Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1916-06-06
AN OPEN LETTER
TO SCHOOL BOARD
The New Statewide School Law
Now in Force Affects Colored
Schools As Well As White.
MORAL CONDITION BAD.
Colored Citizen Makes An Appeal to
the Grand Jury to Remedy
Existing Evils.

Existing Evils.
The following is an open letter TO
the School Board of Anne Arundel
County:
The Honorable Members of the Board
Honorable Sirs:
The Statewide educational school
bill is now a law, making provision for
a seven-months schooling for colored
children for which the colored citizens
of Anne Arundel county are grateful
for the partial redemption of the reac-
tionary acts of the General Assembly
of 1904. The bill also contains pro-
vision for compulsory attendance
children from six to thirteen years to
attend the entire school session from
fourteen to sixteen years, one hundred
days consecutively' or as near as pos
sible, unless excused by the school au-
thorities which will greatly assist in
the preparation of children's school
lives for intellectual industrial and
moral usefulness in the community
wherever they may reside. 1t will
greatly assist in the uplift of the flu
ture citizenry to keenly sense out
every moral obligation and to dis
charge them with fullness of pre-
cision.
The American dogma-equal protec-
ton and opportunity for all-embodies
the exaction for the same requirements
of all persons in that class or classes
of the affording protection and oppor-
tunity. The colored teachers are re-
| quired to be certificate holders, to at
| tend school the same hours as other
| teachers, to instruct according to cur
riculum, to appear neatly and Clearly
| clothed, to be up on principles and
| methods of teaching as well as doing
community work among their people
| and remuneration for this has been
and is now, with rare exceptions, $24
month. from which they have to
| pay board the cost is ever rising, to
! properly cloth under the same condi-
| ton of cost of living, TO supply them
| selves with school periodicals and in
| cidently to look out for sick days. This
| leaves them no margin for rest and re-
creation in their vocational days, de-
| priving them of that leisure which is
| III Di0DdI dllOn VI
| productions acceptable to their profess
sion; to the contrary an act was pass
| ed by the last General Assembly Gre
ating a levy to be made for increase
| pay for white teachers. Local assess
ments upon property specially benefit
| ted are valid, if equal within the class
| benefited" The discrimination makes
1 hD cnInrnd pifiznn a c a national monde
| script We do not wish to make any
arrangement benefitting others still 1t
| is to be hoped that your eminent body
| during the summer will study out a
| scheme whereby the colored teachers
| pay will be regulated for betterment
| by an advance
Again the colored citizen is at dis
advantage, end appears in the role of
national nondescript through the teach
ings of the history of our country in
! schools; from its myth, the visit to this
| Ind of Eric the Red, North Sea wan
| derer to the conclusion of the national
| administration of William Howard Taft
| the colored are mentioned only as
| slaves, there has been an omission of
| their wonderful achievements-mak
| bricks without straw, let loose pennl-
less. assuming the rights of citizenship
with its attending moral and legal obli-
cations; to their credit, now possessing
| $40, 100000 of taxable property, pos
| sessing and operating any number OF
| high and secondary schools, schools of
| medicine and dentistry, schools of law
| theology, for deaf and dumb with
student body of $4,000, and the great
number of modernly built churches,
with large enrolled membership and
constituency one-third as large, the
rapid decrease of illiteracy among
| them. then the history OF their part
| performed in the war for their free
| dom and the preservation of the Union
and then the history of the Ninth, the
Tenth Cavalry, and the Twenty-eighth
and Twenty Infantry in the
| Spanish-American war, national histo-
ry encompassing these facts, taught in
| all of the schools will help bring about
an equita BILE equation in the lives of the
white and colored citizens, each appre
ciating the other for their virtue and
their valor
Concluding, | very respectfully call
your attention to the moral condition
surrounding Stanton School. There's are
bawdy houses in close proximity, their
nefarious trade in operation day and
night Now, if resolution from your
body to the City Council petitioning
them to clean up, and make the prop
erty owners responsible for such con-
ditions, will bring about a moral clear
ing. Again nearby and on the corners
and in alleys surrounding the school.
gaming is carried on-principally crap
shooting, which is in violation of State
statute as well as city ordinance and
requesting the trial magistrate to hand
over the names of the offenders and the
offense TO the States Attorney for fur
Their prosecution, if not for gaming,
then for maintaining a public nuis-
ance. will soon put an end to this phase
of immortality. Now Stanton School it
self, the grand jury of last october
condemned the toilet system as un-
sanitary 1t is more. II is against
good morals. as they are joined and
under one cover. The thin partition
admits of conversations being carried
on by the sexes visiting them. Then
uifhouf adaouate teachers aDartmQuts