Okolona Industrial School

Founded in 1902 by Wallace Battle, the Okolona Industrial School offered industrial and teacher training for generations of Black men and women in northeastern Mississippi. The institution was one of the most successful industrial schools in the state, having a plant of 380 acres in Chickasaw County and a valuation of nearly a quarter million dollars by the 1920s. In 1921, the school also became affiliated with the Episcopal Church through its organization the American Church Institute for Negroes (ACIN), which operated a handful of schools throughout the South as part of the church’s missionary efforts. Okolona added a junior college curriculum in the 1930s and had considerable success in the following decades by providing professional training and a direct pathway to university education. By 1965, however, the school shuttered its doors as a result of financial difficulties and greater competition from other colleges and universities.

The school’s founder, Wallace Aaron Battle, was born on May 10, 1872, on a cotton farm in Hurtsboro, Alabama, and was one of thirteen children. His formal education included Talladega College in Alabama and Berea College in Kentucky, where he completed his bachelor’s degree and was later awarded an honorary masters and doctorate. After graduation, Battle taught for a year in Alabama before deciding to open his own school in Mississippi. He later explained his reasoning behind this decision: 

In Mississippi alone we have one million Negroes—one tenth of all in the country; and half of these can neither read nor write a single word. In this state the blacks outnumber the whites three to two, but the school attendance is eighteen to eleven, and the number of teachers employed is five to three in favor of the whites. School desks are absent from 98 percent of them. Seeing this condition I determined as soon as I had graduated from Berea to go into the jungles of Mississippi and help to ameliorate their condition. Although there was just $2.60 to begin with, I did not set out soliciting funds, but solicited the friendship and cooperation of the leading white people of Okolona and of the state. Today there are six million Negroes in the black belt not provided for. The urgent need in the black belt today is a chain of these schools running from Savannah by way of Tuskegee on to Texas.

In terms of structure, Battle looked to Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute as an example for how to set up and organize his own industrial school. Both schools provided instruction for students in the practical application of agriculture, mechanical arts, and domestic science, as well as offer courses in the training of teachers. In addition to its academic courses, Okolona offered the following industrial training in this early era: farming, stenography, plastering, millinery, laundrying, stock raising, brick masonry, blacksmithing, plain sewing, dress making, carpentry, music, painting, cooking, and typewriting.

The school day was divided into equal parts study and trade work. Each student was required to work a trade, and they were compensated a small amount if their work was graded at eighty percent or better. All students were also required to attend two church services and Sunday school. Students older than twelve were admitted to the boarding department and were allowed to visit home only during Christmas vacation. Occasionally, students would board with prominent families in the town of Okolona. For example, Tommie E. Austin boarded with Della Bobo, a relative of Philip McIntosh (one of the board members of Okolona and a prominent local Black merchant), and later boarded with the family of James Edward Edens, who was a White banker, planter, and livestock dealer in Okolona.

Exact attendance numbers are not available for every year, but in 1915, the total student population was 230. Of these there were 182 elementary, 19 secondary, no college students, 82 boarders, 20 agricultural students, and 19 industrial pupils (five engineering, four printing, eight shoemaking, and two blacksmithing). 

Due to the difficulty of raising funds and also devastating setbacks from fires at the school, Battle early on looked for external sources of revenue. By 1921, he was able to successfully arrange the formal takeover of the school by the Episcopal Church through its organization, the American Church Institute for Negroes (ACIN). The ACIN operated a string of schools throughout the South, and offered an annual stipend for expenses in exchange for denominational allegiance. The arrangement proved beneficial to Okolona by placing the school's finances on a more solid footing, and easing the burden of constantly soliciting donations. Battle later remarked that the ACIN “saved both my health and life, and also the life of the school.”

Racial violence during the mid-to-late 1920s caused widespread panic and the near closure of the school, however. In May 1925, on the day of graduation ceremonies, the head of the agriculture department, Ulysses S. Baskin, was murdered by a local White family over a dispute involving livestock. A year later, a former Okolona student and successful blacksmith in the community was murdered by two assailants under questionable circumstances. In 1929, the longtime trustee of the school, Charlie W. Gilliam, was nearly murdered in his own home by a group of masked attackers. In each instance, the guilty parties were not held accountable, and the White leadership of the Episcopal Church, as well as the White members of the board of trustees, made a concerted effort to hide the truth from the public. In response to these attacks and threats on his own life, President Battle resigned his position after twenty-five years of service, moved to the Northeast, and became a field secretary for the ACIN.

Battle’s wife, Effie Threat Battle, remained at the school and took over as interim principal until a more permanent replacement was found. She was born in Okolona and claimed Choctaw ancestry through her mother, who was one-quarter Choctaw. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree from Rust College and taught teacher education and grammar at Okolona. She married Wallace Battle in 1903 and published a book of her poems entitled, Gleanings from Dixie Land, in the 1910s. After Wallace Battle resigned in 1927, she took over administration of the school for a number of years but eventually rejoined her husband on the east coast, living in New York and Connecticut.

