crops with proceeds going toward a school fund.

Leo Favrot was the state supervisor for Rural Negro Schools and made several visits to Bossier Parish to inspect the schools and the work of Carrie Martin. She was ill during one of his visits, so he called on the parish’s superintendent of schools, W.A. Fortson, to discuss her work. Mr. Favrot concluded from this trip that there was considerable activity on Carrie Martin’s part, but that the Jeanes program did not have secure standing with the Bossier Parish School Board. Mr. Favrot’s suggestion was to win the board over with the usual strategy used at the time to sway a reluctant white community to the cause of education for African Americans– emphasize the practical, industrial nature of the Jeanes Teacher’s work, especially in agriculture.

In 1919, Bossier was without a Jeanes Teacher. The reason for this gap in Carrie Martin’s term is unknown, but Leo Favrot admonished the school board by saying, “This is to be deplored,” because Carrie Martin’s work had “done a lot of good” promoting the interests of schools in Bossier Parish. He hoped the board would resolve to again have a Jeanes teacher and make an appropriation “sufficiently large” to attract a very capable agent. They must have listened, because Carrie Martin was rehired as a Jeanes Teacher the following year.

Carrie Martin passed away on March 11, 1926 from cervical cancer, after an illness of about six months. In recognition for her significant work expanding and improving the educational opportunities available for African American students, the Bossier Parish School Board named the Plain Dealing all-grades school for African American students “Carrie Martin High School” in 1954. After the de-segregation of Bossier Parish schools (1970), the school closed, and Plain Dealing Elementary School opened in the same building. In 2003, community members pressed for the school board to once again have an existing school named to honor Carrie Martin, and Plain Dealing Elementary was re-named Carrie Martin Elementary. In 2018, the elementary school was moved to the campus of Plain Dealing’s middle and high school due to a declining enrollment, but the elementary wing is still named after Carrie Martin, and her portrait hangs in the hallway.

You can visit the Bossier Parish Libraries YouTube channel to watch a virtual slide show on Carrie Maritn, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig-kWHgY5mw&t=3s or contact us at the History Center if you’d like more information on the parish’s Jeanes Teachers. We are located in the Bossier Central Library Complex at 7204 Hutchison Drive in Bossier City, LA. 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. Or, go online to our collections database and search for “Catalogs” at http://bossier.pastperfectonline.com/

Please note the new hours for the History Center: M-Fri 9-6. Saturdays we are open by appointment. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org For other local history events, facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/. Contact us if you’d like to be on our email list to receive our newsletter and History Center event updates.

Images: 

• Carrie Washington Martin: 2003 The Yellow Jacket Carrie Martin High School Reunion Yearbook
• Louisiana Rural School Agent Leo Favrot (caption on photo)
• Jeanes Teacher exhibit at La. State Fair (caption on photo)

Article by: Pam Carlisle

The Honoree of Mayfield Street

In 1916, Zella Mayfield was born Zella Ruby Cullen, the ninth child of William B. and Hannah Cullen. Her mother was known as “Momma Cullen” due to her popularity as a midwife in Benton, La. Raised by an Italian family, her father received a good education. He graduated in 1882 and then went to college, becoming an educator in Bossier Parish.

The Cullen’s saw to it that their children, all eleven of them, were educated. Mayfield attended school at Linwood, a Rosenwald school in Benton that had three rooms, one for grades 1-3, one for grades 4-7, and the third room served as a kitchen for preparing meals for the students. Starting in fourth grade, she attended the Bossier Training School, where she finished high school. Many children would stay in the dormitory during the school year, but she remembers walking three-miles to school instead.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Mayfield was an educator in Bossier Parish for 31-years. She started teaching before going to college, which was she said was allowed if a person completed 12th grade. Like most educators, Mayfield attended college during summer breaks. The colleges she attended include Northeastern, Louisiana State University, Wiley College, and Stephen F. Austin.

Her teaching career began at Oak Ridge, a small one-room schoolhouse. She also taught at Linwood, the Rosenwald school that she attended as a child. Eventually, she started teaching at Carrie Martin when it was only an elementary school—reassigned, later, when integrating public schools began in Bossier Parish, to Plantation Park Elementary School in Bossier City.

After her teaching career, Mayfield had plans to travel and see the world. As a Benton native and life-long resident, Zella Mayfield loved her community. Friends and neighbors urged her to seek public office, so she did, cutting short her plans to travel and see the world. In an interview, Mayfield said, “she couldn’t walk away from a public life – she was committed to helping her fellow man.”

Her political career began in 1986 when she became an alderman for District 2 of Benton. When she ran for re-election in 1992, she said that “she wants to see the town improve over the next four years, including improved care for the elderly and securing a new, enlarged town hall.” She held that seat for twelve years. During those twelve years, Mayor George Forrest resigned, and she served as pro-tem Mayor of Benton after his resignation and while waiting for Joe Stickell to take office.

Mayfield led efforts to improve the Bossier Parish Health Unit, for which she received honors in 1994. She was an active member of the Bossier Parish Concerned Citizens group, focused on improving education, voting rights, and community-related issues.

In 1997, former Mayor Stickell led the effort to name a town street in Benton in Mayfield’s honor. He asserted, “Zella Mayfield is a people person. She makes decisions to benefit the whole town of Benton. She’s a very influential person for blacks and whites here.” …

“Mayfield Street was so named in honor of Mayfield’s long-standing dedication to her neighbors.”

To learn more about Zella Mayfield and other women who made a difference in Bossier Parish, visit the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, 2206 Beckett Street, Bossier City. While you are here, you can view an exhibit honoring some of these women.