The annual symposium hosted by the Black History Commission of Arkansas and the Arkansas State Archives is tomorrow, Feb. 7 at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock. “Shaping the Future of Education: Black Education, Then and Now” will include a presentation from Matthew Caston, educator and historian, about Southland College, built in 1866.
“And it was the first institution of higher learning built to train Black teachers west of the Mississippi River.”
Caston’s talk tomorrow, “A New Theory of Learning: The Legacy of the 56th U.S. Colored Infantry and Southland College,” centers on a not widely discussed part of Arkansas history. Caston, whose first degree is in journalism, says he’s always been curious about the origins of Black education in the Deep South. That interest strengthened as he taught teachers as part of the Arkansas Teacher Corps Summer Institute that led him to articles about Southland College.
“This school was built on the heels of the Civil War by Black men who were formerly enslaved. So they had escaped enslavement, enlisted in the Union Army and built this institute of higher learning to train teachers.”
Caston says it’s well documented that married couple Alida and Calvin Clark traveled to Phillips County, Arkansas, from Indiana. Abolitionists representing a Christian society.
And their assignment was to go to Helena to help out the newly freed Black Americans in and around the space in Helena. And so they set out, I believe, in the early 1860s, perhaps 1861. And they basically, by wagon, by horse, from Indiana all the way down into Helena, West Helena, Arkansas.”
Caston says the Clarks did amazing work setting up the orphanage in 1864, but by 1866, the orphanage was facing closure because of financial shortfalls. And here is an even lesser known part of the story.
The men of the 56th United States Colored Infantry, African American enlisted men in the Union Army, stepped in to keep the orphanage operating.
“They were led by Col. Charles Benzoni, and together with Charles and the 56th, they provided financial support. They literally cleared the land to build the institution, to build the buildings. They dug latrines, they erected the buildings. And once the first school building was there, they actually had to defend the school from returning Confederates as they were coming back in 1867.
“I believe President Andrew Johnson issued a pardon, and part of that pardon was that former properties that were confiscated by the Union Army would return to Confederate ownership, or ex-Confederate ownership. So, as you can imagine, this school being built in Helena, West Helena as former Confederates are returning to the area was not very popular. And so the men of the 56th Regiment actually defended the school from arson attacks and from attacks from just hostile locals who were not a fan of Black progress that they were seeing.”
At the same time as the campus is physically taking shape, Caston says Helena was surrounded by what were called contraband camps, informal communities that Black Americans forged after escaping enslavement during the chaos of the Civil War.
“Where Black Americans rebuilt their sense of humanity, they rebuilt their sense of community. And they were learning. They were exchanging and sharing things they had learned in their experience. They were sharing how to navigate, how to escape. They were sharing family members, because a lot of folks were looking for family members that had been lost or had been perhaps killed during the war. They didn't know. And so out of these informal communities, you see all of these learning ways that were born in the time of enslavement but used to help black Americans escape and find communities.”
He says documents indicate members of the 56th also defended these camps. The simultaneous involvement by members of the 56th of building the Southland campus and interacting with residents of the camps led to a commitment that Southland College not just provide education for children, but also for adults.
Southland College became a teacher preparatory college. For decades, Southland graduated students, many of whom then educated others. No small feat considering Southland would endure the ragged end of the Civil War, the failure of Reconstruction, and the Red Summer of 1919, when Black Americans were massacred in several locations across the country, with one of the very worst such massacres in Elaine, Arkansas, also situated in Phillips County.
“So they were very proximate to that. The school itself experienced a fire, which origins are unknown. But, you know, one can imagine that that might be part of that fallout from the Elaine race massacres. Then the school persists through World War One, and there are letters that are detailing the gratitude of students who graduated and who have expressed World War One was a difficult time for everyone, and a lot of the students say that Southland College was one of their saving graces. Saying it kept them in community.”
Southland College could not, however, survive the Great Depression. Caston says as far as he knows, no physical evidence of the school remains. It is known the land was sold to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Freedom Park today helps visitors learn more about the contraband camps and the people who lived in them. A reconstructed Fort Curtis, a Union fort used for defense, is open to the public.
Matthew Caston says there is still more he’s learning about the men of the 56th. There were more than 100 soldiers in the unit, and he says rosters included in books from Bradford Publishing are a start to helping to tell their stories.
“One of the challenges of this kind of research is that because you’re working with Black Americans who were denied education, right, many of them could not read or write. And so there may not be a written record exactly from them. But I have found letters from officers of different United States Colored regiments. Usually the officers were white men, but they also corresponded about their soldiers.”
Matthew Caston will deliver his talk, “A New Theory of Learning: The Legacy of the 56th U.S. Colored Infantry and Southland College,” tomorrow, Feb. 7 at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock. It is part of the “Shaping the Future of Education: Black Education, Then and Now” symposium hosted by the Black History Commission of Arkansas and the Arkansas State Archives. Caston, educator and historian, says he hopes his talk and the others tomorrow can foster further discovery.
“I think it would be amazing for students, youth, to learn about these stories, and also for the adults, like even myself. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I wonder what other stories just like this are out there.”
Matthew Caston spoke with Ozarks at Large earlier this week. He is also the co-host of “The Bulldog Educator” podcast with Kirsten Wilson that can be found wherever you find your podcasts.
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