Armistead Mitchell Strange became principal of Okolona in 1933 and was instrumental in modernizing the school and developing its junior college program. He was born in 1884 in Waterproof, Louisiana, and graduated from Alcorn College in 1905 with a degree in science. After graduation he worked in various schools in Mississippi and Louisiana, assisted in the building of one of the first Rosenwald schools in Mississippi, and became an early proponent of the county training school movement in the South. One of the first county training schools in the country was under his direction, and it proved to be a successful model for other rural schools with limited budgets. When Strange moved to Okolona and took over as principal, he reorganized the curriculum into a hybrid four-year high school and two-year junior college program for liberal arts and teacher training. Both programs became accredited by the Mississippi State Department of Education. 

Richard Temple Middleton II was the next principal of Okolona, serving only a short time from 1940 to 1943. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from Tougaloo College, and master’s degree from the University of Chicago. His family had a long history of religious leadership, with three generations serving as priests in the Episcopal Church. Middleton left his position as principal at Okolona to serve with the 9th Army Regiment as a chaplain during World War II. He also served during the Korean War, where, in his role as chaplain, he made personal visits, provided religious services, and helped in the distribution of clothing for those affected by the war.

On the homefront, Okolona Industrial refocused its curriculum towards mobilization and the war effort. Courses were given in woodworking, farm mechanics, food production, and food preservation. Students and faculty bought war stamps and bonds, and also collected thousands of pounds of scrap metal. Following the end of the war, the school continued to provide a service to both veterans and the local community through its veteran farm program. Under the plan, each veteran submitted work needing to be done on their farm and purchased building materials, while Okolona students helped complete the work. One report indicated that in a single year some 18 homes, 12 barns, 51 sanitary toilets, and two farm workshops were built. An additional 25 homes were painted, while another 45 homes were screened. 

The start of Walker Milan Davis’s reign as Okolona president began in 1943 and lasted until his untimely death in 1960. An Okolona native, Davis graduated from Alcorn College in 1932 and received a master’s degree from Iowa State in mathematics the following year. He was the registrar of Okolona from 1933 to 1940 and held teaching positions at Alcorn College, Rust College, and the Ministerial Institute and College. He also published the book, Pushing Forward, a history of Alcorn College, in 1938. 

As president of the Mississippi Negro Teachers Association, Davis went head-to-head with segregationist governor Fielding Wright in 1949. One of the prominent leaders of the Dixiecrat movement, Governor Wright opposed integration and equal pay for black teachers. Wright addressed the Black teachers association at Lanier High School in Jackson in March 1949,  renewing his calls for continued segregation and opposition to “outside” interference. Davis responded by saying that Black students were applying to White colleges due to the inferior conditions at Black colleges, and he concluded his remarks by saying that “what the governor refers to as ‘outside interference in racial matters in Mississippi is no worse than inside neglect.’” 

Student records for Okolona are only available from the 1930s to 1965, as a fire in 1928 destroyed most of the school’s records prior to that time period. Nonetheless, the records illuminate a great deal about who these students were, the schools they attended, and if they served in the military. Several trends can be extrapolated from this data. Of the 2,955 individual records, it is clear that most students were born in or near Okolona. For example, 984 students were from Chickasaw County, while another 288 and 249 were from neighboring Lee and Monroe counties respectively. Despite the industrial title in the school’s name, the vast majority of students majored in education or teacher training and not in the trades. Of those who declared a major, the top concentrations were education (48 percent), general studies (21 percent), business education (15 percent), trades (12 percent), and mathematics (.02 percent). 

The most well-known alumnus of Okolona Industrial was Willam James Raspberry. He attended Okolona from 1948 to 1952 before moving on to Indiana Central College, where he studied history. He served a short time in the military before becoming a longtime columnist for the Washington Post, covering important events such as the 1965 Watts riots. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his commentary on social issues, with race relations being a major theme of many of his articles.  

Student life at Okolona is also a subject ripe for further analysis. School yearbooks, for example, offer a pictorial history of dances, homecoming parades, the 4-H club, choir, band, as well as athletics such as football and basketball. In the 1950s, the school was part of the Southern Junior College Athletic Association and played teams such as Piney Woods School, Alcorn College, Campbell College, and Rust College. The collection of student records also offers a glimpse into various minor scandals common to many colleges during this era, with students occasionally being suspended for drinking alcohol, violating curfew, or leaving campus with members of the opposite sex.

Hampton Preston Wilburn served as the final Okolona president from 1960 to 1965. He was born in Yazoo County and was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. He became president of Campbell College in Jackson, and, after Okolona closed, he worked in various capacities at Jackson State University. He served as principal of Linwood Elementary School in Yazoo County until his death in 1974.

Wilburn oversaw the closing of Okolona in May 1965, with the decision being finalized by the board of trustees in November 1964. Financial difficulties were the primary cause of the school’s closure, with Wilburn noting that the lack of monetary support meant that the school could not keep up with the current cost of educational standards. He elaborated that the school’s income from tuition, fees, and endowment only accounted for 40 percent of the budget, while the remaining balance needed to be covered by donations from individuals, corporations, and churches. Contributing to the problem was the reality that the vast majority of students needed some form of financial aid to attend classes. The infrastructure of the school was also deficient. For example, the school did not have a gymnasium on campus and the girls and boys basketball teams had to drive eighty miles each day to practice, even though both teams were competitive in their intercollegiate conferences. The financial needs of a modern junior college were thus simply too great for Okolona to stay afloat by the mid-1960s.