The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-23
Centenary Of Garnet,
Pioneer Negro Educator

The recent death of DR.. Booker T.
Washington has deprived the negroes
| of America of their most influential
and practical leader. While 1t now
seems that his loss is irreparahle. it
| may safely be predicted that other
men will arise to carry on the great
work which he founded and fostered.
For a race so recently removed from
savagery, the negroes have produced
| a remarkably large number Of influen-
tial and able men, and what was true
of the past will almost certainly be
increasingly true OF the future.
DIR. Washington was by no means a
pioneer as a negro educator, for many
other men had titled the field from
which he reaped SO abundant a har-
vest. To-day is the centenary of the
birth of one Of the best known of the
pioneers in negro education, Henry
Highland Garnet.
Like DR.. Washington, Frederick
Douglass, Toussaint TOuverture and
many other famous men of his race,
Garnet was born g slave. He made
his mundane debut at Newmarket
Maryland, on December %, 1915. His
childhood was spent on a Maryland
plantation, where, to all seeming. he
was just an ordinary little picyanin-
ny, destined to spend his life in servi-
tude to white owners. Fate had a
better career in store for him, how
ever, for when he was nine years old
his parents ran away from their own
err, taking their children with them.
The fleeing slave family found their
first refuge In Pennsylvania, and later
removed to New York city. Young.
Garnet was given a good education,
and, being an apt and ambitious pupil,
soon distinguished himself. In his.
young manhood he settled in Troy,
N. Y. and became n schoo. teacher.
While thus Employed he studied for
the ministry, and was ordained a
clergyman of the Presbyterian faith.
For sons years he way pastor of a
church in Troy. AMI. in addition to his
clerical labors, edited a publication
called the Clarion and travelled about
the country as an anti-slavery ora
tor. From the time he graduated at
Oneida Institute at Utica in 1870. he
was a favorite with the abolitionists,
and one of the most effective Of their
speakers.
In his subsequent career Garnet
achieved an International reputation.
The education of the people of his
race was the cause closest to his heart
and for some time he was president
of Avery College, lie was also the,
head of the African Civilization So.
ciety, and a missionary of the United.
Presbyterian Church in the island of
Jamaica. kv4s
as the result of a costly and bloody
civil war. Garnet was one oS the first
Of his race to receive high official
recognition. Just half a. century ago
he was invited to preach in the Hall OF
Representatives and he was the, first
black man who ever entered that hall
save in a mental capacity.
In 1881 Garnet was appointed Unit
ed States minister to the African re-
public of Liberia. but he had scarcely
reached his new post when he was
snitten by a fatal illness, and he died
in 7Monrovia, the Liberian capital, in
February, 1882.
The centenary of another great ne
gro will be celebrated a year from
next February. which will mark the
Tooth anniversary of the birth of
Frederick Douglass. lecturer, states
man, Journalist and diplomat. DOUG
lass, like Garnet. was a native of
Maryland, and a slave. but he made
his escape from his owners when 81
years old.