#Choosetochallenge: Remembering Wil Lou Gray
March 8th is International Women’s Day, a global day of awareness that celebrates women’s achievements and the continued struggle for women’s equality around the globe. Started in 1911, this day is a great time to reflect on women in history who rose to the #choosetochallenge slogan of the 2021 IWD. Here, the spotlight is on a South Carolina woman who chose to challenge the limitations of regional social mores and work tirelessly to advance opportunities for poor black and white people in her state in the interwar period. Despite segregation, poverty, hookworm and the cultural expectations of women that limited access to professional opportunities, Wil Lou Gray (1883–1984) changed the lives of thousands of her fellow citizens and left an indelible mark on the state and nation.
Wil Lou Gray is one of the most important women in twentieth-century South Carolina history. A centurion who devoted her career to adult education, she championed equal education for both races. She used her family, friends and networks of grass-roots volunteers and professionals to improve the lives of South Carolinians. Her advanced education, progressive methods and belief in the abilities of people grounded her pioneering work in the field of adult education, and her opportunity schools, started in 1921, were recognized innovations across the nation and abroad. As the Superintendent of Adult Education in South Carolina from 1919 to 1947, Gray achieved a state leadership position before women could vote in South Carolina, a state that banned women from serving on a jury until 1967.
In 1919 she was one of just two Superintendents of Adult Education in the nation and carved a niche as a leader in a job few knew anything about. She then used this position to craft programs to advance opportunities for disadvantaged people in her state. What is most important, she was a scholar with an advanced degree in political science who published studies in social science journals to validate her ideas and then use these as precedents for social policy. Brilliant. A study she conducted during the Great Depression is a great example of this process.
In the summer of 1930, Gray submitted an application to the American Association of Adult Education for five thousand dollars from the Carnegie Corporation to conduct a study to determine the learning capacity of black and white adults when taught in a favorable environment. The study aimed to prove the effectiveness of adult elementary education on illiterate adults and provide a national educational model. William Gray of the University of Chicago and J. Warren Tilton, a psychologist from Yale, directed the testing of the students and used materials designed by Edward L. Thorndike, a psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. Gray designed the study to prove tax-supported adult education- a very controversial idea at the time- was worthwhile for both black and white adults.
The next summer, from July 23rd to August 22nd, two separate summer schools took place, one for white students at Clemson College and the other for black students at the Seneca Institute, a nearby school. The five thousand dollar grant paid $2,000 for the salaries of Gray (William) and Tilton (selected for the study by Thorndike) and $2,000 for scholarships, twenty dollars each, for fifty black and fifty white participants. The remaining money paid for materials and testing supplies. Teachers were paid one hundred dollars with board provided by the state. To accommodate the racial demands of the region, the “colored Baptists” loaned the Seneca Institute site to Gray for the black student housing.
Of the 288 pupils who attended the two schools, only the Carnegie-funded students were tested, and these students ranged in age from fourteen to seventy. The school day lasted from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. with free time for exercise and chapel incorporated into the schedule. Gray noted that the first week was hard for many of the black students at Seneca because they were older and struggled with eyestrain or poorly adjusted eyeglasses. A local theater manager invited the students to attend movies on Saturdays where many students saw a “talkie” for the first time. A local paper reported, “The Richardson theatre gave them a special show and invited the entire school as their guests. All accepted except some members of the Holiness church, these thought this kind of entertainment a sin, so they refused the invitation. It was an interesting study in psychology to hear the reaction of those who had never seen, or heard, a play given on the screen.”
The average age of the fifty-five students at Seneca was thirty-eight, and the group had an average of seven months of previous schooling. Since the grant paid for only fifty participants at Seneca, private donors paid the tuition for five additional students. Collectively, the black students were approximately thirteen years older than their white counterparts. Of the twenty-six black students reporting salaries, the average wage was $1.50 per week for occupations that included farmers, cooks, mechanics, laundresses and one midwife. A local paper reported, “One man who is attending the school has 15 children but quit his job just to learn to read and write. Another earning $10.00 each week as a cook quit his job to learn to read and write.” None of the Seneca students worked in the mills, yet thirty of the students came from Oconee County where the study took place, a cotton and textile center in the upstate. In contrast, two-thirds of the white students at Clemson worked in the textile industry and made an average salary of $9.04 per week. Half of the Seneca participants were orphans, twenty-seven grew up on homes where there were ten to seventeen children, and the participants had an average of three children in their respective households. Despite significant socio-economic differences between the Seneca and Clemson groups, the Seneca group read the same materials and took the same tests and measurements as their Clemson counterparts. Additionally, the overall health of the Seneca students improved while in residence at the summer school. The local paper reported, “The pupils were given a medical examination at the beginning of school at which time each was weighed. On weighing the same pupils at the end of the month a gain of 11 pounds was noted.”
To determine the I.Q. of each student, verbal and non-verbal tests were given during the month-long session to both the Clemson and Seneca experimental groups. Published after the experiment was completed, the study provided a comprehensive explanation of the rationale, objectives, findings and conclusions of the scholars involved in the project. The numerous research questions that guided the study were listed in the first chapter of the report. These questions examined the impact of gender, age, income, previous schooling, and occupation on the intelligence and learning capacity of illiterate adults. Many of these factors later explained in part the differences between the black and white student intelligence test scores. Although the study was clearly designed to determine whether or not race impacted learning capacity, none of the research questions addressed race. The conspicuous absence of race in the research questions is important because the two experimental groups of equal size were differentiated by race. Although age, gender, occupation and education were assessed as key factors related to the differences in scores of the two groups, race- the most obvious difference- did not appear in any written research question. It is likely that Gray purposely did not include a question about race in order to neutralize potential local controversy about the study even though race was a key benchmark of the research. Only in the conclusion of the report did Gray mention race. Here she concluded that there was “little difference between the learning ability of whites and Negroes.”
Held at the height of the Depression, in a state defined by race violence, segregation and illiteracy, the study challenged prevailing notions of race and ability. Gray conducted the study while the global eugenics movement- burgeoning under Hitler in the interwar period- accelerated from the precedent that racial inferiority was physiological and scientifically verified. With this as backdrop, Gray’s study was a bombshell that found its primary reading audience outside of South Carolina. As a social scientist, Gray knew how to conduct a study, publish the findings and use those findings as evidence to support her arguments to advance equality of educational opportunities for all the people. She collaborated with nationally recognized scholars and used the most modern, cutting edge academic testing measures as tools, proof she calculated everything from the scholars to the measurements to ensure that nothing would undermine her findings. Clearly, she knew what she was doing and did it with intent.
It is important to consider the curriculum used to educate the students at Seneca in relation to the findings of the experiment. All of the reading and writing material used at the Seneca site had both a racial and class bias, with everything from advertisements to etiquette lessons reflecting a white, upper-class lifestyle and environment. For example, Seneca student Katy Smith, an African American woman, wrote in her class scrapbook, “An attractive table makes the meal more appealing,” above a picture of a table set for a family that was wealthy and refined. The caption beneath the picture read:
“The dark beauty of Ebony and the clearness of Crystal are graciously combined in this setting for a formal luncheon. The Millefleur cutting on the square base tumbler is matched on the crystal service plate. The embroidered organdie cloth is Florentine.”
It is unlikely that any of the students at either Seneca or Clemson could comprehend, much less find value in, this information beyond recognizing the picture of a table set with plates and utensils. How the black and white students understood, processed and made sense of the teaching materials used by the instructors at Seneca and Clemson undoubtedly influenced the assessments of progress administered during the term. The language and imagery used to teach core concepts- in an era before TV, the Internet and a visually dependent culture- likely appeared foreign to many of the students and in turn impacted their understanding of the concepts presented to them by the faculty.
Despite the biased curriculum, the commencement exercises at Seneca were racially sensitive and reflected African American history and culture. At the final program, a group of students presented to the audience a booklet called “The Story of My Race.” Although these closing ceremonies drew from black history, the question of who designed the program, chose the songs and what black leaders to remember is significant since Gray, in collaboration with the black teachers, designed the program. Olema Wiggins, a student at Seneca, wrote to Gray after the summer program ended:
“I have found no one so intensely interested in us as a race as you. All I can say will not express my gratitude.”
Gray’s 1931 study put in scientific terms that race had no impact on a person’s ability to learn. This result proved the power of democracy in education where equal opportunity meant the equal potential for all people. With her scientific analysis as backing, Gray turned every argument against funding black education- and adult education- on its head and made the state’s illiterates, both black and white, a point of national discussion. In 1932 The Peabody Journal of Education reviewed the study and numerous academic journals published her findings, dispensing the findings to a wide professional audience. Gray’s study offered audiences outside of the South virtual encounters with southern black culture as proxies for the actual. As a cultural text, the study conceptually linked a broad-based, literate audience to a perception of black life that was progressive and promoted the idea that democracy was possible when a shared humanity was recognized. Her work demonstrates how change came to the South, piecemeal from different starting points, in the shadow of tradition and often by indirect means.
Adult summer schools for black men and women continued in the thirties and in 1935 Gray led a group of two thousand black adult students to the South Carolina State House. Under the guise of citizenship education, she marched the group up to the doors of the State House to make the state powerbrokers see the faces of the disadvantaged while at once showing the students that these symbols of state power and heritage belonged to them as well, citizens of the state. Gray chose to challenge despite massive obstacles.
When reflecting on the #choosetochallenge2021 of International Women’s Day, remember that change does not happen in a vacuum. The mechanics of progress tell the story, and ground-up narratives enrich the understanding of the past and the people who made a difference.
